Forum - View topicShelf Life - Sword in the Stranger
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nobinobita
Posts: 75 |
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Thanks for the response! As far as the main antagonist being Chinese or not, I think it's clear that although he was ethnically of European origins, he found a home in Ming China. I'm basing this off of how the Japanese see his blonde hair and say "oh these Chinese have a foreigner with them", but the Ming themselves never refer to him as such, he's just one of them. He has a Chinese name, speaks Mandarin and seems very comfortable with his comrades. Although he does speak Chinese with an accent, I'm not sure if this was intentional, because some of the other Chinese characters also had Japanese accents when they spoke in Mandarin. Basically, although he looks superficially different from his comrades, he is comfortable with himself and they value him based on his abilities. You could say they are using him, but they still treat him with respect and acceptance. This contrasts with the no name swordsman who must hide his hair color and is a stranger everywhere he goes. He's viewed with suspicion by everyone, except from the little Kid, who is also a loner who doesn't fit in with Chinese or Japanese society. This is what I liked about the movie. It primarily delivered on AWESOME action, but it also has enough substance that the characters don't fall apart under scrutiny, and the themes come out well when you think about it. Oh also, as far as non traditionally east Asian Chinese go, there are many. China's a big country, and throughout a good deal of its history its been fairly open to foreigners. China has been trading with the middle east, south east asia and Africa for centuries. The last king of Persia is buried in China, and many Chinese are of middle eastern descent. There's even a small segment of the population in Shanghai that's of Jewish descent. China is one of the few countries that never gave the Jews a hard time. Many of them settled in China hundreds of years ago (according to a Jewish history teacher I had in middle school--i wish i could spend the time to find documentation for this). And more recently, during WWII China was one of the only countries that accepted Jewish immigrants without question or limits. This is not very well known, but its well documented: http://www.gluckman.com/ShanghaiJewsChina.html As for more fair haired ethnic Chinese, you will find lots of people that fit that description along the borders of China. There's alot of Chinese with lighter, reddish or dirty blondish hair and lighter, more auburn colored eyes, particularly among the muslim population, and especially on the borders with the middle east. There's alot of ethnic and cultural overlap in those areas. For instance, lots of Afghanis are of east Asian descent. In fact, I thought maybe the no name swordsman in Sword of the Stranger might be from one of these areas, given the particular shade of his hair and his eyes, though I think they've intentionally left him very ethnically vague so that he's just a stranger with no definite origin. Heh, I hope I haven't gone on too long, but cross cultural pollination and animation are two of my favorite subjects and its rare that I get to talk about both! |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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INS Division 6
 Subscriber Posts: 91 Location: Philadelphia Area, PA |
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Baccano was a nice series that ended very well. But does anyone remember the scene in the first episode, where Isaac gets cut on the ear by an unknown woman, and he is astonished when it heals right away. And in the backround is Jacuzzi and his gang and Chane and some other unknown people. I guess this would take place after everything we've seen in the series because Jacuzzi and gang didn't know about the immortals during the events of the Flying Pussyfoot. But are we to believe that Isaac and Miria had no idea they were immortal during the Flying Pussyfoot massacre? Or is this a hint that there may be another series down the road?
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nightjuan
 Posts: 1473 |
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I believe that's meant to be a scene from one of the other Baccano! novels, but there's really no indication of an anime sequel at this point. Which is unfortunate yet also fairly appropriate, given the kind of story we have here. |
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ANN_Bamboo
ANN Contributor
 Posts: 3904 Location: CO |
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I think it's made fairly clear that the blonde is a foreign mercenary is with the Ming army presumably because they offered him the right price. He shows disdain for Japan while he's there, but I get the impression that he thinks the Chinese aren't entirely all there either. You can see that in the scene when he's telling the priest to just use anybody's blood, because it's obvious that he doesn't respect their mysticism, or care. And although I didn't mention this in the review, when I said that he spoke Chinese with an accent, what I left out was that he spoke Chinese like a Westerner. (Note, there are some Westerners who speak Mandarin really well, but I'm speaking mostly of Westerners who aren't used to the tonality of Mandarin, who are speaking the language very... flatly.) For the most part, the other actors spoke their Mandarin fairly well, especially for non-native speakers. Things were a little exaggerated at times, almost like they were carefully mimicking tones to make it sound as authentic as possible, but the blonde character straight-up chopped it out like a Westerner. I don't know whether or not he considered himself a Chinese national, though, since he even had a Chinese name and spoke the language. One would think that if he was simply a visiting mercenary, there for a quick buck, he'd insist on using his Western name. It's hard to tell what the creators were going for with him, but he is definitely very different from NoName, who didn't have a nationality at all. |
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Ranma824
 Posts: 456 |
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Putting aside the obligatory ANN agenda of "bash the harem/moe show"...
