When it comes to action scenes I can be pretty forgiving as long as it least looks cool but this was garbage. I got to about episode 3 and I saw the ambush scene and for fuck's sake I rolled my eyes so hard. The silly amount of fire arrows was one thing which by the way are physically impossible to happen I don't know why Hollywood etc. insist on using them in every situation.
Then the greatest sin came along where they turned Mariko into a fucking girl boss and she started impossibly dancing around with a Naginata in a kimono for fuck's sake. Do you know how impractical those Kimonos are? It's about the same as wearing a full on dress and the feminists declare "She can do anything a man can do bigots!" no, just fucking no.
I thought I'd watch it because I've got a cold but that just pissed me off. If you want a watch something decent watch the original Shogun series. It's old, but even with the age it's still a hell of a lot more believable than this utter crap. One of the reasons this girl boss shit gets so jarring by the way is you often see the sacred women cutting down or beating up guys much bigger than them then the next fight scenes they inevitably have the men facing off against each other in a much more realistic way.
I hate normies, I hate them.
When you’re drowning in an ocean of piss and shit, a raft of straw and twigs looks like a yacht.
I’m now very wary of anything the drinker recommends as well as anything receiving universal praise. If it doesn’t trigger a ton of hatred from the right people, it’s usually trash.
I know the dude is well liked in these circles for some reason, but he always came across as the basic bitch kind of grifter to me. Nothing he says is novel, interesting or daring. Always careful to keep the money flowing and the audience placated.
His grift is he hosts an hours long podcast with some notables, takes what they say and makes a video of it out of lots 5 second trailer clips on a repeat loop.
But he's better than whoever idiot is on his podcast (Mauler I think) that's always saying "but I feel like they should have explained 1+1=2 at least put a throwaway line in there" for the most obvious basic shit.
long man bad?
Incidentally I saw one of his books at the library and decided to give it a read. It is the most reheated cabbage Tom Clancy rip off that only the normiest of middle aged dads would enjoy. I got about 1/3rd in until they introduced a badass chick who could easily overpower some grown men soldiers. Drinker just fills that controlled opposition style acceptable dissent for youtube commentators.
The girl boss is the only type of female character that is allowed now
That's why I can't stand it anymore.
Once upon a time, you'd get a scene with a women beating on some peons, or getting in a decent shot at the big bad before getting shut down. And I could suspend disbelief because hey, maybe she's exceptional.
But now every single woman has to be as strong as the strongest men. It's dumb. And it's gotten to the point that I can't even tolerate the exception anymore.
If I see a woman beat a man in a physical contest, I'm out.
I appreciate it in a setting where it makes sense, like the Dungeons and Dragons movie that came out last year.
Rodriguez being super strong is ok because she's a Barb class and Barbs fuck shit up and muscle it out. She's always been a typecast for strong bad bitch too so it wasn't out of the blue for the actress and the role she got.
Guy doesn't expect the women is a martial arts expert, gets beat up a bit from being off guard, gets mad, and smacks her around like rag doll.
That's how it used to be and was totally believable.
There’s no blacks or urban speak or culture of any kind. No giant afros. No gays. That’s a 10/10 from me in 2024.
You know, they could have put some gays in- Blackthorne was offered boytoys by Toranaga if he wasn't satisfied being offered a woman.
You think I'm some Godless heathen!?!?
"Gods, where am I?"
His verbatim reaction to that offer.
That was in the original series as well, the original Shogun series in my view did a much better job of showing how fucked up Samurai culture really was. Which is why anybody who actually studies history is totally right to finger wag people who glorify that shit.
I mean we all love Rome, I find it fascinating, but at the end of the day they were still extremely fucked up and did all kinds of shit even to their own citizens and soldiers to maintain order that would make ISIS do a double take. In the original series the narrator details how Torunaga buried his main rival alive and invited members of the public to saw at his neck with a bamboo saw if I remember correctly. Obviously not necessarily 'historically accurate' because it's based off a novel but it wouldn't be impossible to find just as fucked up examples of public executions and orders given by the samurai.
The fucked up caste system they follow like with a lot of countries still somewhat survives today which is why asians are so damn rigid and collectivist. Obviously they've modernised a lot, but this is why I try to slap the weaboo out of people on this one because I know it can be easy to get into the grass is greener mentality with the west so you need to study other cultures properly.
I'm actually surprised they haven't forced it into the show yet.
Tokyo Vice added a full gay character AND sodomy scene. Why.
I wanted to watch the new quantum leap. The tranny ruins it.
It would probably be a legitimate arrestable offense if they made Mariko anything but Rey Skywalker-chan.
