https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1496788626658807814
edit: Wait no, it's maybe worse. That's the Ukrainian ambassador to Japan so this is actual weeaboo cosplay: https://www.theweek.in/news/world/2022/02/16/ukrainian-ambassador-to-japan-poses-as-samurai-in-message-to-russia.html
Along with the impressive image, Korsunsky wrote in English and Japanese "We know what we are fighting for. How about Russia?"
Sergiy Korsunsky
Reminder that Japanese swords were notoriously awful and were only reasonable to use because Japan’s a shitty island with no resources so no one could make better swords or armor worth a damn.
Samurai used bows and spears more often iirc.
TBH I think there is something admirable and impressive about the craftsmanship of japanese swordsmiths to take such shitty iron ore and make something like the Katana out of it.
Far more sus IMO is the entire modern viewpoint on samurai culture which actually seems at least as rooted in WW2 propaganda as actual history. Speaking as a recovering sword guy weeb who actually read the Hagakure in highschool (no, I never got a date big shocker): one of my favorite details is that Yamamoto, the dude who wrote ad naseum about death and honor and all the dos and don't of what the essence of being a samurai means, never actually saw combat and was in fact considered a massive reactionary of his era. All the great Samurai philosophers are really no different then the idiots on this side of the pacific who cite the illiad unironically and talk about when we used to have REAL MEN.
Bushido is not quite like Chivalry, for the most part it was used to push an imperial cult during the Meji restoration as they feared during westernization they'd adopt some things like liberalism i.e. getting rid of a cringe royal, that's why they took some rather obscure, for his time, samurai and pushed his philosophy on what makes a good samurai. All spearheaded by Inoue Tetsujirō a huge xenophobe and imperialist that basically wrote the 'modern samurai' into reality, his revisionism and his explicit racism were of enormous use to Japan’s political leaders, who saw immense value in promoting an ideology of militarization, nationalism, and xenophobia, in order to turn the entire country into a de facto army united by fanatical loyalty to the emperor and the goal of imperial expansion. And this weaponized Bushido militarism whatever you want to call it was used as a sort of Manifest Bushido fueling wars of conquest and imperialism all over Asia.
So yes they are both made to lionize a historical knightly/warrior class that never existed however Bushido was pushed quite a bit more than chivalry I think the whole Viking mythos is a better comparison as that one was pushed by the swedes to feel better about losing finland.
Do you happen to know what group of texts I’m talking about from Yamaga Soko btw? I’m just asking because you seem to know a lot more about the relevant Japanese history.
I don't I'm sorrry.
And I can see your reasoning I'd totally agree that their positions/situations in said hierarchy is very similar, however I'd disagree on the dynamic part. Your experience can very well be different to mine but the three 'warriors' that are really appealing to Chuds from my experience are Vikings, Spartans and Samurais. Knights aren't as sexy to fascism and reaction as the others could you rewrite them to be? Absolutely but I don't see it currently.
I'm really just arguing minute things because bored.
Knights aren’t as sexy to fascism
What's up with that? Like...I think you're right...but I don't really get why. The space marines of warhammer 40k are closer to knights then modern marines so really its all there...but I feel like Chuds don't really latch onto Knights as a cultural touchstone. Is it just cause they're not trendy or in fashion? Kinda feels like it.
Might just be an aesthetic thing: Samurai got their swords, Vikings got their axes, Knights have Armour makes it the least accessible and rather boring.
The swords really aren't that bad. They had shitty steel to work with and the way they made their swords compensated for that. Everyone used bows and spears more often than swords, because the further you are from the guy who wants to kill you the better off you are. Swords have been mostly a sidearm throughout the world historically.
True, didn’t mean to imply that Europeans were all about swords or anything. Before guns existed spears were the dominant weapon in pretty much every army for all of history. Cheaper to make, easier to use, and they keep your enemy over there
Even medieval European knights primarily fought with lances and poleaxes, with swords mostly used as backup- or to cut down retreating infantry. The imagery of two knights in plate mail swinging swords at each other is a Hollywood fantasy.
Then there is the zweihander, a spear which was abandoned as a child and raised by feral swords.
