Onelargeprawn
Look, we get it. Sometimes, a cat is so damn cute that you have to steal it and defend it with all the honour and swordsman skills you can muster. We totally understand the compulsion, so we’re glad that there’s a movie that shares the inner conflict we feel.
https://youtu.be/a7k112vDJgk
[Via: WTF Japan Seriously]
While the Lord High Prawn doesn’t exactly enjoy strategy, and turn-based strategy even less (his preferred method of doing things is to get in there, kill, and dance over his enemies’ corpses), I do enjoy these types of game, however. So today we’re reviewing an Xbox 360 strategy game called Skulls of the Shogun by developer 17-BIT. I head for the strategic battlefields to dance over the corpses of my own enemies. And also to eat their skulls. Intrigued?
Steve Bialik took us to feudal Japan in his set of Star Wars portraits, drawn as if they were woodblock prints. In a similar theme, US-based artist Clinton Felker draws some of the characters as high-stylized samurai warriors.
See his Samurai Star Wars drawings after the jump.
20-year old Japanese film and stage actor Taichi Saotome is famous playing the parts of beautiful young men. He is also known for onnagata, a profession where male actors impersonate women in Japanese kabuki theatre. In this stage performance of “Dragon and Peony” that combines swordsmanship and some form of CGI shadow puppetry, Saotome assumes the role of a warrior locked in an epic battle against his very own shadow.
[via Geekologie]
Straight out of Ireland comes what could be an unexpected martial arts gem. The Cup of Tears is the directorial debut of Gary Shore and features ancient samurai empires battling it out in a post-apocalyptic future. Need I say more? Probably.
This is the official synopsis.
Cup Of Tears follows a scorned geisha who creates a magical cup made of tears that causes any man who drinks from it to fall into a permanent sleep. One night the cup is stolen, setting off a chain of events that threatens civil war amongst the clans. Taro, a gifted samurai, sets out to find the cup and one who can break the spell.
Have a look at the trailer after the jump.
I could easily spend many hours looking through the photostream of Flickr user Okinawa Soba. He has posted hundreds of interesting photos of the 19th and early 20th century life in Japan, China, America, and Africa. His comments are pretty insightful as well.
Here are three I quickly picked out from old Japan – click to embiggen.
Taken from his SWIMSUIT GIRLS of OLD JAPAN set, this photo is of the popular geisha, Miss Koman.
In 1904, out of thousands of Geisha in the Tokyo area, she was considered by Japanese writer and poet YONE NOGUCHI to be one of the top five in popularity, commanding top price to entertain you, and having legions of adoring fans who could only hope to catch a glimpse of her.
From his PROSTITUTES of Old Japan set, this circa 1890-1900 image shows caged prostitutes and a prospective customer. If the customer finds a prostitute he is interested in, he will light his pipe and pass it through the bars to her. She takes a puff as a sign of acceptance and passes the pipe back through the bars to seal the deal.
Lifted of his SAMURAI, SWORDS, and ARMOR set, this image shows three samurai posing, and yes the one in the middle has a tail. Why? Perhaps he is gay. Apparently the real Samurai held GAY LOVE in high esteem, and encouraged it saying it was considered beneficial for the youth, teaching him virtue, honesty, and the appreciation of beauty.
……..Shudō is the Japanese tradition of age-structured homosexuality prevalent in samurai society from the medieval period until the end of the 19th century. The word is an abbreviation of wakashudō (若衆道), “the way of the young” or more precisely, “the way of young (若 waka) men (衆 shū)”. The “dō” (道) is related to the Chinese word tao, considered to be a structured discipline and body of knowledge, as well as a path to awakening.
See many, many more photos on Okinawa Soba photostream.