Toshiro Mifune

Toshiro Mifune is the legendary Japanese samurai actor whose likeness Capcom licensed for Musashi Miyamoto's in-game face model in Onimusha: Way of the Sword. Mifune is best known for his lead roles in Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, and Yojimbo, and he played Musashi Miyamoto himself in Hiroshi Inagaki's 1950s Samurai Trilogy.

Two-Year Negotiation

Onimusha: Way of the Sword's development began in 2020, and Capcom has publicly stated that it took roughly two years of negotiation to secure the rights to use Mifune's likeness. The deal was concluded in 2022. Mifune died in 1997, so the rights had to be worked out through Mifune Productions rather than with the actor himself.

Why Mifune

Producer Akihito Kadowaki has framed the choice as an authenticity decision. Capcom considered Mifune the quintessential samurai-action actor, and putting the most iconic samurai face in Japanese film history onto the most iconic swordsman in Japanese history was the single cleanest way to communicate what the game is trying to be. The fact that Mifune had already portrayed Musashi in the Samurai Trilogy reinforced the casting.

Visual vs Voice

The Mifune likeness is a visual reference only. The Japanese voice performance for Musashi is delivered by Yoshimasa Hosoya, and the English performance by Kenichiro Thomson.