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Sake is dangerous, sorry about the drunk posting last night lol
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Apr 10, 2024 18:00
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Dante posted:I don't really see the point of this complicated seppuku-ruse plot they've spent one third of the show on, but I hope the pay-off is worth it. The seppuku was a spur of the moment thing, not planned. It was to silence the other vassals who were pushing him to fight because everyone expected Toranaga to fight up until that moment. It was allowed as a noble sacrifice for the greater plot.
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Apr 10, 2024 18:05
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I think by now it's fair to admit the show could probably have benefitted from a couple of extra episodes and bit of a structural rearrangement to help us through the political intrigue in this second half. Toranaga's plan is only reasonable to the viewer if we accept the fact that Osaka's spies are observing him so closely and competently that he needs to go to extreme, even self-destructive lengths of secrecy: fake-coughing as soon as he wakes up in case someone's listening through the walls, alienating his own men and repeatedly leading to the deaths of loved ones (as well as fuelling his top lieutenants' open speculation that he must be up to something, which is surely not helpful!) by refusing to even privately confide in a few key allies. However, it seems increasingly as if for the plot to work out, we're also going to have to accept the fact that these same spies simply aren't listening in - and Toranaga is somehow fully confident in that - when he tells Mariko in his chambers that he's manoeuvring the Edo Bros to his advantage, or when she goes to join up with them and tells everyone Toranaga sent her (on a dock! In front of Omi and a whole bunch of other random people!), or when Father Martin comes to visit. Because otherwise it's going to be: "Lord Ishido, good news - the Portuguese report that Toranaga is coughing feebly and only wants a peaceful death. That said, they spent their audience openly trying to recruit him to overthrow you, then he gave them a reward and explicitly asked them to feed back how frail and defeated he is, which was an odd thing to say, so maybe take that with a pinch of salt." This would be easier to handwave past if we could see what information is being fed back to Ishido or how it's happening (it feels partly like a pacing issue that they haven't, but I also get the impression they're holding off on a big reveal about the spy's identity that is not actually going to be all that surprising...?) but currently Toranaga is coming across less as a masterful strategist, more as a wildly erratic overthinker. grobbo fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Apr 10, 2024 |
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Apr 10, 2024 18:13
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I'm still catching up on this show -- it's excellent -- and I have a quick question. Am I supposed to know what "hatamoto" means? And, conversely, if I google it to find out, will I be ruining some big emotional moment in the last episode where Blackthorne goes "you know, you never actually told me what 'hatamoto' is, just that it was a great honor", and Mariko tells him, and it's super meaningful?
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Apr 10, 2024 18:15
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Hatamoto is the same thing as being Thane in Skyrim Fuji is housecarl this is canon
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Apr 10, 2024 18:19
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CapnAndy posted:I'm still catching up on this show -- it's excellent -- and I have a quick question. Am I supposed to know what "hatamoto" means? And, conversely, if I google it to find out, will I be ruining some big emotional moment in the last episode where Blackthorne goes "you know, you never actually told me what 'hatamoto' is, just that it was a great honor", and Mariko tells him, and it's super meaningful? It's just a high ranking samurai, like declaring the foreigner a colonel in the army or granting them a noble title in European governance. kiimo posted:Hatamoto is the same thing as being Thane in Skyrim 
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Apr 10, 2024 18:19
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Oh, okay. They should say that, then. It'd also have been nice to know that anjin means "pilot"; I thought it was a corruption of "English", like they heard him declaring he was from what they'd hear as "an-gran" and went "oh okay, so he's an an-jin".
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Apr 10, 2024 18:23
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Cojawfee posted:So are we thinking Toranaga is the father of the heir? It was plainly obvious that Ochiba went to someone else to get pregnant, just not sure who. It's never really explored in the book beyond people wondering, I really assume the show will be the same. My understanding is if japanese people have any folk theories about a real father for the historical equivalents it's usually ishido
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Apr 10, 2024 18:26
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Are you watching dubbed or subbed? Pretty sure they addressed both things?
