D_A's Spammery

That flower seriously isn't jasmine, and both manga versions repeat the same error, and I wish I know why this is happening.

Whatever the artist drew is one single huge flower sitting on the leaves and this isn't jasmine blossom. Jasmine tea is any sort of tea that contains jasmine for the scent, and it's just kind of misleading to call this specific flowering tea "jasmine tea", but maybe it's a really widespread misnomer in Japan, I don't know.

There is a tea called 茉莉仙桃 (literally translates to "jasmine peach") which is described as "a kind of jasmine tea" in Japanese wikipedia. The 茉莉仙桃 blooming tea uses a globe amaranth as the centrepiece and it has dried jasmine to provide the scent.

This is a 茉莉仙桃, and it does look more like the flower depicted in the manga:

Considering it has its own name, I just kind of feel it's wrong to call this "jasmine tea" without additional descriptors. That's why I say it's a misnomer.

I saw the new Sengoku Assassin Creed stuff and ARGH

The staff member talked about all that Iga woo woo ninjer stuff and it's giving me the typical "Nobunaga is coming to destroy ninjers" dumb trope and I'm just at the end of my sanity.

I know AC is not historically accurate, but I'M SO TIRED OF THAT IGA STUFF

STOP IT, JUST STOP IT.

Maybe in the actual game it will have a proper explanation, but in the dev highlights the staff person framed it as Nobu being after the damn ninjers as always and I'm on the verge of exploding.

And the ninja protagonist learning valour and "benevolence" from her dad? If they make it all "ninja good samurai bad", I'm going to lose it.

And her name is "Naoe" 🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪

Did you steal the name straight up from Kanetsugu? I'd have taken "Nao", but "Naoe" is just so funny to me. The devs probably just took random famous names and it just doesn't sound right.

Also, minor nitpick, but I'm mad at the person also saying "Fujibayashi Nagato" like that's a name. That isn't his name. That's supposed to be written "Fujibayashi Nagato-no-kami", which is an honorary title that means "governor of Nagato". He doesn't really govern the province, it just means he's Important.

I also don't like how they make Nobu's face, please. The way his face and armour are designed gives more of the vibes of "Young Shingen" to me. Those sideburns, man. It ain't right on Nobu. And this is an official release trailer, but they wrote Nobu's name wrong, are the editors asleep?

Ah, I just read this article saying that Shiba Ryoutarou is not only to blame for a lot of nonsense tropes that gets mistaken for historical truth, but also is a "hero maker". Like, supposedly back in the day the main hero/star of the Shinsengumi is more often than not Kondou. But thanks to Shiba's novel Moeyo Ken, it's all about Hijikata now and Kondou gets sidelined. The "OMG Hijikata is the best" thing has never gone away since.

Article says it's the same with Sakamoto Ryouma. He's nowadays often portrayed to be some kind of pioneer or this super cool guy or whatever, but before Shiba's novel supposedly pretty much nobody cared about him. Except maybe historical researchers or something.

Also apparently there's this one other historical hero who used to be considered a reputable person, but because Shiba made him kind of a lame duck in his novel, the guy just completely gets flushed in Japanese consciousness.

I've been kind of annoyed because a lot of Sengoku trivia websites still cite nonsense bum info that Shiba kind of made up and I'm just... grouchy because my misery and disappointment in Sengoku fiction is indirectly caused by him.

It's not his fault, really, the readers are just ignorant when it comes to the real historical fact. Shiba wasn't trying to write history conspiracies like all the people who wrote books about how Hideyoshi is the mastermind of Honnouji. Shiba just wrote a novel, and the readers ate it up.

Fake history tropes/stories being bandied about as fact is also just a thing that happens with all history narrative around the world but it's just so frustrating GAAAAAAHHHH.

Reading that article reminds me again and makes me mad again argh.

People often make a fuss about Akechi's assignment as being "an insult and embarrassment" or whatever, because he would have to fight the Mouri under the command of Hideyoshi. It was connected to the dismissal drama, where people were saying that this was a "punishment" for Akechi because he screwed up.

I 100% think this was mostly made-up drama invented by modern novelists, that just stuck in people's heads because novelists were casually copying each others' plots before copyrights were a thing.

Like, for one, why the hell do you think Hideyoshi ranks that lowly that Akechi would feel like it's beneath him to serve under Hideyoshi? Who put it in your minds that Hideyoshi was some low tier vassal? What made you think Akechi was so high in rank?

If anything, I would say that this narrative was meant to say that Akechi was an arrogant asshole for thinking that having Hideyoshi be his commander on the field was an insult, even though Hideyoshi seems to be about at the same rank as him within the Oda forces.

Also, there is an actual record or artifact of Nobunaga's letter telling Hideyoshi something along the lines of "If you need help, I have already put [so and so] on alert to move out any time you ask". Among the "so and so" that was listed, Akechi was also mentioned.

