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flemmings ([personal profile] flemmings) wrote2004-10-25 12:04 am
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I've been watching Onmyouji 2. A little late in the day the penny drops in re: Hiromasa, and I think where have I seen that dorky expression before? Unh-hunh, Li Seitan in Youmi Henjou Yawa, drawn by no-coincidence the Onmyouji mangaka. Checking out my one volume of Onmyouji (and still not getting past the opening obscure episode wherein Seimei instructs goggling Hiromasa in the geometrical properties of the onmyou tradition) I find yes theatrically overdone Hiromasa and dryly ijiwaru Seimei. I fancy the movie is merely being true to its manga roots.

I also discover a hilarious western review of Onmyouji 2 by someone with evidently no knowledge of history, kyougen, or much of anything else. The Tokugawa Mikado and the daimyou officials, huh? to say nothing of "We witness the official's body being thrown, screaming, with incredible force from his palladin." An official might well scream when ripped apart from his paladin in presumed mid-intercourse. Whether seme or uke, the experience cannot fail to be painful.

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2004-10-25 03:27 pm (UTC)(link)
To instruct and edify: Onmyouji is set in the 10th century. Tokugawa is the family name of the shoguns who ruled in the Edo period from the early 17th through late 19th centuries, while keeping the emperor a powerless and impoverished ceremonial figurehead in Kyoto. Tokugawa mikado? You might as well talk about the the Macarthur Emperor who waged war in 1252.

Daimyou are the regional clan heads in the Edo period, mostly descended from warriors who supported Tokugawa Ieyasu. What you see in Onmyouji are Kyoto nobility, mostly descended from younger brothers of earlier Emperors. However powerful the daimyou got, the attitude of the court nobles is that they were uncouth barbarians.

[identity profile] xsmoonshine.livejournal.com 2004-10-25 04:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Perhaps everything the reviewer knows about Japan comes from James Clavell's Shogun? :)

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2004-10-25 05:25 pm (UTC)(link)
I have a nasty feeling that you hit that nail right on the head. I knew there must have been something that got his/her mind firmly stuck in Edo mode but couldn't think what.
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[identity profile] mikeneko.livejournal.com 2004-10-29 09:42 am (UTC)(link)
It's much clearer to me now. Why I didn't become a history major, I mean. Whew! :)

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2004-10-29 11:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Nor am I a history major. You needn't be a specialist to know that something happened c1000 and something c1600, and that the people who watched Shakespeare didn't dress or talk the same as the guys whom the Vikings invaded.