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Apr 10, 2024 18:26
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PostNouveau posted:No one talks about the heir except to say they all love him and have his best interest at heart. Is it just that Shogun is a higher title so if Toranaga takes it, the kid doesn't remotely matter anymore? A brief history lesson would help here. At first we have a period of constant civil war. Rival Daimyos including Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Illasu are fighting it out. Tokugawa is losing and submits as a vassal to Nabunaga. Nabunaga unifies Japan after killing or forcing the submission of all the other Daimyos. He becomes the first Shogun, or supreme military commander of Japan. At the moment of his glory, Nabunaga is betrayed by Akechi (Mariko’s father) and killed, and all his vassals plunge back into killing one another. One of his generals Hideyoshi, the peasant son of a nobody who ran away from home to join the army and rose through the ranks on sheer balls and grit, defeats all the other Daimyos, including again Tokugawa, and re-unifies the country. Because Hideyoshi is the peasant son of a nobody, he can’t technically become “shogun”, but pays more prestigious noble family to adopt him and he becomes the equivalent of prime minister. Hideyoshi has trouble having kids. He goes through several consorts over years and years, and finally his consort Ochiba gives him a single son, yay! Hideyoshi rules for several decades and dies of old age, leaving a 5 year old kid. Before his death, he gathers five of his vassals, including Tokugawa, to act as regents until his son comes of age to take over the role. INTJ Mastermind fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Apr 10, 2024 |
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Apr 10, 2024 18:39
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Cojawfee posted:So are we thinking Toranaga is the father of the heir? It was plainly obvious that Ochiba went to someone else to get pregnant, just not sure who. I absolutely do not believe that the father is Toranaga. I do kind of find Ishido and Ochiba's interactions to be strangely intimate in her movements during the discussion of her conception of the heir. Intimate and threatening, of course. Her dark and poetic retelling of how she bore the son of the Taiko when no one else could logically sounds like she got herself knocked up elsewhere while receiving harsh medicine and treatment from the wife, however it cannot be a confession of her doing that because that would be an insane thing to even intimate. It would immediately delegitimize her and her son and would 100% be used against her as soon as everyone else is out of the way. She was mirroring Ishido's own sense of controlling his fate through skill and perseverance. grobbo posted:when Father Martin comes to visit. just in response to this bit, all of Toranaga's actions are reinforcing the fact that he keeps his word and is telling the truth about his desire to protect the heir. Father Martin is a credulous rube.
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Apr 10, 2024 18:47
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INTJ Mastermind posted:A brief history lesson would help here.  Oda Nobunaga was never named Shogun, and in fact ended the centuries-old Ashikaga Shogunate (so definitely not the first Shogun either). That said, he *was* the clear top dog in Japan at the time of his death, so getting a formal title (he had a bunch of them already, but nothing quite as definite as Shogun) from the puppet emperor was certainly in the cards if he hadn't been betrayed by Akechi.Ultimately it's always about who has the biggest stick, with both Shogun and Taiko/Kampaku just giving it the official appearence of ruling in the Emperor's name (with the emperor being a completely powerless puppet at this point). Both titles basically mean "The Emperor is cool with me giving orders", with the Shogun officially being the top military commander and the Kampaku being the Chancellor/civilian leader. During the previous centuries the Kampaku became a mostly ceremonial title as the Shogunate basically went "I got the troops, I call the shots", but when Hideyoshi ended up as Nobunagas successor with no Shogun around they used that as a workaround as somebody of common birth didn't meet the requirements to be Shogun. fezball fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Apr 10, 2024 |
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Apr 10, 2024 19:23
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https://twitter.com/McGannJack/status/1777766765948256693
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Apr 10, 2024 19:41
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Akechi betrayed Nobunaga before the end of the unification wars, too. It was part of why the rebellion ultimately failed. When he realized the fight was lost, Nobunaga committed seppuku, and his body was smuggled out of the castle while his remaining retainers sallied forth to create a distraction. Akechi sent messengers to the hold out lords asking for their support, but one of the messengers was intercepted by Hideyoshi that was in the middle of sieging one of them. With Hideyoshi responding faster than he planned and no lords willing to lend support without firm proof that Nobunaga was dead he had to surrender.
