Thomas Blake GLOVER
(Affiliation: Nakaiya / Neutral?)
First appearance: Ep 2
An arms dealer who happens to supply Nakaiya with weapons.
Voiced by OOKAWA Tooru.
Glover's character isn't really fleshed out in the anime (apart from supplying Nakaiya with Saiga's sniper rifle, etc.)
By episode 9 we see him heading off to Edo.
However, he is based on the real Thomas Blake Glover (1838-1911), a Scottish trader who is more well-known in Japan than in his hometown.
The Real Glover brought the first steam train to Japan and helped set up the Mitsubishi shipyard in Nagasaki. While he might have dealt with some Bakufu officials, he has a notable history of trade with the anti-Shogunate Choushuu domain which you can read about in fascinating detail here.
He also had a Japanese wife called Tsuru with whom he had a daughter Hana. They also adopted a son called Thomas A. Glover (who later adopted the Japanese legal name "Kuraba Tomisaburou" - read more about him here. A pic of him can be found here) whom he had with one of his mistresses. It is frequently postulated that the famous opera Madame Butterfly is based off Tsuru and Glover's relationship.
Glover is very famous for his residences, one of which was turned into the Glover Garden (official site here), now a top tourist attraction in Nagasaki. A lot of modern Japanese people know him because of that.
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(Affiliation: Nakaiya / Neutral?)
First appearance: Ep 2
An arms dealer who happens to supply Nakaiya with weapons.
Voiced by OOKAWA Tooru.
Glover's character isn't really fleshed out in the anime (apart from supplying Nakaiya with Saiga's sniper rifle, etc.)
By episode 9 we see him heading off to Edo.
However, he is based on the real Thomas Blake Glover (1838-1911), a Scottish trader who is more well-known in Japan than in his hometown.
The Real Glover brought the first steam train to Japan and helped set up the Mitsubishi shipyard in Nagasaki. While he might have dealt with some Bakufu officials, he has a notable history of trade with the anti-Shogunate Choushuu domain which you can read about in fascinating detail here.
He also had a Japanese wife called Tsuru with whom he had a daughter Hana. They also adopted a son called Thomas A. Glover (who later adopted the Japanese legal name "Kuraba Tomisaburou" - read more about him here. A pic of him can be found here) whom he had with one of his mistresses. It is frequently postulated that the famous opera Madame Butterfly is based off Tsuru and Glover's relationship.
Glover is very famous for his residences, one of which was turned into the Glover Garden (official site here), now a top tourist attraction in Nagasaki. A lot of modern Japanese people know him because of that.
Return to Characters page
