In most media depictions of Oda Nobunaga, he can be seen wearing a red cape, such as in Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha. I know that Oda is usually associated with western gear due to his favour of western technology and christian missionaries, but i can't find the origins of the "red cape" that is always stuck with this character's image. Does anyone knows where the cape comes from or when was he first depicted wearing one?
Thank you for your time!
According to chapter 35 of Jesuit Luis Frois' History of Japan (paraphrasing),
...Lords and citizens who had business with Nobunaga knew he likes Indian and Portuguese stuff. So they buy all these things to gift to Nobunaga, and it's a complete mystery where they buy all these stuff from so far and wide. They gave him European-made clothes, red cape, cap, plumed velvet hat (bonnet?), gold medal of the Mother Mary, Cordovan leather craft, watch, fancy fur jacket, incredibly fine cut glass ware, woven cloth, and various Indian items. He has many chests overflowing with such items.
Like western armour, there's no record of him ever having worn it. He probably did try it on, maybe put it on once in a while, but most likely not daily or we'd hear more of it. It's simply in his collection. On campaign it's far more likely he would've worn a Jinbaori, as was the norm at the time, like the one from Tokyo National Museum attributed to Nobunaga.
A red cape, maybe the red cape, was also sent to Uesugi Kenshin as a present. This shows that collecting western stuff was also a valuable, status thing among lords, and Nobunaga was not unique in that regards.
You might also notice that the red cape is more in line with sixteenth century European style rather than a vampire cape of fiction (to be fair Kagemusha looks closer than most).