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Apr 10, 2024 19:58
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I may well have missed something, but I don't think that Toranaga has necessarily been meticulously planning the longest con for three episodes in a row. Rather, I took it more as him trying to keep his options somewhat open while presenting a respectable facade. When the landslide destroyed most of his army a direct military move was distinctly not in his favour even considering Crimson Sky, so he claims it's his decision not to go there rather than something forced on him by circumstances. Going to Saeki for help could've been a calculated risk that didn't pan out, and once surrounded there was no real way to fight his way out. All that time, his whole "I humbly accept defeat for the good of the realm" really could just have been a way to play for time. With limited options, it's better than approving a suicide attack or just admitting "Guys I dunno what the gently caress to do either". It wasn't until this episode that Nagakado's self-own gave him the room and time to maneuver and launch an actual scheme. And now the facade of a defeated man about to calmly go to his death is actually necessary, because all eyes will be on him while he's in Edo because everyone is going to expect him to pull something.
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Apr 10, 2024 20:16
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Even in the book he was cornered before Blackthorne became an extra chess piece. He's always trying to get more time to make moves, it's the most valuable thing to him. Probably why they changed what happened to his son, I think they're trying to show that even a disastrous tragedy that personally affects him is still useful if it delays and gives him time to work machinations. I really don't think he's supposed to be thought of as the ultimate puppet master, he's pivoting in real time.
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Apr 10, 2024 20:40
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:Akechi betrayed Nobunaga before the end of the unification wars, too. I dunno where you're getting this from but Nobunaga's body was never found, not smuggled out anywhere. It probably burned up. He probably did commit seppuku though. Hideyoshi was involved in a war against the Mori clan. They were the most powerful clan in the western provinces with a large number of subordinate clans. I don't think it's accurate to portray them as some minor hold out lord opposed to unification. We're talking about like a third or more of the country. Everyone knew that the Akechi clan had killed Nobunaga, there wasn't any doubt about that, and most of the retainers were racing to see who could get revenge for Nobunaga first (and thus place themselves in an important position). Akechi also did not surrender. He got crushed by Hideyoshi and some of the other loyalist lords in the battle of Yamazaki and died less than two weeks after his attempted coup.
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Apr 10, 2024 20:44
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They spent the whole first half of the show driving home that Toranaga is infamously cunning and deceptive, and always manipulating people, always with a plan, and everyone knows it. So it makes sense that he has to work extremely hard now to convince anyone that he really is surrendering and this isn't yet another ruse.
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Apr 10, 2024 20:59
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What kind of books about sengoku jidai do all of you all recommend. I fear my collection is very much the collection of a noob (and I guess musashi doesn't even really count)
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Apr 10, 2024 21:03
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I never understood why Crimson Sky was a tenable plan in the first place. The entire reason Toranaga thanks Omi for slaughtering those dudes with the cannon was "marching on Osaka would be suicide, but now you've provoked them to march on us, which means we get the defender's advantage and that might be enough", and then the next episode he's like "okay so let's do Plan: March On Osaka, it's our only hope".
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Apr 10, 2024 21:08
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The whole reason he did that was to drive a wedge between Omi and Yabu.
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Apr 10, 2024 21:42
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CapnAndy posted:Oh, okay. They should say that, then. It'd also have been nice to know that anjin means "pilot"; I thought it was a corruption of "English", like they heard him declaring he was from what they'd hear as "an-gran" and went "oh okay, so he's an an-jin". lol
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Apr 10, 2024 21:43
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But Mariko did tell Blackthorn what anjin meant; we saw it.
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Apr 10, 2024 21:53
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Where did this white guy come from? Does this show ever explain this or did they just run out of Japanese actors?
