The ambassador’s special power is summoning a canted angle when he clears his throat.
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
Tilted camera equals INSTANT DRAMA.
Breakfast
Perhaps the man from Portugal wasn’t making incorrect assumptions as much as we were all initially led to believe.
John Smith
Uh-oh; this does not look good for our heroes.
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
Ricardo seems the type of guy who expects things to go his way, and tends to just make it so through sheer force of will. Or he just gets real lucky.
charles81
I’m highly doubtful this old and evidently learned Wataro ambassador will not recognise such an important and infamous former member such as Genchu.
It’ll be interesting to see what test he has in mind… And which warriors… Or civilians.
Kasper
He did say “battlefield”. Of course, that concept will likely be defined by the Wataro.
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
It is a slippery slope for Genchu, admittedly. Not gonna lie, the situation may spin out of control!
CaptainBetrayer
And this is why no one ever should let a character roll up a Bayushi. Ever.
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
I know now what a Bayushi is. The internet tells me he’s a fallen lord of some sort from Legend of the Five Rings.
TheMaskedFerret
You should add some Legend of the Five Rings stuff to your reading list. Not that you need it, but you may find a few additional ideas to steal, I mean repurpose.
Thiago Kurovski
Borrow.
Scott Henry
Bayushi is entire family from L5R actually, a family of the Scorpion Clan which is made up of the Bayushi, Shogo and Soshi families. They aren’t evil per say but they dont really follow Bushido and loyalty is far more important to them than honor is.
yomi
Well, honor is one aspect of the bushido, loyality is another…
Scott Henry
And what is so wrong with Bayushi? Also if you knew more about L5R you’d know you probably mean Scorpion clan.
Thiago Kurovski
TEAM COMMERCE PREVAILS!
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
Hooray…!…
IDPounder
“…and then, it’s time for a nice glass of prune juice. And my afternoon nap.”
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
That guy’s way into prune juice and naps, no joke.
Mike
In other news, a Portuguese merchant is suing Genchu’s Translating Services Inc., claiming that he was “deliberately and maliciously mislead.” Genchu representatives declined to comment.
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
We’ll keep you informed with the latest updates, TONIGHT at 11!
IDPounder
I’m not wearing any pants…film at 11.
Scott Henry
It’s a short film. Burn.
joblow
Snakey Wataro… Cho is your destiny.
Bierdigan
It is time for a real world test upon which lives will depend! …a test of these foreign, claimed-to-be-faulty devices that we haven’t been told the true purpose of and also that just appeared in the doorway like five minutes ago. Sorry to be nit-picky, this scene just seemed very quick, and that decision feels kinda sudden.
Jonathan B
Judging by the way the scene reads, the ambassador is using the opportunity that has fallen to him to increase the pressure on Imagawa. Whether the item proves to be a usable weapon or not, he’s making Imagawa sweat and dance through hoops that emphasize the Wataro clan’s power. And if he happens to discover a useful weapon in the process, then it’s a double win for Wataro clan. He’s seen this object destroy a ceiling tile without touching it, after all. He may even oblige Imagawa to demonstrate loyalty by donating the weapons to the Wataro clan. He’s shrewd enough to recognize that applying pressure at this point will come out in his favor most any way it plays out. He even timed his intervention to just the moment when Imagawa thought he’d gotten a hand on the situation, throwing him off balance again.
KungFuKlobber
Agreed, except that the guns aren’t really Imagawa’s to donate.
Jonathan B
A minor detail. Particularly when he has the authority to execute the merchant and sieze them. And either way, it’s not the ambassador’s problem how he acquires them.
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
This is true. All Imagawa has to do is perceive an insult to his honor and he can have the guns taken forcefully and the foriegners executed. That’s practically what went down in Shogun, which was a major inspiration for this arc of the plot and the character of Ricardo.
Jonathan B
The sad thing is, I think I actually own a copy of Shogun but have never actually seen it. That might be because the copy is on Betamax and happened to be an extra in something I bought on Ebay. 😉
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
I don’t know which I’d recommend more, the miniseries or the novel. I’d say both! Although the novel might be more engrossing. As high budget as the miniseries was for its time, the book feels more epic.
Neska
The book is epic.
I’ve read several in the series, but didn’t get around to finishing them all.
Madison Link
And it’s not like Ricardo has been polite by *anyone’s* standards, let alone Japan’s
Bierdigan
That does make a lot more sense, I appreciate the perspective! I guess it was just the decision to immediately take the things (which admittedly I’m sure anyone looking at them could imagine them as weapons, but this is the first time these people have ever seen a gun, and they’ve only been described as faulty for exploding) out to try them in a real-world kind of situation that threw me off, although we don’t know what the ambassador has in mind for that test. But like you said, I’m probably just not giving the old dude enough credit, and maybe he has the foresight just to swing his influence around for any advantage he can possibly take to keep Imagawa under his thumb just because he can.
jwkovell
Jonathan explained it even better than I would have, but I’ll add that explosive weaponry would not have been unheard of at the time – cannon-like explosives predate the arrival of guns, even if they weren’t as common as the additional weapons.
Thiago Kurovski
The ambassador is a cultured man. The thing is clearly some kind of dangerous foreign crossbow without bow… or a miniaturized cannon. Something like that is always appreciated.
627235
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you start an arms race.
