Life, Nihon, and why Kurogane is an extremely odd ninja

[shadow_of_egypt]

I'm not having a very good few days. Nothing solely in particular's to blame, but lots of little niggly things, and the fact it's just so wretchedly hot here right now does nothing to help. Or the fact the idiots outside my window are singing bastardised versions of pop songs. Loudly. And badly. Ugh.

Anyway, I've been doing some research for

Comments

[jlarinda]

I always assumed Kuro's Nihon was simply an AU, and so mixed things (like how Kuro is an ninja/samurai) and wasn't exactly historically accurate :|a

[shadow_of_egypt]

*nods* It isn't historically accurate, so it makes things a little harder when trying to research facts about that sort of time - but it also makes things more...open(?) to be used? I can pick and choose with facts, I suppose.

I guess my issue with the ninja/samurai thing is trying to decide which system to put him in. *rubs head*

[jlarinda]

Well, in-game he's called a ninja, so there's that. And you can probably draw stuff from both bushido and the principles of ninjutsu.

[jlarinda]

Oh, btw

*seppuku

[narrow_my_bed]

I agree with JL: I always thought of Kurogane's Nihon as a weird AU. CLAMP readily mix and stir when it comes to these things, after all, not only in TRC.

[shadow_of_egypt]

I guess I'll go with the age-old tradition of 'make something up~' then, for how the classes work. It's definitely a weird AU - Suwa itself was created and abolished in the eighth century, which is waaaay back when. *finds all the stupid little details interesting* >>;;

[narrow_my_bed]

You could always continue what CLAMP was doing with that world and insert actual, historically accurate details in your fics, but mix them horribly in one giant mess? Or if you have many Nihon-centric fics in mind that are not connected to each other, go with a different historically accurate version which each fic?

[xxray]

It's super hot here as well. Today it was over 27°C which I found hard to believe since about a month ago it goddamn snowed here.

I always wondered about Kuro's ninja/samurai-ness as well. Because (though I'm not that familiar with Japanese culture and history) he always stroke me more as a samurai. But then again, it's Clamp, so if they say he's a ninja then he is one. But as said before, the Nihon is some kind of AU/half-fictional country. So it probably makes sense that they'd change other things too, like combine ninja and samurai into one.

It seems to me though that most people think of Nihon as the feudal-era Japan. So if you based your fiction on that thought, people would probably be perfectly content with it (after all, most people are like me and don't really know much about these things). In the end it depends on what you want to do.

[oozaru_angel]

I always kind of thought that Kurogane was raised with the whole samurai thing but then after his parents died he picked up some ninja tricks (probably from Souma) and mixed it all up into his own style. With all his angst, sticking to the bushido code was probably the least of his worries. He might have promised to be Tomoyo's ninja simply because that's what most of her other guards were, and it also involved less rules than being a samurai did, giving him more leeway to do his own thing and protect her in his own way.

[xxray]

That would definitely make sense O.O Now that I think about it, Kurogane is pretty much the only one of the palace guards that has samurai traits. Everyone else looks pretty much like your typical ninja. How is it possible it never occurred to me before? D:

[michechu]

There's a splash page towards the beginning of the manga that I think sums Kurogane up pretty well:

"I do not consider myself to do justice, but I do not conside myself to do evil either."

I'm not so sure that Kurogane doesn't employ ninjutsu, though. You have to consider that most of the situations where he fights don't call for any kind of stealth...usually there's a mutual understanding that there is an ass kicking forthcoming.

Also; I MISS YOU? ;-;