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Apr 10, 2024 21:54
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Cojawfee posted:Where did this white guy come from? Does this show ever explain this or did they just run out of Japanese actors? That threw me too. I just think he is very fair complexioned and light on traditional/typical Japanese facial features. edit to be clear I was talking about and assumed you were talking about this guy and not just making a joke on goons being terrible at watching media 
Justin Credible fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Apr 10, 2024 |
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Apr 10, 2024 21:58
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INTJ Mastermind posted:The whole reason he did that was to drive a wedge between Omi and Yabu.
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Apr 10, 2024 22:10
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Have they ever referenced the emperor in the show? That's gotta be confusing for casual viewers who know just enough to be aware he exists.
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Apr 10, 2024 22:19
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Well, there it is. https://twitter.com/CultureCrave/status/1778145948956565989
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Apr 10, 2024 22:32
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BoldFace posted:Well, there it is. Its a pretty wild real-life story, so why wouldn't it be adapted to TV at some point. Yngwie Mangosteen posted:The seppuku was a spur of the moment thing, not planned. It was to silence the other vassals who were pushing him to fight because everyone expected Toranaga to fight up until that moment. It was allowed as a noble sacrifice for the greater plot. Alright fair enough, that's a little bit more plausible than my initial read that it was planned gesture.
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Apr 10, 2024 22:43
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Don't read that link on Twitter unless you are ready for an avalanche of Caucasians breathlessly letting everyone know that the black samurai was not actually a samurai. Twitter should be purged.
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Apr 10, 2024 22:52
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At least yasuke probably actually fought, unlike that wuss william adams
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Apr 10, 2024 22:55
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FLIPADELPHIA posted:Don't read that link on Twitter unless I'm not sure if you're new here or what, but get ready for the next week of this thread to just be outrage tourism as everyone goes and picks their favorite worst takes from twitter and reposts them here to be angry at. It's kind of SA's whole thing now. FLIPADELPHIA posted:Twitter should be purged. Yes, 1000%
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Apr 10, 2024 23:05
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FLIPADELPHIA posted:Don't read that link on Twitter unless you are ready for an avalanche of Caucasians breathlessly letting everyone know that the black samurai was not actually a samurai. lmao that is insane. Its hard to think of a more authentic way for a foreigner to become a "real" samurai than to be made a weapons-bearer by Nobunaga himself. Its like being knighted by Charlemagne. Dante fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Apr 10, 2024 |
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Apr 10, 2024 23:07
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MrMojok posted:But Mariko did tell Blackthorn what anjin meant; we saw it. I was struggling to keep up in the first episode so I definitely missed when it was explained and had to work it out later - so they're not the only one bad at watching TV. I assumed it was some sort of variation on gaijin, since most of the characters said it like an insult. Once the show is done I'd like to go back and start over now that I know who all these people are and what their deal is.
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Apr 11, 2024 00:07
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stev posted:Once the show is done I'd like to go back and start over now that I know who all these people are and what their deal is. I do understand. I went back and rewatched eps 1-6 last week, and it helped me a lot. Show is extremely dense.
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Apr 11, 2024 00:14
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CapnAndy posted:I never understood why Crimson Sky was a tenable plan in the first place. The entire reason Toranaga thanks Omi for slaughtering those dudes with the cannon was "marching on Osaka would be suicide, but now you've provoked them to march on us, which means we get the defender's advantage and that might be enough", and then the next episode he's like "okay so let's do Plan: March On Osaka, it's our only hope".
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Apr 11, 2024 00:15
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Was Afro Samurai a samurai?
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Apr 11, 2024 00:18
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With the yen being as weak as it is, now is a good time to send more Hollywood money there to produce more period dramas like Shogun.
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Apr 11, 2024 00:23
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BoldFace posted:With the yen being as weak as it is, now is a good time to send more Hollywood money there to produce more period dramas like Shogun. This was mostly filmed in Vancouver. Also weak dollar is helping
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Apr 11, 2024 00:38
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kiimo posted:Sake is dangerous, sorry about the drunk posting last night lol Let us go forth into oblivion together as sake-posters
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Apr 11, 2024 00:51
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