Two samurai warriors in full armor on the beach. Notonokami Noritsune seems not to have even drawn his sword, while Ichijo Jio Tadanori is poised to strike with his katana.

Both men are in elaborate samurai armor. Individual tiles of leather or iron were bound together with strips of laquered leather, then painted to reflect the warrior's clan and personal identity. This form of armor was called kozane dou.

Once firearms became common in warfare in the Sengoku and early Tokugawa eras, this type of armor was no longer sufficient protection for samurai. Like European knights before them, Japanese samurai had to adapt to the new weaponry by developing solid iron-plate armor to protect the torso from projectiles.