Talk:Mugen/@comment-76.115.252.161-20160607031814

Mugen's clothing

If you translate the Japanese wikipedia article, it refers to his clothing as "tropical".

Mugen's shirt is a haori, not a happi. His shorts are not cut-off hakama, at least not the type of hakama that Jin wears. Hakama are always worn over a kimono, and they have open slits in the sides where the kimono shows through (like Jin's). They're also pleated, traditionally with 7 pleats representing the 7 virtues of bushido. Tying them is quite complicated. Mugen’s shorts could possibly be kohakama or kobakama, literally short hakama, which look like shorts, although they are still pleated and typically worn as an undergarment beneath armor.

Aside from his geta, none of Mugen's clothing is really "Japanese". The haori comes close, but the way he wears it is more informal than how it would have been worn by Japanese people of that era. Bright red was not a common clothing color for peasants or vagrants in Edo period Japan, but it was used extensively by the ruling family of the Kingdom of Ryukyu. It's unclear if that correlation was intentional or just a coincidence. In Japan, it was mainly worn by upper class women.

Digging a little deeper, the triangle on Mugen’s back is associated with the element of fire. In Chinese astrology, it’s yang fire, and it’s related to the direction of south and the color red, among other things.

 Geta with metal soles are not unique to Mugen. Metal was sometimes used to make the wooden soles last longer.