Polygon: Ghost of Tsushima, Kurosawa, and the political myth of the samurai

[hydruxo]

Not really... It's also audio. Some shots during duels also I'd say.

Anyways, GoT doesn't even pretend it's historically accurate. I don't agree at all that it "should investigate and reflect on his [Kurosawa] work". It's not even the real Tsushima we're exploring.

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It's pretty amazing how many people (including several journalists) I've seen misinterpret Kurosawa Mode as just being a black/white filter and nothing else. Same with the claim that this game should be fully historically accurate when they've never aimed for it to be that way.

All it takes is a simple Google search to get more info about it and Sucker Punch put a lot of time into making it feel authentic in terms of matching up the visuals and audio to match 50's samurai films. Sucker Punch even explicitly said that is is not just a black/white filter.

Kurosawa Mode info: https://ew.com/gaming/ghost-of-tsushima-akira-kurosawa-estate-cinematic-mode/

It's not just a black-and-white filter, Connell clarifies. "We actually did some research on the curves that may have existed on that kind of film that [Kurosawa] might've used."

It proved difficult to translate that directly into a game like Ghost of Tsushima with current film-mapping technology, so Connell took various black-and-white samurai films and analyzed scenes from various times of day and weather conditions to track "how deep were the blacks? How bright were the whites?"

For final touches, the team added a film grain to make the mode appear as though it had just emerged from the age of Kurosawa, as well as an increased wind function. In Ghost of Tsushima, the wind serves as the player's navigational tool; Jin actually follows the wind to find his next destination. In the Kurosawa Mode, the wind is "cranked up," says Connell. "And lastly," he adds, "we actually toyed with the audio a little bit. Our audio team have an internal tool that mimicked sounds of old TV and, specifically, megaphones, radios, TVs back to the '50s." It all makes for a game with the feel of theatrical entertainment.

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Not trying to be fully historically accurate and how Sucker Punch looked at it (2018 article): https://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-ghost-of-tsuhima-balances-fact-versus-fiction/1100-6460128/

The way I think about it is: we're going to deviate from historical truth, we just want to do it intentionally. A lot of the support we get from our friends from Sony in Japan, and our Japanese friends in Sony US, and all the cultural consultants we've assembled to help us do this stuff, is to make sure we don't deviate accidentally. There are things we are going to do that are different and we want to choose those wisely.

There are places where we're really pretty true, right? Like if we're putting birds in the game, they're Japanese birds. Brad Meyer, our sound lead, took a trip to Japan to capture the actual sounds of things in nature… It's an awesome game to work on because it lets us do this cool stuff. So, stuff like that is going to be perfect, like the statues that you see in the temple, in the demo, those are actual 13th-century statues.

And then there are things where, well, there's some stuff where the consultants help us not make mistakes. If anyone asked that question, I probably gave the example of us rewriting that scene, with Jin and Masako, when they meet. Originally we wrote it as, "Hello, Jin." Ryuhei, our producer, said, "Yeah, Japanese people don't say that. She would just say, 'Jin.'" Little stuff like that, just to make sure that if you're a Japanese speaker or if you're Japanese, you don't snag on stuff.

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If you have an idea about what samurai look like or how they act or how they think we're going to give that to you. Most people's idea is really based on an idea of samurai which is really more of a 16th-, 17th-, 18th-century idea of samurai; 13th century, historically, is pretty different. In terms of how they fought, what they wore, it doesn't match your expectations. So we're not sticking exactly to the historical truth of Kamakura-era samurai. It's gonna be a little different. The armor that you see him wear, it's not 13th century armor. It's more warring states period armor. Because, honestly, the 13th century armor is pretty jarring looking, it's not what you'd expect. It's really boxy. It doesn't look aspirational. And we wanna make sure that what we give you is your fantasy of what being a wandering samurai is.

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At the end of the day, this is a game that puts you in the power fantasy of being a samurai. It was never trying to be 100% historically accurate.

 

[Deleted member 7462]

I think that's a bit short sighted. I especially think of the state-funded Cool Japan initiative, in which promotes japanese pop cultural products. Billfisto made a good point about why it's important what's the content of these media productions. Pop culture is part of politics. While the game is not a Japanese production, it sells an image of Japan that is in sync with the current (right wing, nationalist) political party in power.
Short overview of Cool Japan from wikipedia, check the sources for more:

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I mean, the Japanese goverment working hard to make NHK available and easy to watch in the U.S. is an example of this.

