The kimono pattern of Kamado Nezuko, the heroine of the very popular Manga “Demon Slayer”, is a traditional Japanese pattern called “hemp pattern”.
The hemp pattern is an abstraction of the shape of a hemp leaf, which is actually an odd number of hemp leaves, but is a repetition of a hexagonal honeycomb shape. This geometric pattern has been used for hundreds of years as a uniquely Japanese pattern.
The word “hemp” is often associated with negative images such as drugs, but in the past, hemp was a common plant that grew wild all over the place in Japan.
In the days when child mortality was high, when a child was born, hemp was dressed in a kimono with a “hemp leaf pattern”.
This was in honor of the fact that hemp has a very high vitality and grows straight. More than anything else, the hemp leaf pattern itself was believed to have the power to ward off evil spirits. In Japan, until the spread of cotton, most clothing fabrics were made of hemp. The fibers of hemp stalks were torn to make individual threads, which were then woven over time on primitive looms.