Very true, as it turns out “Keeping the guy who wants to kill you further away” is almost universally helpful
They also carried daggers with their swords because if you're in a tight area like a battlement or something you can't really draw a sword easily. Daggers were faster to draw and much better CQ stabbers.
Swords are also crazy expensive and hard to use properly. I don't think there has ever been a place and time where swords were the primary weapon.
If it actually was Japan’s ambassador to Ukraine and not the other way around it would actually be a huge diplomatic clusterfuck if he got himself shot charging the Russian army with a sword.
Say what you will about Japanese ultranationalists, but gaisensha are fun: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Nihon-Minzoku_Seinen-Kaigi_Gaisensha.JPG
The bullhorns on top are for screaming at pedestrians and blaring patriotic music. They drive around 24/7 as the beep beep racism jeep. One of the most obnoxious things I've ever seen.
edit: Wait no, it’s maybe worse. That’s the Ukrainian ambassador to Japan so this is actual weeaboo cosplay
Fuckin lol. Just imagining this guy with the sword in one hand and his waifu body pillow in the other in front of the advancing Russian army
I went looking for Japanese ancestry or something, but it isn't even mentioned on the Ukrainian-Japanese embassy website biography of him and he previously served as an ambassador to the US so he might just be a career diplomat. Born in Kyiv to parents I couldn't find mention of.
You're laughing now, but what if the Russians deploy mutant turtles... :think-about-it:
fucking bazinga brain redditors love to lap this slop up :so-true: shit figuratively makes my blood boil.
Fuck the US for never denazifying Japan and for systematically rehabilitating them.
Again: if he’s so into cosplaying, please reenact a seppuku.
America needed the Japanese fascists to hedge out the Japanese Communists.
Its the same story told the world over.
Wait no, it’s maybe worse. That’s the Ukrainian ambassador to Japan so this is actual weeaboo cosplay
He's still Japanese though, considering his great-grandfather... Countries tend to pick ambassadors who have some connection to the country,
lol this is like a bureaucrat working at the Bureau of Indian Affairs claiming 1/16th Cherokee so he can sit in his office in full native headdress.
I searched around for some mention of his ancestry but didn't see any. Prior to this he also served as US ambassador and has a degree in international relations, so it might be an arbitrary assignment in the way that the State Department rotates diplomats through different countries before giving them an ambassadorship they want.
edit: And the great grandfather mention on the original image is seemingly a false story from this twitter user mistaking them for the Japanese ambassador to Ukraine rather than the other way around.
edit: And the great grandfather mention on the original image is seemingly a false story from this twitter user mistaking them for the Japanese ambassador to Ukraine rather than the other way around.
Alright in that case yeah maybe he's a weeb.
Claiming Japanese ancestry and samurai armor through on Japanese great grandparent is somehow even more cringe than the Americans who claim to be Irish despite never having set foot in Ireland.
It isn't necessarily just the one great-grandparent. And it all depends on what kind of connection his family has maintained to the country.
But also someone else said the great-grandfather thing might be made up so idk.
I guess it depends on if and how much they assimilated like you say but I feel like that’s pretty far removed, my great grandfather was Austrian but they assimilated completely by the time my mother was born lol. My grandma only spoke a tiny tiny bit of German if at all, tho uh… maybe some certain world events had something to do with that idk. Haha
E: they had immigrated decades before ww2 but there was probably a lot of cultural pressure throughout my grandmas life to assimilate as a result of it lol
You can do childish shit like this when you know that as a foreign diplomat, there is no way the Russians would want to hurt him.
How big of a weeb do you have to be that your home country just gives you the title of ambassador to Japan? Like is Moldova gonna find the one guy in their country who eats their steak well done with ketchup and send him to the US? Is that how ambassadorships work now?
There can't be enough going on between Japan and Ukraine to justify it being a full-time job. I'd totally take it if I could spend ten hours a week working and the rest of the time gorging myself on Japanese food.
So I've heard it both ways... is this "Glory to Ukraine" an actual nazi thing or is it just a thing that's been a thing and during WW2 it was embraced by them? I tried looking it up after listening to that trueanon episode and all I could find were places debunking it.