But as an ignorant American, I can reject Shinzo Abe's politics, which in fact are garbage, and still play this as the samurai western that it most pegs to in my own American pop culture experience without having to think much more about it.

Which is not to say that it doesn't carry imperialist or nationalist implications! It's just to say that it does indeed hit differently for me as an American, ultimately, because I'm most focused on the parallels to the gunslinger mythology of the Wild Wild West as opposed to thinking about how this is a positive reinforcement of modern Japanese nationalism.

 

[Aureon]

I mean, i thought everyone knew that the whole Samurai thing was the japanese equivalent of the whole Knight thing?

 

[Ailanthium]

I don't see why including a "Kurosawa Mode" means that the game has to emulate the substance of his works, when the fact that it's a mostly visual setting (and one that makes it more difficult to play the game...) implies that it's meant to be taken only as an homage to his style. I wouldn't mind a more nuanced and critical take on the culture of the samurai but frankly speaking I don't think that's something a Western dev should really attempt.

 

[4Tran]

This is a fantastic article, and it does a great job of laying out the problems with the depiction in "Ghost" and why they happened. The biggest problem is that it's trying to emulate the look and the mystique of Kurosawa films without truly understanding what they're about and what they're saying. Kurosawa was fully aware of what the samurai were like and he crafted his films to portray the difference between that and how they were popularly thought of by the Japanese themselves. Remember that these films came out right after World War II when Japan was waking up from its Bushido insanity so he knew very well what he was doing. Sucker Punch doesn't share this context so their portrayal can only be highly lacking.

I mean, i thought everyone knew that the whole Samurai thing was the japanese equivalent of the whole Knight thing?

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But they're not. Or rather, they're very different from the popular concept of what Medieval knights were like. The only reason we think of them like that was because of a book a Japanese writer invented back in 1900.

I don't see why including a "Kurosawa Mode" means that the game has to emulate the substance of his works, when the fact that it's a mostly visual setting (and one that makes it more difficult to play the game...) implies that it's meant to be taken only as an homage to his style. I wouldn't mind a more nuanced and critical take on the culture of the samurai but frankly speaking I don't think that's something a Western dev should really attempt.

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The problem is that the game is totally missing the point so it ends up feeling very tone deaf.

 

[TickleMeElbow]

I mean, the Japanese goverment working hard to make NHK available and easy to watch in the U.S. is an example of this.

But as an ignorant American, I can reject Shinzo Abe's politics, which in fact are garbage, and still play this as the samurai western that it most pegs to in my own American pop culture experience without having to think much more about it.

Which is not to say that it doesn't carry imperialist or nationalist implications! It's just to say that it does indeed hit differently for me as an American, ultimately, because I'm most focused on the parallels to the gunslinger mythology of the Wild Wild West as opposed to thinking about how this is a positive reinforcement of modern Japanese nationalism.

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I'm Japanese and I'm not getting the Imperialism or Nationalism from this game at all.....so far at least (still in act one).

I mean the Mongols are invading so of course they're gonna be all "FOR TSUSHIMAAAAA!!!!" lol.

The whole "honor" thing is pretty corny, but other than that it's just been a classic "hero's tale" type thing.

 

[Aureon]

But they're not. Or rather, they're very different from the popular concept of what Medieval knights were like. The only reason we think of them like that was because of a book a Japanese writer invented back in 1900.

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I meant in the sense of "Highly idolized post-mortem, but were actually enforcers of violent oppression in their time"
There's of course a whole slew of differences, but the core of both roles is "Violent oppressors as paragons of moral standing"

 

[c bweezie]

Not really... It's also audio. Some shots during duels also I'd say.

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It's a double entendre I think. You got that and are just being cheeky, right?

 

[cubotauro]

Maybe it's just me, but there's no way anyone that finished this game came out thinking that it was a story in favor of Japan's Imperialism.

And the game it's called Ghost of Tsushima not Samurai of Tsushima. You definetly play the fantasy of being a katana wielding badass but that's it.

I know the story of the game isn't super nuanced, but I thought that much was clear.

