Its presentation (by museum designer Keith Crippen and his team) successfully captures the mix of craftsmanship, functionality and drama inherent in samurai armor and weaponry, at times drawing our attention to a striking helmet in the shape of a rising wave or a horse mask with horns and flaring nostrils, at other times wowing us with full sets of armor.
This is due less to inherent modesty than to an understandable desire by entrepreneurs to avoid drawing the attention of the taxman or his even more grasping cousin the gangster.