patrick.net

Awesome! Totally will be checking this out.

I'm about halfway through. It is really good.

You will be hooked after the first episode.

Halfway through, totally agree with what has already been said.

UkraineIsTotallyFucked says

I have the hots for Anna Sawai (Lady Mariko)

I can see why.

Without black computer geniuses, it is doomed to failure.

Just saw the 'baby earthquake' scene. That was novel.

Ceffer says

Without black computer geniuses, it is doomed to failure.

I'm surprised they somehow didn't write in a black samuri guy that beats everyone.

RC2006 says

I'm surprised they somehow didn't write in a black samuri guy that beats everyone.

And hetero sex scenes! Not at buttfuck so far.

American cinema and books like to romanticize Japanese culture and periods. Our take on Samurai, likes to juxtapose old west Gunslinger lore into the stories. While if you look at the Japanese actual take on the Samurai stories, they were like lawless gangs, that were paid by rivals to settle disputes. They were hired massacre armies. The people who they killed and were hired by, were just as sadistic and murderous.

Even in Western documentaries we go on about some creed and code that the Samurai lived by. But everything I have seen produced by the Japanese, showed they were just power hungry thugs that lived and died by the sword. It was an exclusive club, that if you were violent enough to join you certainly could.
There wasn't some test and fee your dad paid to get you in.

The Samurai sword was probably the most barbaric gruesome weapon ever wielded by man. You had to be a sadistic person to flay someone open from chest to abdomen with that thing. Our movies likes to show the vanquished enemy holding his hand completely over a wound with some blood staining his clothes.
When in reality he would have looked like two halves of beef.

A Prince Harry style post herewith.
In 1988 I was in Japan for a while, and met a nice Japanese girl who was an actress in Samurai TV dramas.
She once demonstrated how she would "die" for the cameras.
Evidently she was killed a lot in the shows.
So much for chivalry I guess.
She was descended from Samurai, which was a point of pride.
The swords were capable of chopping arms, heads, shoulders, etc.
A cool Samurai movie is Ran if you're interested in the genre.

clambo says

The swords were capable of chopping arms, heads, shoulders, etc.

Unlike Western broad swords, Samurai swords, were not for cleaving and chopping. They were used for flaying. Ideally only the last few inches of the sword would make contact, in a hard downward blow. The edge of the sword would be used to slide along the softer parts of the abdomen.
If you start cleaving bones in a battle with lots of foes, you risk breaking the blade, or putting dents and imperfections otherwise dulling the blade. The sword would then be useless for the close quarters attacks it was designed for. I cringe when I see British documentaries showing modern weapon makers making reproductions then chopping Bamboo to show how sharp they were. You don't need a sword that sharp for chopping bones and cleaving heads.
I'm sure it was capable of beheading the opponent. But you wouldn't have too if you defeated them. They would stick their own Katana in their soft belly.
Even Japanese watercolors don't depict a battle scene of dismembered bodies, like you'll see in other culture's drawings and paintings of battle scenes.

Ever see a Japanese fish monger in action? They cut along the soft flesh with their blade, but then have to beat on the back of the blade with a club or stick to chop through the bone. Why don't they just give it a Samurai chop? Because those blades aren't made for that.