 

[Deleted member 46958]

Tsushima was created by Western developers, and I do wonder had this been worked on by Japanese devs, it if would have been deeper than surface-level.

The game is incredible, but it absolutely romanticizes Samurai and, yes, runs as a classic hero's narrative.

 

[4Tran]

I meant in the sense of "Highly idolized post-mortem, but were actually enforcers of violent oppression in their time"
There's of course a whole slew of differences, but the core of both roles is "Violent oppressors as paragons of moral standing"

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I think that one big difference is that people don't take knights seriously any more. Even people who mythologize them will readily admit that their ideals are way out of date. The same isn't true of the samurai. Remember that bushido is an invention that only dates back to 1900 and it was the primary philosophy behind Japanese politics up until the end of World War II, and that tons of modern Japanese politicians and leaders still idolize that period. Another big difference is that the knight myth started in the Medieval period so it at least has some bearing in reality while the samurai myth we know and love is basically fictional.

Tsushima was created by Western developers, and I do wonder had this been worked on by Japanese devs, it if would have been deeper than surface-level.

The game is incredible, but it absolutely romanticizes Samurai.

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I don't think that it would necessarily have been that different. Tons of modern Japanese don't really care about history or historiography. That's the kind of stuff they were forced to memorize in high school and that they could safely forget afterwards. Historical Japanese shows and films (like the Taiga dramas) still get made today but only old people watch them.

Even so, I'd imagine that the Japanese will be able to understand the difference between 13th century samurai and Sengoku samurai or the Shinsengumi. So at the very least, I'd imagine that this hypothetical game would have been less tone deaf.

 

[Richiek]

I think it's pretty ridiculous how in the game Jin is so opposed to stealth killing instead of facing foes head on since it's goes against the bushido code of honor and they even trigger a flashback cut scene after your first stealth kill driving the point home, and then I immediately kill an entire group of Mongols by sneaking up and slitting their throats from behind without any self reflection from Jin.

 

[noyram23]

I don't see why including a "Kurosawa Mode" means that the game has to emulate the substance of his works, when the fact that it's a mostly visual setting (and one that makes it more difficult to play the game...) implies that it's meant to be taken only as an homage to his style. I wouldn't mind a more nuanced and critical take on the culture of the samurai but frankly speaking I don't think that's something a Western dev should really attempt.

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This is my take as well and to be fair they aren't selling this an 'authentic' samurai story, it's even closer to the mystical element of AC Origin and sequels.

 

[RedSwirl]

I read this article a while ago, and historical accuracy isn't really the point it's trying to make. The point it's trying to make is that the story seems to go really hard on the whole "honor" and "Bushido" thing, when those things are 1) modern inventions, 2) not reflected in Kurosawa's movies at all, and 3) an ideological tool used by imperial Japan and the political right in Japan today.

What I find odd is that the Bushido code seems to mostly show up in American depictions of the samurai. The Japanese depictions I've seen (admittedly just chanbara movies and a few anime) don't touch on Bushido at all. From what I can tell, modern Japanese storytellers mostly depict the samurai as a bunch of pragmatic aristocratic warlords constantly jockeying for power, and sometimes disillusioned ronin.

What I've seen of Tsushima so far feels thematically closer to The Last Samurai than any Kurosawa movie. And on the subject of Kurosawa, at least visually, the main touchstones for the game probably should have been Kagemusha and Ran -- Kurosawa's final two and arguably most critically acclaimed samurai epics, which were both shot in color.

I mean, Tsushima looks and plays dope as shit but...

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

Did the game ever present itself as being historically accurate and realistic? Seemed like some parts were loosely inspired by Akira Kurosawa film and not much more than that. Being a videogame character in game-ified historical battles is an interesting setting, and thankfully this is not just Storming-Normandy-Beach the 10th time in a big game.

 

[Aureon]

I think it's pretty ridiculous how in the game Jin is so opposed to stealth killing instead of facing foes head on since it's goes against the bushido code of honor and they even trigger a flashback cut scene after your first stealth kill driving the point home, and then I immediately kill an entire group of Mongols by sneaking up and slitting their throats from behind without any self reflection from Jin.

