Mr Kawamura reckons the movement will come to resemble the alliance of fiefs in western Japan that helped topple the shogunate in the 1860s.

ECONOMIST: Some see a tea party brewing in Japan��s hinterland

"If I saw this screen in 17th-century Japan, " he says, "I'd see it as a statement of resistance against the Shogunate, " the feudal military leaders who were eroding the power of the emperor.

WSJ: Flights of Feathered Fancy | Birds in the Art of Japan | Metropolitan Museum of Art | By Lee Lawrence