So like, Akechi... should already know for at least a few months ahead and expect that if Hideyoshi ever calls, he had to pack his gear and move out. The assignment then should not be an insult or a dismissal, he was just already the designated backup that was decided upon a long time before the Mouri showed up to fight.

Argh, sometimes I'm just... "WHY DON'T YOU KNOW THIS" with Sengoku article writers.

There's this article that I really appreciate because it directly quotes many useful sources (I think this is an excerpted part of a formal paper, that's why), but it goes into wild conspiracy theories based on weird stuff.

One of the narratives presented was that because Akechi was the host for Ieyasu's visit, Ieyasu must be staying at his residence in Azuchi. When the banquet failed and Akechi was dismissed as the host, the Tokugawa vassals must have had a lot of trouble repacking their stuff and moving to the new host's residence.

Writer-san, don't you know that according to the Azuchi floor plans and maps, Ieyasu owns a house at Azuchi? Ieyasu won't need to lodge at someone else's place, he can just stay in his own (guest) house. I'm going to assume that he has his own guest residence of some sorts because the Tokugawa is considered a very close friend, or so valuable an ally that they deserve their own residence and precisely to not have to bum with another vassal when they visit.

It's located next to Hideyoshi and Toshiie's houses, which is really funny to me, but this is not anime so it's not like the dumb friends duo would cause a ruckus there LOL.

Anyway. Yeah. This article is written in 2018. I had known about Ieyasu's residence in Azuchi since 2013, and for Japanese people this info should have been public and easily accessed for much longer (the Azuchi book I own that had the map was published in 2009).

Far as I can tell, nobody ever disputed this residence, or claim that it was mislabelled, or claim it was just a planned site and the house was never constructed.

Why do you need to make up such a convoluted drama about this?

(Edit: Unless the writer had thought that Ieyasu brought so many vassals that his residence can't fit them, or the residence was not meant to house vassals and the other random people like Hanzo or whoever are the ones who had to bum at others' houses)

*sigh*

Well, that wasn't great. I had been hoping to see if there's new discoveries of artefacts, but bleh. I do think Hideyoshi is cool, but I'm not beyond acknowledging when he's being shitty. What I complain is that "Why are you shitting on the things that he does when the Tokugawa bakufu also do it though".

It's like Nobunaga all over again. The problem is not that Nobunaga didn't do shitty things, it's that the other Sengoku bushou also do it. If you think Nobunaga is horrible then so is everyone else. Nobody's called Masamune a demon yet because of the story of him supposedly stringing up his enemy's innards on a tree. What, is it because he only did it once?

The public is very greatly swayed by pop culture and infotainment. This is why shitty Sengoku tropes keeps returning because it's an endless hell cycle. I wish someone would have the guts and money to make something that break all the tropes because I'm fed up by it.

Pop culture use or mention it because they either think it's true or because it's a famous trope and they know audience expect to see it --> Audience see it a billion times over and assume it must be true (because people are lazy and a lot of people will not even take the 5 seconds to Google search --> Trope remains popular --> Pop culture use it all over again.

Oh no, another bad faith interpretation. This guy is not even a historian, so I have the right to fight him because we're both reading secondary sources.

I don't like this over-reliance on Frois/European accounts unless there's literally nothing else, and no Japanese source contradict the writings. Even if the Japanese text had been censored by Hideyoshi's orders or something, all existing texts must be taken into consideration when trying to filter out the truth.

Frois is human. He could have written many of the things about Hideyoshi with a negative filter because Hideyoshi made the orders to expel priests and missionaries. People under duress and distress can write really really awful or insane things they would not have done had they been in a more pleasant state of mind.

Like, this says "Hideyoshi is bad because he makes lords leave their native provinces" (and presumably transfer them elsewhere). Your point being? The Tokugawa shogunate also still confiscate and reassign fiefs under whatever "law" they have put in place.

If you say Hideyoshi is bad for doing that, then so is the Tokugawa bakufu. Please provide better explanation for why one is bad and the other one isn't, else I accuse you of hypocrisy.

I'm nitpicking, I'm nitpicking, but Hideyoshi designed whatever renovations were to be done to Nagahama himself. If he had anything to use as reference, it would be Kiyosu or other Oda territories.

I know they needed some random excuse to send Kiyomasa to Tokugawa, but I just don't like the implication that he needed to learn anything about town renovations from Ieyasu. This story better ends with "You know what, I didn't learn anything in the end, but I had a good time, though".

When I read Sengoku articles, I’m kind of annoyed when they don’t actually drop the actual verbatim quotes from the historical text because sometimes the narrative the article describes don’t make sense and I’m left wondering if the writer is playing dumb to sensationalise the article or if that’s just literally what the text says.