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Selective Condemnation - TV Tropes

Mainly a video game trope due to Gameplay and Story Segregation. This is where one specific death/murder is treated as far more dire than the others, despite the circumstances meaning there should be little difference from others considering the …

tvtropes.org

It's so common it's a meme, at this point

 

[Nyarlah]

I didn't take GoT as a history piece, and I don't think it's supposed to be one. There's a difference between inspiration and recreation. The game has no obligation to explore the cultural evolution of the meaning behind "samurai", and how it is used and misused nowadays. Do we really need to find something culturally wrong with absolutely everything that comes out ?

 

[Ailanthium]

The problem is that the game is totally missing the point so it ends up feeling very tone deaf.

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The game, as far as I'm aware, never claims to be authentic to the writing of Kurosawa's films; it's impossible to tell whether or not they understand his works because they're not strictly trying to copy them. 'Kurosawa Mode' is an audiovisual setting that allows players to capture cool-looking duels, and I think seeing it as anything more than that is missing the point.

 

[Doukou]

Unfortunately history is very easy to whitewash, just look at how much princesses/princes, nobility knights, birthine stuff are used in western media without any critique.
Hell the OP has a noble prince as his avatar

 

[4Tran]

The game, as far as I'm aware, never claims to be authentic to the writing of Kurosawa's films; it's impossible to tell whether or not they understand his works because they're not strictly trying to copy them. 'Kurosawa Mode' is an audiovisual setting that allows players to capture cool-looking duels, and I think seeing it as anything more than that is missing the point.

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The problem is that the game doesn't really care.

 

[Chaos2Frozen]

I think it's pretty ridiculous how in the game Jin is so opposed to stealth killing instead of facing foes head on since it's goes against the bushido code of honor and they even trigger a flashback cut scene after your first stealth kill driving the point home, and then I immediately kill an entire group of Mongols by sneaking up and slitting their throats from behind without any self reflection from Jin.

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Do you really want that to happen every time?

Besides, the second time is always easier and you can self reflect in the hot springs later.

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

Unfortunately history is very easy to whitewash, just look at how much princesses/princes, nobility knights, birthine stuff are used in western media without any critique.
Hell the OP has a noble prince as his avatar

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Western historical media but you're talking about fantasy anime avatars? Tbh in games its probably more likely you'd see depictions of corrupt and ignoble monarchies.

 

[Doukou]

Western historical media but you're talking about fantasy anime avatars? Tbh in games its probably more likely you'd see depictions of corrupt and ignoble monarchies.

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A fantasy anime with castles, knights, princes, nobles and bloodlines etc. I'm not saying it's 'awful' or deserves not to exist but it's definitely white washing and using historically awful things as a positive window dressing which is similar to GoT

 

[N64Controller]

Tsushima was created by Western developers, and I do wonder had this been worked on by Japanese devs, it if would have been deeper than surface-level.

The game is incredible, but it absolutely romanticizes Samurai and, yes, runs as a classic hero's narrative.

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I pretty much know squat about samurai (like the vast majority of people in this thread), and I came out of the game thinking they were short-sighted and oblivious to the real dangers. And that they're absolutely ready to sacrifice whoever is necessary if it's to preserve "honor", but even their honor wasn't shown to me as the actual good thing to do.

It's not like the Shogun and his samurai are painted as these great heroes ready to defend their constituants and doing the good thing over and over again.

 

[TickleMeElbow]

I think that one big difference is that people don't take knights seriously any more. Even people who mythologize them will readily admit that their ideals are way out of date. The same isn't true of the samurai. Remember that bushido is an invention that only dates back to 1900 and it was the primary philosophy behind Japanese politics up until the end of World War II, and that tons of modern Japanese politicians and leaders still idolize that period. Another big difference is that the knight myth started in the Medieval period so it at least has some bearing in reality while the samurai myth we know and love is basically fictional.

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I think it's odd to say people don't take Knights seriously, when people in England still get "Knighted" lol. Also, Nationalist groups use Knight/Spartan/Viking ideologies and symbolism all the time. I really don't see why you're so against comparing the Samurai myth of honor to Knights and chivalry.

And just because people in the west have a better understanding of what knights, Spartans, vikings, etc were actually like, doesn't mean people from other places do. Like, European Knights are HEAVILY romanticized in Japan as well.