What the heck is Enoki Films USA anyway? Looking at the Izumo page, it says "licensed by Enoki Films". Looking at the Enoki page, (and their own website) it lists shows that have been licensed by other companies. (Slayers, Lost Universe, Gakuen Alice, etc.) So that's my confusion - even if they licensed these shows way back when, can they still list them as "their" shows? Is it similar to what KPUSA does with its licensed shows? (I've never seen a "licensed by Enoki, distributed by FUNi" press release before) What does this company do? Any clarification would be appreciated. |
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Gilles Poitras
Posts: 476 Location: Oakland California |
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As for the blond swordsman. I don't recall anything in the story indicating he was a mercenary. I'll have to watch the show again to see if there is any such indication.
As for the Japanese samurai in the show being greedy bastards such is a traditional representation of samurai in Japanese cinema going back to the silent period. A few noble, often marginalized, samurai but those with power being arrogant bullies is pretty common. After all this story is set in the Sengoku Jidai when battles to grab more power and territory were pretty common. This is a fun one that I recommend. |
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ANN_Bamboo
ANN Contributor
Posts: 3904 Location: CO |
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Hmm, you may be right about this. I had just figured that because he openly advocated lying about the boy's blood, that he didn't believe in the ritual at all, and was only there for the money. Though thinking back on it, hearing the other soldiers talk say, "If we don't find him, we'll be stuck here another year" makes me think that they may have all been of a similar mindset. However, I do think that he was foreign-born, and not simply a fair-skinned, blond Chinese national, because he was speaking Chinese with a distinct Western accent. I think that was intentional, because the other actors went out of their way to nail the tonalities. |
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sepherest
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I believe it's from two books in the series called The Slash, since spoiler[characters that appear in that scene, such as Adel, Maria, Tack, Jacuzzi, and Dallas are important characters in it.] And from what I heard the anime adaptation didn't do too hot in Japan, so it's not likely there's going to be another. Most new seasons or series are usually announced right after, like with Kuroshitsuji, Hetalia, and Queen's Blade, and if I remember correctly, Baccano! came out in 2007. But you never know, I guess. |
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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Well, every once in a while you get something like Darker Than Black getting a second season announced quite a lot later; if the series is popular enough in America, maybe that might influence them to take a risk on an OVA or something. Personally, I don't want a second season. I doubt they could duplicate the feel of the first in quite the same way. I do want those books, though! |
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Avarice_WP
 Posts: 44 Location: Northrend |
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Thanks for the responses and information on Sword (this actually turned into an interesting topic!). On the point about the blond swordsman not caring about the ritual, I have to say that I don't think his primary motivation was money either. From what I remember, his primary motivation was the ability to challenge himself against the best fighters in the world. He wanted to be the best (Pokemon!), or see where he stood. spoiler[That is why he betrayed the old chinese boss at the end, because he doesn't care about rituals or money (there certainly wasn't any money involved for betraying him)]- he simply wanted to find someone as good as him to fight. Was he a merc? I think so. But I don't think it was money, bloodlust, loyalty, or religion that motivated him. I think it was simply perfection of his craft. He's not a true villain in the movie- very few were, and this dual nature of the characters makes them a little more believeable.
Thanks again for all the information nobinobita. 
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B-503_MIA
 Posts: 149 Location: Green Bay, WI |
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Char's Zaku flashing the "Devil Horns" - LOL
The Hyaku Shiki & the Gyan are 2 of my favorite mobile suits, it's too bad that in Zeta's animation that you don't quite get the fact that the Hyaku Shiki is gold (as in shiny gold - not yellow) but I suppose that would be hard to pull off... |
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bglassbrook
 Posts: 1243 Location: Gaithersburg, MD |
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Gotta say I agree with Bamboo on the placement on Aquarion, but not as much for the weaknesses. Based on the pre-release information and her reviews of the half-sets I expected this to be a fairly bad show. The first episode or two didn't help this much. So I definitely think folks should try it out before making a decision (as opposed to simply being a good practice.)
Luckily I tend to like bad shows and almost never give up on a series once started (though Mushi-shi currently has me sorely tempted.) It really grew on me as the show progressed, the excessive moaning while merging aside, and I'm glad Funi threw it up on demand. Just a matter of getting around to picking up the series set at some point before it turns Viridian. My condolences to Gary on those short wire-sided shelves. It can be convenient to fudge the spacing by nudging the side out to fit a box/case, but the lack of space just does not make up for it. Good luck on the new shelves.
Char likes to rock-out with his Zak(u) out! |
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torinostu351
 Posts: 29 Location: North Carolina, USA |
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You forgot to mention this was the only series in history that could make someone sick of hearing a Yoko Kanno song. Seriously, that annoying shonen crap of playing the theme song everytime the hero pulls out the weapon, or in this case, when the group had a threeway- I mean, merged- I mean, joined . . . oh, whatever. Lame.
4nBlue: After the first episode, I wondered if it was a parody somehow, but the effort put into and the fact it seemed to take itself sooo seriously . . . I just thought it was a sad rip-off.[/quote] |
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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Yes, it's much much better to just download the soundtracks (I don't think they've been released outside of Japan... you could import them or buy them there too) and listen to those rather than watch the show. It's a good soundtrack, but it doesn't redeem the series. |
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