Minamoto mina-san (i.e. some massive ramblings on Minamoto no Yoshitsune)

Okay, it's been a long time since I've blogged something. One thing I realised about doing stupid things throughout the last 10 years and beyond is the fact that I shouldn't be doing them at all. Another thing I noticed? If there's anything worse than doing stupid things, it'd be the refusal to learn from your stupidity.

Recently, part of my curiosity was aroused in understanding myself better. Namely, what are the scars left behind by schoolyard democracy? If I want to stay true to my conscience, I cannot say my bullies did something stupid. Bullying is wrong, not stupid. Doing stupid things may land you in the hospital, but doing wrong things can lead to others getting hurt or worse. I can be "kind" to them, but I have to be the same type of person to justify that. You know, the Roy Mustang logic.

This comes to some self-testing. Now before I go on, let me point out that self-testing does not amount to a professional diagnosis. However, I did have bad experiences dealing with professionals. There was this one time when a counsellor adopted brute-force positivity where in fact I was seeking answers. I gave up. Then I visited a psychiatrist. The intern counsellor did a very good job. Sadly, she's only an intern. In short, no calls for a follow-up. I didn't know whether it was an honest slip from the radar or something worse. I chose not to pursue it because I didn't want actual confrontation.

Here were my own self-testing results.

And now onto the topic

There's something truly personal behind the term hogan-biki. Literally translated as Judge's Favour, this term was inspired by the post of Kuro Hogan conferred upon Minamoto no Yoshitsune by the Imperial Court. Due to the tragic nature of Yoshitsune's recorded death, hogan-biki refers to sympathy for the underdog. And that's who I was and still am: An underdog.

Depending on how much fuel I have, this post may or may not extend beyond Part 1.

Will the real Yoshitsune please stand up? (not literally FYI)

The legend of Minamoto no Yoshitsune has always been universal knowledge among the Japanese. When it comes to the sources of his legendary feats (no Dan-no-Ura pun intended), three titles come to mind: Azuma Kagami, Heike Monogatari, and Gikeiki.

Azuma Kagami was the official historical record of the Kamakura shogunate from Minamoto no Yoritomo's war against the Taira clan until the middle of the 13th century of Imperial Prince Munetaka's arrival at Kyoto on July 20, 1266, who was a retired shogun expelled from Kamakura. (Source: NOT Wikipedia).

As for Heike Monogatari, it's an epic account of the Genpei War. Split into three parts, each part has its own protagonist. Taira no Kiyomori in Part 1, Minamoto no Yoshinaka in Part 2, and Minamoto no Yoshitsune in Part 3.

Lastly, Gikeiki was where we got much of the romanticised Yoshistune from. This also means we can easily guess from where most embellishment and positive PR hailed from.

Before I continue, let me point out that much of Yoshitsune's life was unable to be verified. But there seemed to be two versions of him:

 

1. The heroic version we're all familiar with.

 

2. The anti-heroic version that was further roided by Hirano "Jigoku no Kouta" Kouta and more realistically portrayed by Suda "he's really Taisho"  Masaki in Kamakura-dono no Jūsan-nin (don't ask me why it's written as 鎌倉殿の13人 instead of 鎌倉殿の十三人).

 

For point 2, at least that's how I interpreted his rage scene since I watched it off Youtube with no subtitles and zero understanding of spoken Japanese. Speaking of that show, it's quite surprising to see Evan "he answered NHK's call" Call being the second non-Japanese to compose the music for a Taiga drama due to his age of 33. The first person who did that was John "he's a composer, not a preacher" Graham for Kirin ga Kuru and the dude was already 89 back then. Credit to Saitama no Randy for telling me there's a seniority culture in Japan. I hope he and his waifu are currently fine in Saitama.

One interesting snippet of information that may (or may not) tell us whether the real Yoshitsune was more of an anti-hero came from this site. Further confirming this was Daily Mail. If you click the CIA link, however, you'll enter the Realm of 404. Nevertheless, I never expected a British tabloid to pull this off. Yes, the British tabloid culture is good at stuff like whether Prince William has truly fallen out with Prince Harry. But to tell the entire world that Minamoto no Yoshitsune was the OG of shinobi culture and said, "because the CIA said so"? That's baffling. I wonder what the likes of Lloyd "not from Texas" Austin and Ben "he decided not to bend for Trump" Sasse would say about this.

If (and that's a very big IF) the British tabloid wasn't bluffing us, Yoshitsune's identity as a proto-ninja would point towards the possibility of the anti-heroic image instead of the idealised Samurai Prince Charming we're used to seeing. The reason is that the code of bushido clearly forbade the usage of black ops. Any samurai who did so would have dishonoured his clan. Believe it or not, the idea of honour is still very real in Japan today where you don't have to be the PAP to sue another person for libel. In the olden days, there could only be one ending for those who dishonoured their clan: Seppuku.

But not so for commoners. After all, they didn't belong to the nobility. This meant two things:

1. They didn't have the privilege of the elite.

2. They could do things the elite can't. Like performing black ops.

If (again, that's a very big IF) Yoshitsune was a ninja, that'd mean he had to resort to some questionable tactics to get things done. At the same time, it's natural to assume a ninja would be more pragmatic than a samurai due to the no-rules logic. Interestingly, official records of ninja activities were only present starting from the Sengoku era. However, the wording made it very clear that the concept of shinobi had already evolved into organisations instead of the common rabble many members of the aristocracy would look down on. To have an idea of the situation, the Sengoku era was officially dated 1467-1615 while the history of black ops in Japan happened as early as the 6th century AD. To put things in (speculative) perspective, the Genpei War happened during the 12th century AD. Theoretically speaking, Yoshitsune might have a certain knowledge of the shinobi arts as we know them now. Whether that qualified him as the OG of shinobi culture remains another issue altogether.

 

 

To be continued...