Favorite Samurai
- Thread starter BowenStargazer
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Yes, making English plurals from other languages is fraught with difficulties. In fact, there are no plurals in Japanese!
Stuarto
Green Belt
Hijikata Toshizo, Shinsengumi Vice Commander
Why?
Stuarto
Green Belt
Because of his dedication, perseverance courage, and skill. He fought to the end when all was lost, never losing his loyalty to his cause or his lord. The Shinsengumi were a brutal lot, but they also had a strict rule. Those who violated it were expected to commit seppuku. Their reputation was more tarnished by one of their members who was a violent drunk, who raped and murdered repeatedly. Most members I think really just wanted to be samurai, protect the shogun, and be a part of the movement to cast out the barbarians. Hijikata was a true upholder of Bushido, a leader, and actually came from a peasant background.
That’s a good reason.
I’m somewhat conflicted by the Shisengumi. They were essentially the equivalent of luddites and many historians viewed them as ‘cold-blooded assassins who killed anyone who called for the end of the Shogunate’. They wanted to preserve the status quo of the bafuku with all it’s inequalities and suppressive attitudes. The world was modernising and Japan would have to do the same. On the other hand, feudal Japan, especially pax Tokugawa, saw the flourishing of the arts to a pinnacle of magnificence unequalled anywhere else in the world and Commodore Perry and his push to open up trade brought the end of the magnificent samurai!
Have you seen the NHK Taiga drama ‘Ryomaden’? It gives an excellent and nuanced version of what happened during the Meiji restoration.
I’m somewhat conflicted by the Shisengumi. They were essentially the equivalent of luddites and many historians viewed them as ‘cold-blooded assassins who killed anyone who called for the end of the Shogunate’. They wanted to preserve the status quo of the bafuku with all it’s inequalities and suppressive attitudes. The world was modernising and Japan would have to do the same. On the other hand, feudal Japan, especially pax Tokugawa, saw the flourishing of the arts to a pinnacle of magnificence unequalled anywhere else in the world and Commodore Perry and his push to open up trade brought the end of the magnificent samurai!
Have you seen the NHK Taiga drama ‘Ryomaden’? It gives an excellent and nuanced version of what happened during the Meiji restoration.
Probably Yamaoka Tesshu. Force of nature, superlative swordsman, prominent politician. Then the guy has a spiritual enlightenment and decides to establish schools of martial arts/ascetic training that still persist today. And in his very last moment, he sits in seiza, composes a death poem and dies upright.
I once made a little pilgrimage to Takamori’s statue in Ueno Park. Interestingly, he only had a little dog…
Ken Watanabe is a Scientologist?
I believe ‘The Last Samurai‘ is often criticised for being a copy of ‘Dances with Wolves’.
Depending on whose metrics you go by, there’s anywhere from seven to thirty plus narrative plots for film, and that’s it.
I usually spend a day between Christmas and New Year with a fridge full of good snacks, a fattie and a pot of tea or coffee, and watch a bunch of my favorite movies.
Amongst them are The Last Samurai and Dances With Wolves.
Nothing says Christmas more than a Samurai film.
Ain’t that the truth.
isshinryuronin
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A few of us young guys from the dojo would drive into Hollywood/Downtown area to the Toho La Brea Theater and watch Akira Kurosawa's Samurai movies with Toshiro Mifune and other long, moody, black and white movies with bursts of spurting blood and flying limbs. The drive back to the Valley was different than the way there. We were transformed into teenage Samurai. Even today, Japanese movies (and TV) are different than American. They focus on other things in both story and film technique.
Haruhiko
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Fictional?
Inoue and Yoshikawa's "Miyamoto Musashi"
Gintoki Sakata (from Gintama)
Whatever samurai Mifune was, in any of Kurosawa's films
Real?
Miyamoto Musashi
Saigō Takamori
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Stuarto
Green Belt
I've never seen it but will have to look into it now.
There’s a new(ish) independent samurai film that’s becoming huge in Japan called, ‘A Samurai in Time’.
Apparently samurai film viewing is on the decline but ‘A Samurai in Time’ is hugely popular, not least because it’s a bit lighter and has humours done time travel! The old period films were very heavy and sometimes overly sentimental. I bought a few from Samurai DVD and I find them a struggle to get through in one sitting. Kurosawa could done with a little time travel in his epics!
I hate how Yoshikawa’s version of Musashi has distorted the real person (as we know him) to the extent that the public don’t really know how amazing the real Musashi was. I refused to read the books or watch the many film adaptations after trying portions of them and tasting vomit in my mouth. It’s like ‘Shakespeare in Love’ compared to the real William! Perhaps I’m being too pompous…
I sometimes think Kurosawa’s film ends are weak. Kagemusha is a great example of that. No car chases either.
Good choices! I visited to Reigando a few years ago…a wonderful and surprisingly moving experience.
Haruhiko
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I intend to visit there eventually. Not sure how I'll react, but I imagine it would certainly impact me.
There are a few places in Kyushu specifically I'd also like to visit, as I've only ever travelled around Honshu and the furthest West I've been is probably Osaka.
We got there early so we had the whole place to ourselves. The sun was shining and the sky was crystal clear. Outside the entrance there’s a large rock with a bottom-sized indentation that I assume Musashi himself sat in to meditate or look over the trees in the distance. I was happy to discover we had similar sized buttocks!
Going ‘off the beaten track’ in Japan is very rewarding and, in my opinion, better than visiting the various huge metropoles…which brings me to my favourite samurai/clan…. Yagyu Munenori et al.
A well-documented family of great swordsmen. Munenori defeated a simultaneous attack from seven swordsmen defending the Shōgun and the clan became martial arts instructors to the many of the following Shōgun. Skilled in the visual arts and Yagyu Ren'ya Toshikane was a skilled iron worker making now highly treasured tsuba. The scene in Seven Samurai where Kyuzo duels with a belligerent opponent, is based on a match Yagyu Mitsuyoshi had with a samurai in which they used bokuto and Mitsuyoshi insisted he'd won each time. The furious samurai demanded a rematch with real swords (shinken shobu). Mitsuyoshi was reluctant wanting to avoid needless killing but was pushed into the challenge and killed the samurai!
I prefer him to Musashi because he had a direct legacy of talented offspring, (‘…even the humble grasses that grow around the dojo do all they can to produce another generation.’), wrote a book on swordsmanship which had an emphasis on not taking life and the clan’s exploits are historically documented giving one a true idea of the man himself.
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Oh, my lord, I love time travel movies and I love Samurai movies. I have to see this.
The best stories incorporate time travel and a samurai character is like melted cheese; it improves anything to which it’s added!
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