Also, Japan has been romanticizing and deifying their warriors for all of history. It's not like it started with Bushido. And while Bushido specifically is a more recent interpretation, Samurai throughout history have had various rules, codes, and ethics that they were expected to follow. Whether they actually followed them is a different issue lol.

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

A fantasy anime with castles, knights, princes, nobles and bloodlines etc.

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I mean you seem to enjoy Gundam? The political commentary in that IP is a bit mixed and utterly contrary to how cool the mecha are depicted as, while people collect and build expensive models of war machines.

 

[Doukou]

I mean you seem to enjoy Gundam? The political commentary in that IP is a bit mixed and utterly contrary to how cool the mecha are depicted as, while people collect and build expensive models of war machines.

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But what does that have to with white washing the past and using it superficially?
If you want to make a point about how capitalism can betray the spirit of the work than go ahead I guess.
Again I'm not saying Fire Emblem is bad for this but making a joke about how prevalent white washing the past is.

 

[shem]

I dunno the main issue I take with "Romanticizing the samurai legacy" is like....the actual content of the story and how the story ends...don't particularly want to spoil it here.

 

[N64Controller]

I dunno the main issue I take with "Romanticizing the samurai legacy" is like....the actual content of the story and how the story ends...don't particularly want to spoil it here.

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Can't really join a thread like this without expecting to be spoiled. At this point it's on them if they are.

 

[4Tran]

I think it's odd to say people don't take Knights seriously, when people in England still get "Knighted" lol. Also, Nationalist groups use Knight/Spartan/Viking ideologies and symbolism all the time. I really don't see why you're so against comparing the Samurai myth of honor to Knights and chivalry.

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Sure, those groups use the symbology of knights, but they don't actually care about the Chivalric code, much less live up to it. Hell, most people don't even know what the Chivalric code is. The problem with making a direct comparison is that it's overly reductive. It commits the same sin that Ghost does in that it doesn't care what the samurai are, how they're used politically, and even what Kurosawa said about them.

And just because people in the west have a better understanding of what knights, Spartans, vikings, etc were actually like, doesn't mean people from other places do. Like, European Knights are HEAVILY romanticized in Japan as well.

Also, Japan has been romanticizing and deifying their warriors for all of history. It's not like it started with Bushido. And while Bushido specifically is a more recent interpretation, Samurai throughout history have had various rules, codes, and ethics that they were expected to follow. Whether they actually followed them is a different issue lol.

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Sure, the samurai were mythologized in the past, but Sucker Punch didn't care about those depictions either.

 

[Bish_Bosch]

This is sort of a myopic view though? Obviously there is reactionary samurai media but there are plenty of examples of left wing samurai media with Oshima's Taboo being a great example. And even Kurosawa is by no means right wing. So it seems weird to declare samurai media as uniquely fraught politically.

 

[Nanashrew]

A few months back I watched a video talking about authentic Sekiro was. The video creator felt that Sekiro actually had a fairly accurate depiction of samurai because he stressed that at the time, samurai were just soldiers and they'd be willing to fight using whatever tools or tactics they had on hand. That included ganging up on one individual like what happens in Sekiro. It was only much later did samurai become viewed as an honorable profession.

But yeah, many samurai were probably huge assholes just like knights or any other soldiers from any time period really.

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There's plenty of documentaries on Samurai on how rude and cutthroat they could be. You dare not insult or bump into a Samurai on the streets lest you wanted to lose your head. Even something like Samurai Champloo depicts Samurai like that and how awful they could be as if they were owed things just because of their class.

Fun fact, Samurai would more often have stuff like shuriken and spikes, not Ninja, because Ninja were made up of poor people and farmers, and iron was a very expensive material. Not to mention carrying spikes or shuriken around would be bad for a Ninja because of the loud jingling they'd make from just walking.

 

[TheZynster]

The game isn't nearly as positive about the samurai as people suggest. I could see how someone might be under that impression very early on in the game but not as you continue playing it.

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its not...........by the end you loathe them honestly

by the end you only want to save Tsushima at all costs, fuck the code

 

[Bradford]

after getting a degree in japanese and taking more classes on samurai and japanese history than I can count, I always feel really weird consuming samurai media.

as one of my professors in Japan stated, "Samurai weren't all noble warriors. Most of them were smelly accountants."