Like, in one of the Dousuru Ieyasu-related articles, one of the stories being reported is that Mikawa Monogatari or whatever said that when Nobunaga withdrew from Kanegasaki he didn’t tell the Tokugawa forces and Ieyasu was left sitting around clueless until Hideyoshi told him the battle is off and Nobunaga left already. And the article was like “Ooh aah, look how mean Nobunaga is to Ieyasu”. And I’m just like... doesn’t “Hideyoshi informed Ieyasu this” mean that Nobunaga did tell Ieyasu? Like... hello? Does Hideyoshi not count as Nobunaga’s messenger? Why should Nobunaga send a second messenger out when Hideyoshi’s already on stand by right there? This just seems like such a “no shit Sherlock”, and I don’t get it. 

The article’s conclusion/description doesn’t make any sense, unless the actual text of the book specifically says Nobunaga didn’t intend to say anything, and if Ieyasu didn’t somehow see Hideyoshi wandering around by chance (or Hideyoshi went to tell Ieyasu out of his own volition), he would never have found out. 

Okay, why is a supposed historian going “ooh aah look how cruel this guy is” when a samurai goes in and kills a whole bunch of people in an enemy territory? And a lot of non combatants get rolled up in the mess? Like, yeah, it is cruel, but it’s also what a lot of people do in that time period. It has nothing to do with the person’s specific character. 

Generally in medieval battles, there’s not always the time or opportunity to carefully evacuate the civilians first before attacking the lord’s main castle. Sometimes they can afford to do that, sometimes they don’t, and at times when they don’t, it doesn’t mean the commanding general is abnormally cruel.

It’s not this guy is cruel or that guy. THE ENTIRE SOCIETY IN GENERAL IS AWFUL IN THE SENGOKU.

The only time you can make cruelty accusation is if the lord of the domain surrendered, but the invading general says “no, go and die”. That’s terrible, and you are welcome to cry and moan about it all day long. 

YOU’RE A HISTORIAN. Aren’t you supposed to know this? Unless he’s just self-censoring because this is published in mainstream news platforms, and if he says “yeah this is no big deal” he fears that he might get lambasted for cruelty. 

The director of the Kimutaku movie said that he wants to depict Nobu through a realistic lens as much as possible (by taking into account Sengoku era culture, traditions, etc). Not glorifying him through modern POV.

I agree with this approach, but seriously, what's driving me insane is the Nōhime portrayal in the movie. Like, I imagine what they wanted to do is to say that "samurai girls can do martial arts too, not just sit and look pretty", but the teasers are... not... looking great.

Maybe for Japanese people that's fine, but for someone like me who has seen way too many misguided StRoNG wOmAn characters in fiction, I'm just highly skeptical already.

For all I know those scenes are clickbait and in context it might actually be fine, but... fffs.

*steeples fingers* Oh look Nouhime pulls a sword on Nobu again. How many times is she gonna do this to him in the movie? 

The more teasers and trailers I see from this movie, the more I don’t like it...

As I said, I don’t like “aggressive woman” type of heroines, because that seems really forced + a very lame and shallow depiction of what a “strong woman” should be like. I don’t like it even more in samurai movies, unless every single girl in the movie is like this too. Like, samurai daughters can and do learn martial arts. Just have all of them be like this. 

“NoT liKe oThEr gIrLS uwu” aggressive girls is also just as bad as doormat/helpless girls. 

Also, “wife beating up husband” is honestly more of a Hideyoshi and Nene vibe, but even then I wouldn’t like it if Nene pulls a sword on Hide. I like it even less when it’s Nouhime doing it to Nobu. I already ranted about how I hate it when people think “Because Nobu badass, his girlfriend/wife should be someone who can punch people”. 

Like, it’s even worse if the story also follows the awful awful trope of “Tsuchida Gozen hates him”. If the wife is also cruel to Nobu on top of his mother already hating him, then it would just traumatise him even more. No fcking wonder he turns evil, if this was the case. 

"Well, she wouldn't have known that” is not an excuse. What Nouhime would have known is that she’s marrying this brat Nobu for the sake of truce between two clans. If she’s acting up, then the peace treaty could fail and she should at least act civil for that sake. WTF. 

If writers want to actually write a serious Sengoku movie, I really think they should rein in their temptations to vent their frustrations about how repressive modern day Japan is. Just create a fantasy version of the Sengoku with magic and woowoo, and you can have all the punk badass stuff you so damn want.

Like, this is a horrible overdone cliché. I’m tired. It’s not new, it’s not refreshing, and it’s not realistic. In all aspects, this is subjectively bad writing.

Since Ikesen cannot make up their mind about how exactly the "Sengoku world", which they STILL say is "an alternate reality cause by time distortion", relates to the "real world", I just keep getting aneurysm whenever there's stuff that's ahistorical.

See, I keep saying how frustrated I am that Ikesen is never consistent about whether this is an alternate reality or not. This is not about historical facts, this is just about keeping the logic straight.