The book is way better with the women samurai, but then the book wasn't written by a retard either.
https://archive.org/details/Shogun_Miniseries
Or just play Nioh. It’s Shogun with monsters and a big titty Ninja Princess.
I second this - play nioh, it's great.
If you do your background reading nioh is actually a very interesting game. The sequel is much better in gameplay, but the first one has great history nerd value and is a bit more grounded in human conflict than the sequel that has a more fantastical focus.
Nice. I had a quick skim, not expecting much, but what little I watched made me feel more positive towards it than I do to the new series. I don't hate that one either, but it's a stretch to say I've liked any single moment of it either. Maybe the best thing I can say about the new one is it hasn't completely killed my curiosity to see how it turns out.
The old one seems well-acted, less dependent on scenic gimmickry and the scenes I saw seem like they capture the spirit of the book more. This key scene about the acceptability of rebellion clearly understands the book better than the same scene in the new one. It's a pivotal scene and even slop-chugging redditors concede the new show got it wrong. Old version of Toranaga (mifune?!) is a cold, austere presence from moment one rather than some squinty sympathetic Ken Watanabe style bullshit. Mariko is demure rather than some maudlin, scene stealing feminist mope. Gimli is the portuguese captain Rodriguez and seems to do his scenes just as well as the new guy (who was probably the best part of the new show from the miniscule amount he features). Looks good! Just impressions from a few minutes of skimming though.
Fire Arrows Work (Shadiversity)
And I think like an alchemists crucible there could easily be secrets lost to modern cosplay youtubers.
lol yes I watched some of that, it was really interesting seeing the historical stuff on it.
Shadiversity is great they just take like 10x longer to say something than they need to.
The issue is that fire can't move as fast as the arrow so the flame goes out right away. The flame has to be restarted at the target, so hot coals or red hot metal should work fine, or something alchemical like substances that mix on target (two vials that break on target to combine ingredients).
I've seen fire arrows used in person, (They have a viking festival in Yorvic, and they used to have a boat burning with a effigy of a dead king before health a safety put an end to it), and there is some written and artistic evidence of them, but they were very specialised (and expensive) arrow tips. You're right though that the flame would go it if the bow is fully drawn and loosed at full speed, so I can only see their use being in ceremonial (boat burnings for instance) or sieges of wooden fortifications where the goal is to set fire to things, not kill targets and you cant use the full tension of the bow and keep the flame alive.
I like shadiversity, but I struggle with his stuff occasionally. Hes a very eager amateur, and gets a lot wrong, not as much as he gets right, but theres obvious gaps in his knowledge.
Action girl makes sense, no wonder people were praising it to high heaven. I'll make sure to skip it now.
Shogun is fine and I'm enjoying it. I rarely watch TV anymore yet this has grabbed me.
The girl boss stuff with Mariko was one training scene that felt realistic enough to me. It's otherwise a decent production.
The fire thing is so ingrained in Hollywood now. They weren't used nearly as much in antiquity but it's a cool visual. I guess people think the entire world is super flammable.
Strangely enough lord of the rings is a great example of how you can do arrow scenes and make them epic without having to use fucking fire arrows and those are fantasy movies. In the Shogun series it's like they're flamethrowers and they take up half the screen on top of that because they wanted to make the scene look chaotic but it just looks like shit.
How is the katana combat, because that's all anyone cares about in Samurai media?
Some of it that I saw was okay but the girl boss moment drove me mad if you can stand that and I don't want to see the character get ruined anymore.
It's easier to film than actual arrows. The Kurosawa films had to aim using wires and pins to make it look realistic. There were tons of dangers involved.
As for the rest, yeah....
Just watch the Blind Samurai series.
"Every time they make a Robin Hood movie, they burn our village down!"
By the way I love how in the original series clips there are people clearly finding it and shitting on the 2024 version lol a lot of them criticise it for dumbing down and they're right because historical details were left out too.
Is this the scene?
No there was another one but that's just as cringey, at least she's in practical clothes for that one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e42SyRaNwGQ
0:51 timestamp.
What action scenes? I've been waiting for some but the talk/ action ratio is abysmal for all of the hype.
I and others have posted below lol it was never meant to be an action type series but honestly what's there is garbage compared to the original.
I haven't seen the original and am only comparing it to what I normally watch. I compare some things to pesky blinders. I never watched that show but have been told I've seen all the best parts through clips posted online. I've asked people how much actual action was in a show about the "violent" times of the past and have been told that its just all talk. I'll take their word for it. Even being older, I still prefer to watch violence and action over listening to someone build a story.
Episodes 5, 6, and 7 were pretty tedious. The amount of talking about interpersonal drama has really ramped up.
Hollywood, how to do a arrow scene properly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4jLmDx6alU