 

[Eeyore]

I dunno the main issue I take with "Romanticizing the samurai legacy" is like....the actual content of the story and how the story ends...don't particularly want to spoil it here.

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Spoiler: End game

At the end of the game Jin is no longer a samurai and no longer owns land. He also considers the samurai and the shogun to have failed to protect the people of the island because of their misguided sense of honor. While I understand the criticism that there are scenes that glorify the samurai, and they absolutely could have chosen to concentrate more on an inciting incident that wasn't some silly 'you aren't honorable' nonsense, I just don't see how the player character basically saying "the samurai failed the people of Tsushima and I'd rather not be one if this is what happens" as the conclusion of the story doesn't at least bite into this criticism. Now the game seems a bit inconsistent about this because directly before this conversation, Jin has another conversation with his uncle about his uncle's worries about people following Jin and not the shogunate and Jin reassuring him he wouldn't allow that.

 

[Whales]

A major part of the game is Jin realising the samurai way is bullshit and build up from the start

Wtf are you talking about?

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the person you quoted either didnt play the game at all or maybe played like the first 20 minutes. lol

 

[endlessflood]

It's pretty amazing how many people (including several journalists) I've seen misinterpret Kurosawa Mode as just being a black/white filter and nothing else. Same with the claim that this game should be fully historically accurate when they've never aimed for it to be that way.

All it takes is a simple Google search to get more info about it and Sucker Punch put a lot of time into making it feel authentic in terms of matching up the visuals and audio to match 50's samurai films. Sucker Punch even explicitly said that is is not just a black/white filter.

Kurosawa Mode info: https://ew.com/gaming/ghost-of-tsushima-akira-kurosawa-estate-cinematic-mode/



Not trying to be fully historically accurate and how Sucker Punch looked at it (2018 article): https://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-ghost-of-tsuhima-balances-fact-versus-fiction/1100-6460128/




At the end of the day, this is a game that puts you in the power fantasy of being a samurai. It was never trying to be 100% historically accurate.

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Your post was a great read, thanks.

 

[Prolepro]

This is sort of a myopic view though? Obviously there is reactionary samurai media but there are plenty of examples of left wing samurai media with Oshima's Taboo being a great example. And even Kurosawa is by no means right wing. So it seems weird to declare samurai media as uniquely fraught politically.

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Harakiri (1962) by Masaki Kobayashi (one of my favorite films of all time) is a straight up polemic against traditionalist dogma and the myth of bushido. It's an INCREDIBLY engaging movie, even by modern standards.

It's also fucking gorgeous:

 

[Bish_Bosch]

Harakiri (1962) by Masaki Kobayashi (one of my favorite films of all time) is a straight up polemic against traditionalist dogma and the myth of bushido. It's an INCREDIBLY engaging movie, even by modern standards.

It's also fucking gorgeous:

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Good choice! Also Shinoda'cs filmography is packed with politically consciou samurai and genre films. I think Polygon probably would have needed to bring in someone with s more robust knowledge of Japanese film history if they really wanted to make this sort of piece work.

 

[entrydenied]

The game, SP and Sony seems pretty happy to use historical events and Kurosawa's name for its story and marketing so I think discussing it in relation to both real life history and the depiction of Samurai in Japanese cinema (Kurosawa in particular) is more than fair.

It's not even a dig, it's just critique of a piece of art. Doesn't mean it's not a good game.

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Yup. I think for articles and critiques such as these, notions of a piece of work being good or bad, like they are discussed in reviews, should be discarded. There are reasons why critiques and reviews are different but gamers and the general media consuming population sometimes don't get that.

 

[4Tran]

Fun fact, Samurai would more often have stuff like shuriken and spikes, not Ninja, because Ninja were made up of poor people and farmers, and iron was a very expensive material. Not to mention carrying spikes or shuriken around would be bad for a Ninja because of the loud jingling they'd make from just walking.

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And counter to popular belief, the samurai loved firearms and would build enormous numbers of them to equip their armies during the Sengoku period.

Yup. I think for articles and critiques such as these, notions of a piece of work being good or bad, like they are discussed in reviews, should be discarded. There are reasons why critiques and reviews are different but gamers and the general media consuming population sometimes don't get that.

