Samurai Toyotomi Hideyoshi joins Dragon In Dreams Figure Lineup

I was very excited to see that Dragon In Dreams has released another Samurai 12" figure! I have their first Samuari, Takeda Shingen, and the detail is incredible! I usually like to take my figures out of their boxes for display purposes but the armor and real metal weapons are so detailed I didn't want to take a chance on losing anything so I have him displayed in the box with his rearing horse, wearing an embroiderd silk saddle, still in the box next to him.

The new figure is Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a Sengoku period daimyo who unified Japan. He succeeded his former liege lord, Oda Nobunaga, and brought an end to the Sengoku period. The period of his rule is often called the Momoyama period,
after Hideyoshi's castle. He is noted for a number of cultural legacies,
including the restriction that only members of the samurai class could bear
arms.
Around 1557 he returned to Owari and joined the Oda clan, now headed
by Oda Nobunaga, as a lowly servant. He became one of Nobunaga's
sandal-bearers and was present at the Battle of Okehazama in 1560 when
Nobunaga defeated Yoshimoto to become one of the most powerful warlords
in the Sengoku period. In 1561, Hideyoshi married Nene.
Hideyoshi was very successful as a negotiator. In 1564 he managed to convince,
mostly with liberal bribes, a number of Mino warlords to desert the Saito clan.
Hideyoshi approached many Saito clan samurai and convinced them to submit to
Nobunaga, including the Saito clan's strategist Takenaka Hanbei. Nobunaga's easy
victory at Inabayama Castle in 1567 was largely due to Hideyoshi's efforts, and
despite his peasant origins, Hideyoshi became one of Nobunaga's most
distinguished generals.
In 1583, Hideyoshi began construction of Osaka Castle. Built on the site of the
temple Ishiyama Honganji destroyed by Nobunaga, the castle would become the
last stronghold of the Toyotomi clan after Hideyoshi's death.
Hideyoshi sought the title of shogun in order to be truly considered the active ruler
of Japan. However, the emperor did not grant that title to Hideyoshi. In 1586,
Hideyoshi was formally given the name Toyotomi by the imperial court.
In 1590 Siege of Odawara against the Late Hojo clan in Kanto eliminated the
last resistance to Hideyoshi's authority. His victory signified the end of the Sengoku
period.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi died in September 1598. His death was kept extremely secret
by the Council of Five Elders to preserve morale. It was not until late October that
they sent a decree to the Japanese commanders to withdraw. After his death, the
other members of the Council of Five Regents were unable to keep the ambitions of
Tokugawa Ieyasu in check. Two of Hideyoshi's top generals Kato Kiyomasa and
Fukushima Masanori had fought bravely during the war, but returned to find
Toyotomi clan bureaucrat Ishida Mitsunari in power. He held the generals in low
esteem, and they sided with Tokugawa Ieyasu. Hideyoshi's underaged son and
designated successor Hideyori lost the power his father once held, and Tokugawa
Ieyasu was declared shogun following the Battle of Sekigahara.

A quick check on Dragon In Dreams website shows they are also preparing to release Hideyoshi's liege lord as well - Oda Nobunaga

"Ultimate" Figures from Dragon In Dreams

When I was a child my parents took us to see one of Oregon's tourist attractions called Sea Lion Caves. As a little girl, all I remember about the sea lions was that the sea cave where they lolled about really stunk. [The facility has since improved its access to the sea caves and the views are actually quite spectacular. They have also installed a wonderful bronze sculpture of a group of sea lions on the observation deck behind the gift shop now.] However, I remember vividly some beautiful horse statues in the gift shop that were covered with real horse hair and had real leather tack. I even remember the price, $125, which was a fortune back in the mid-50s.

Now, after all these years, I have added a horse covered with real horse hair (I think- at least it looks real) to my collection along with a magnificent 12" figure of Samurai Takeda Shingen spectacularly equipped with beautifully detailed armor and real metal weapons.

"Shingen was a Japanese warlord of great domestic skill and competent military leadership. He was a complicated figure, at times utterly cruel. Earlier in his life, he had forced the Shinano warlord Suwa Yorishige, to commit suicide (or had him murdered) after the two warlords had signed a peace treaty, and then proceeded to take Suwa's daughter as a mistress, ignoring the fact that she was techincally his own niece. In 1565, he ordered his own son, Yoshinobu, confined to a temple and evidently made him commit suicide for treasonous activity, as well as the man who had once been his guardian, Obu Toramasa. His domestic policies demonstrate the duality of Takeda Shingen. On one hand, he kept two iron cauldrons on hand to boil alive certain criminals (a practice considered sufficiently cruel enough to provoke Tokugawa Ieyasu to have the cauldrons destroyed years later). On the other, he did away with corporal punishment for most minor offences, instituting in it's place a system of fines - an act that earned him considerable praise from the peasants and townspeople of Kai. Shingen's law was not considered overly harsh, and his was one of the few Sengoku Period administrations prior to 1582 to tax most of his subjects evenly (most exempted powerful samurai families and/or religious establishments) and with the option of payment in either gold or rice (a forerunner, in some ways, to the later Kandaka system).

Perhaps the greatest praise paid Shingen was by Tokugawa Ieyasu himself. Following the defeat of Katsuyori in 1582 and the death of Oda Nobunaga, Ieyasu assumed control of Kai, and borrowed freely from Shingen's style and techniques of governance, which he later included in his model for the Tokugawa Shôgunate." - The Samurai Archives

The figure is so beautifully detailed that I'm almost afraid to take it out of the box. I won't until I get a special display case for it as I don't want it to be subject to dust or any other contaminant. I was able to get the limited edition figure for $139 less a 10% preferred customer discount from Michigan Toy Soldier. The horse was only $64.99 less 10%. I seldom buy figures at the time of their release but this one is so special I didn't think supplies would last long and with all of the wonderful accessories, I wanted one mint in the box, not a secondary market offering with half the accessories gone missing.