When Chikamatsu Yanagi and his collaborators were writing "Ehon Taikoki" in 1799, Japan was arguably enjoying the height of Edo Period culture (1603-1867). In retrospect it was a transitional time — perhaps the last moments of peace before the pressures of the outside world started to affect the island, and "Ehon Taikoki" is often called the last great bunraku play. Still, as they looked back on the events of 1582 depicted in the story, the writers could see them as fundamental to the establishment of a unified Japan — the origins of the modern, supposedly homogenized nation in which they were living.
Thus they took the opportunity to show the idealized lives of Japan's founding nobles. Like a modern day creation myth, the play reads like a guide on what it is to be Japanese, from how relationships are to be conducted to what to do when their harmony is destroyed. In this, it acts as propaganda that teaches its audiences the rigid rules that they should aspire to in their own lives. Here are a few of its messages.
Fathers and sons