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Yeah, the question of what the game does and does not do are far more interesting than whether it's good or bad.

 

[Mechaplum]

Man, suddenly everyone's woke to the myth of the Samurai now lmao.

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This is fucking annoying, lol.

 

[Mechaplum]

I actually made a tweet about this very thing because I couldn't stop thinking about it every time uncle Shimura opened his mouth.


And that's without even mentioning how "shinobi" doesn't even really mean "ninja warrior" (pretty sure Ghost of Tsushima got this right, I remember "shinobi" coming up several times when discussing thieves and stealth).

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Shinobi just means actions from shadows. Ninja warrior is wholly created for entertainment in the 18th-19th century and yes GoT used it right.

The kunai were mostly used to dig or as equipment to scale buildings, they were not thrown at enemies unless as an act of desperation. You know what is the "ninja"'s best weapon? Running and hiding.

 

[MegaSackman]

I watched the interview that came with the deluxe edition and the game while it takes liberties from different eras it's based on the Kawakura period which seems to be previous to those that movies use to focus on.

Apparently it's then when samurais where a bit more strict about the code.

 

[ArchStanton]

Having an American developer "well, actually"-ing Japanese national myths wouldn't be a great look either, and would have led to far more scathing thinkpieces than this one.

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Yup. Imagine the Polygon article had Sucker Punch done exactly that.

 

[Mechaplum]

I watched the interview that came with the deluxe edition and the game while it takes liberties from different eras it's based on the Kawakura period which seems to be previous to those that movies use to focus on.

Apparently it's then when samurais where a bit more strict about the code.

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It's set during the Kamakura period yes but takes lots of liberties from the sengoku period in terms of weapons, armor and the way warlords act.

 

[Stone Cold]

This is stupid, to expect an artist to accurately represent in full-color the characters they create stories with is to both handcuff them and the viewer/player to this linear world in which creativity and originality is shat on by ethical standards which should never apply to a purely entertainment medium in the first place. Can we not enjoy the glorification of a long-extinct class of people without having to remind ourselves that they weren't good people? We know this

 

[Nocturno]

For me the perfect samurai is Auron with haste from FFX. Historical accuracy or not :P

 

[Deleted member 35509]

I don't know shit about samurais other than the fact that they're cool as shit. Not sure when historical accuracy was a priority for a VIDEO GAME essentially made to make you feel like a badass samurai lmao.

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Samurai used to have sex with very young boys who wanted to also grow into being servants for the shogun. It was accepted at the time but Japanese history books have mostly cut this out along with how samurai themselves were really treated and somewhat manipulated through an honor code.

I've never glorified the appeal of them as they're nothing like what we see in the majority of fiction but I respect Kurosawa's usage of them for story.

Critique of this game is absolutely allowed in any form of course but this game doesn't pretend to be anything but a fun action game with a Japanese setting. They repeated many times that they worked with a Japanese team overseas so as to not offend Japanese people nor embarrass themselves. A lot of care was taken to make a simple story to have fun in. There is no actual politics in the game, the viewer just makes it so.

The theme of samurai arrogance is VERY lighthearted in this and as such, shows Sucker Punch understands this is a game. Gameplay comes first, an entertaining story second.

 

[TickleMeElbow]

Sure, those groups use the symbology of knights, but they don't actually care about the Chivalric code, much less live up to it. Hell, most people don't even know what the Chivalric code is. The problem with making a direct comparison is that it's overly reductive. It commits the same sin that Ghost does in that it doesn't care what the samurai are, how they're used politically, and even what Kurosawa said about them.

Sure, the samurai were mythologized in the past, but Sucker Punch didn't care about those depictions either.

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Well the Japanese aren't living up to "Bushido" either lol. It's like you think Japanese people are exceptional in their romanticizing of Samurai as opposed to any other cultures and their warriors. I think the comparison was originally made because this game seems to be catching heat for it more than other games that do the same thing, and your argument seems to be "well people take the samurai more seriously". That may be true in the west, however I grew up in both Japan and the US and the mythologizing of Samurai in Japanese media is about the same as the mythologizing of Knights or anything else in Western media.

I would've loved it to have been more historically accurate (and to not have taken place in that period at all tbh), however I still don't see how this game promotes imperialism or nationalism.