11 Comments
Oct 25Liked by The Man Behind the Screen

Some years ago, I saw a documentary on the History Channel, which claimed that Yoshikawa’s novel was an apologetic for Japanese militarism. I didn’t find that to be true at all - if anything, the samurai are frequently portrayed in a negative light.

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That’s what I’m noticing. The novel so far seems to be focused on the importance of self control and developing a principled set of values, as opposed to Musashi just learning how to fight. Many of the samurai and ronin in the story are shown to be dangerous and unscrupulous, and those shown to carry themselves in a more noble manner haven’t yet been shown to fight from what I’ve yet seen. Sounds like that documentary is more interested in pushing certain political views than examining history with an unbiased eye.

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Oct 24Liked by The Man Behind the Screen

Leiko Gotoda a brazilian born daughter of japanese parents, mother of 4, had to explain to her children the reason behind their strict Japanese up bringing compared to the more care free Brazilian counterpart, it is no wonder she turned to Samurai stories and in particular to Eiji Yoshikawa’s Musashi to bring it into focus, and eventually graced us with the Portuguese translation of the work.

There is a certain charm to the campy moralising of the books, but it certainly crystalizes what is that "Samurai spirit", just like Pokemon, you have to go out there and 'become the very best', OR DIE IN THE PROCESS, anything else, any distraction, and you are straying off the path.

While you were busy frolicking with girls MUSASHI WAS STUDYING THE BLADE.

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Comparing this book to Blue-Eye Samurai seems harsh towards Yoshikawa's masterpiece, as Musashi was quite good.

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I didn't compare Musashi to Blue Eye Samurai. I said that reading the book shows that Blue Eye Samurai is an example of modern media that draws inspiration from Musashi. Those are two very different things.

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Oct 23Liked by The Man Behind the Screen

That’s not what I meant, I meant that the BE Samurai was netflix-trash is all, didn’t mean to cast aspersions apologies about that. I must have come off too aggressive wasn’t my intention.

Though yes, as you did point out most Samurai stories such as BE Samurai, crap like RK and others draw a great deal of inspiration from Musashi which as you pointed out is a great book X)

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Ah, so we’ve once more been stricken by the eternal curse of the internet: the struggle of imparting tone via text lol.

Personally, I disagree on the idea of Blue Eye being the typical Netflix trash, even if it did trip and fall when it came to the ending. On the whole I found it to be a tightly paced, well told, and engaging story, save for a couple of conveniences when it came to the action and a couple music choices that were too on the nose. (Did we really need you guys to randomly throw Metallica and the music from the first Kill Bill in there? No. No we didn’t, especially when your composer was already doing a great job as it was.)

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Oct 23Liked by The Man Behind the Screen

Hahaha seems so, maybe I’ll just give it a second viewing and just do a 5 min review of it for yt.

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Oct 24Liked by The Man Behind the Screen

I think he's referring mostly to the first episode of 'BES', that whole scene in the opening veeeeeeeery similar to what happens to Musashi when he meets the Martial Artist in Kyoto.

As the show goes, I think it's overall good with a whole lot of cringe here and there. WE ALL KNOW WHY IT GOT GREENLIT, but it's still decently writen and not at all ZOINKED in it's ideas (the girl was literaly about to become a "tradwife", come on). Also, if we can trick leftists to defend the most Based regime in the history of the world because "muh anti-colonialism", I don't really mind it, lol.

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Oct 24Liked by The Man Behind the Screen

Ohhh good point!

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Yes, the first episode especially draws from the first half of Book 2. Mizu's training montage mirrors how Musashi is said to have observed many styles while developing his own, and the battle against the students in the Shindo Dojo mirrors Musashi and the Yoshioka Dojo. Heck, Ringo even wears a sign for a hat the exact same way Musashi's student Jotaro does.

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