Sasuke spouts Wikipedia stuff all the time, which implies that "the modern day" they originally came from is the same as our world. But if the Sengoku universe is "different from the history books", then why would it affect the future? This is not logically consistent. Multiverse world 1 should not affect Multiverse world 2.

They really should have just said "the history book got everything wrong somehow". Someone took the pains of rewriting the history texts, and Sasuke himself could be the one who did it, and it would create a time paradox loop, but it would at least make more sense than this.

... This movie is taunting me. It’s like they're trying to make me angry

Did you really need to make Hideyoshi look like this? Yellow teeth, a kind of WTF expression... He looks like a gag/comedy character. You can make your Hideyoshi look ugly as sin if you so want to, I don’t care, but don’t make him look like a joke in official publicity.

Ieyasu looks fine. Akechi looks fine. Y’all even hired Itou Hideaki to be this one Saitou clan vassal that nobody knew anything about. Why’d you have to be like this with Hideyoshi? 

Incidentally, Itou Hideaki looks very fine as Some Dude Fukuzumi Sadaie:

Honestly, if Kimura Takuya can “redo” his Nobunaga role as an older man, someone should get Itou to perform a Nobunaga again someday.

Oh, of course they’d make Nouhime pull a knife on Nobunaga. Because, you know, Strong Woman. Or that stupid ass legend about Saitou Dousan giving her a knife and saying “Hey if your husband is stupid kill him”. 

No, I don’t care I don’t have any context for this. There’s no explanation that can recontextualize this scene to make it “okay” for me. There’s enough of it in the trailer that makes this look like a "You know that I know that you’re making empty threats” scenario, and I still don’t like it.

Please stop with the trope of “The suitable woman for Nobunaga is a tough girl who would pull a knife on him or sock him in the face or yell at him”. It’s been done a bajillion times, it’s boring, I’m fed up by this trope, and even worse, it’s not realistic. If Nouhime really did pull this, the only reason Nobunaga won’t kill her is because it would make Saitou Dousan angry/break the treaty. 

It’s the same trope as the typical bad shoujo romance where the oresama love interest gets socked in the face by the ~feisty~ heroine and he goes “inTerEsting”. In reality, someone with a hot temper and a lot of pride would only get angrier if confronted aggressively like this. Maybe even turn violent, depending on how nasty the man’s personality is. I don’t know if this is someone’s girlboss fantasy, but it’s not mine, so I’m just annoyed by this trope.

If you want to make a scenario where Nobunaga doesn’t get mad by a vicious woman, it’s only if you write Nobunaga as a very very patient or gentle character who just doesn’t get angry easily.  

I don’t know what it is with movie makers and why they keep doing this. I remembered that in the Nobunaga Concerto live action (forgot if it’s movie or drama) they turned Nouhime into this Tomboy Not Like Other Girls (TM) character too, even though in the original manga she’s an elegant and gentle woman, and a bunch of the manga readers got pissed off by this. 

Other manga like Nobunaga no Chef also portrays her as this noble and elegant woman, with pride and dignity, and she still looks like someone who can stand next to Nobunaga on equal terms. Power doesn’t have to mean knives and swords and stabbing people. 

I’M GOING TO RANT BECAUSE IT’S DRIVING ME NUTS AND THE ONLY INFO I HAVE IS SHINCHOUKOUKI AND I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT ELSE IS ACTUALLY ALREADY DISCOVERED

According to Shinchoukouki, Nobu already started to act mostly normal when his brother rebelled (he was about 23 then). It’s to the point that I 100% believe that the old-fashioned trope of “vassals supported Kanjuurou’s rebellion because Nobu looks and acts stupid” is, itself, a stupid theory. Nobu is already a respectably accomplished lord who won important battles.

He... essentially already took over Owari at that time. Kicked out the more powerful Oda branch, conquered Kiyosu (Nobu did not originally own Kiyosu, mind), and “restored” the governor of Owari to power.  

He’s shown some skill, so I have no idea why the vassals wanted to rebel and replace him with the brother. Maybe you can argue that he plays around too much despite his skills, or “is good at battle but shit at admin work and it makes vassals still worry”. 

I know that there’s a few paperwork from Nobu’s teenage years that has been found, it’s just that nobody has shared what the text actually says yet. 

Like, there’s this scroll that has Nobu and his dad’s letters. If it was written and signed together, that means that Nobu is actually doing proper lordly work even during his supposed “stupid” years, because his dad is still alive. 

The other possibility is that the letters are just pasted together for whatever reason, and it wasn’t originally sent together as one bundle. So if the Nobu one comes from decades later, this proves nothing. 

It’s a museum thing and the post I saw didn’t provide the details. I guess I would actually have to go there to see it to know what the letter says, but AUGRHGSDHJHG J