Before we return to the regularly scheduled programming, let just say I haven't had a haircut in such a long time that I am starting to grow a (emphasize really small) mullet. On an asian....I'm going for a cut tomorrow.

kitakaze wrote:

we should probably get back to Musashi screen-caps.

*in a poor British accent* Right-O...!


Episode 9 ends.

dochira wrote:

Before we return to the regularly scheduled programming, let just say I haven't had a haircut in such a long time that I am starting to grow a (emphasize really small) mullet. On an asian....I'm going for a cut tomorrow.

A mullet?? Shades of U2 and others in the 80's...

BTW, here's the hair thread if you want a chuckle or two: http://jdorama.com/viewtopic.4367.0.htm

Man...Musashi got jacked more than most other historical legendary characters do. Or to be more precise, the people around him...and then it jacks him up. Kind of like the time in that episode when,

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He was growing and protecting that new village with the fugitive Christians, and they all get slaughtered later. Man, if that happened today he would have been checking himself into an institution....
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Is that really true or did the NHK series exaggerate things?

The book never places him in conflict with the Yagyu clan...

I don't know if it's historically true in regards to Musashi. Things like that did occasionally happen though during Christian persecutions...Shimabara comes to mind. If you think of it from the Tokugawa perspective though, it make sense. You don't want political and social instability from a new "egalitarian" religion.
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kitakaze wrote:

I don't know if it's historically true in regards to Musashi. Things like that did occasionally happen though during Christian persecutions...Shimabara comes to mind. If you think of it from the Tokugawa perspective though, it make sense. You don't want political and social instability from a new "egalitarian" religion.

Heh, forgot that you're a history guy...

Is there a true, definitive book on Musashi? It's well known that Yoshikawa Eiji's book is somewhat fictionalized and romanticized...

bmwracer wrote:

Is there a true, definitive book on Musashi? It's well known that Yoshikawa Eiji's book is somewhat fictionalized and romanticized...

Not that I know of...well, there may be something on him, but it's probably only found in Japan. There's "Go Rin No Sho" the Book of Five Rings, that Musashi wrote, but it's more about how to live your life than about his life.

Heh, did you ever check out that reading list I gave you on Japanese history?
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-=kitakaze=-

kitakaze wrote:

Heh, did you ever check out that reading list I gave you on Japanese history?

Nah, I didn't write it down right away and I lost track of where it was posted.

Whaddya know, I just found it looking at my old posts. Check your inbox....
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kitakaze wrote:

Whaddya know, I just found it looking at my old posts. Check your inbox....

Yeah, I found it: I did a history search on your posts as well.

I can add those books to my backlog of Japan-related books.

I'd suggest just picking what seems most interesting first . I know how it can be to try and get a good read these days.
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kitakaze wrote:

I'd suggest just picking what seems most interesting first . I know how it can be to try and get a good read these days.

Sad to say, but I'm sort of a poor reader... I grew up reading comic books (Marvel), so reading stuff that's all text and no pics is sorta difficult.

Episode 10 begins.

Takezo shows up at the Yoshioka school.

bmwracer wrote:

Sad to say, but I'm sort of a poor reader... I grew up reading comic books (Marvel), so reading stuff that's all text and no pics is sorta difficult.

Ouch. Henshall and Bernstein's books would probably be good to start out with then. Jansen's book is like the freaking bible, but I still think it's really interesting reading because he writes really well.

A problem with a lot of history books is that some historians are bad writers who like to show off their lib-art education by using big words unecessarily.

There are some quite good historical manga out there if you want to try that. There's one about Sakamoto Ryouma, but I can't remember the title.

bmwracer wrote:

Those are great captures of their facial expressions .
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kitakaze wrote:

Henshall and Bernstein's books would probably be good to start out with then. Jansen's book is like the freaking bible, but I still think it's really interesting reading because he writes really well. A problem with a lot of history books is that some historians are bad writers who like to show off their lib-art education by using big words unecessarily. There are some quite good historical manga out there if you want to try that. There's one about Sakamoto Ryouma, but I can't remember the title.

Before I do any of that, I've gotta finish reading my two books on Japanese film... Falling way behind.

Hmmm...I've only got two Asian film books...mostly on sociological stuff. "Romance and the 'Yellow' Peril" was a $#@$ed up one. I like to hide that one under my bed.

What books are the ones you have? Do they say anything about the Samurai trilogy?
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kitakaze wrote:

What books are the ones you have? Do they say anything about the Samurai trilogy?

Yeah, they do, but only from a film standpoint, not a historical one:

The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune - Stuart Galbraith IV

A Hundred Years of Japanese Film - Donald Richie

and

The Dorama Encyclopedia : A Guide to Japanese TV Drama Since 1953 - Jonathan Clements, Motoko Tamamuro

Galbraith and Richie are pretty much the preeminent authors of Japanese film... Criterion likes to use their text in most of their DVD releases of Japanese films...