This story interested me greatly and kindly asked for a two cent
donation, which I now give as a tax-free deduction.
*Original Story* -snip-
Your right about the audacity of carring a sword. Any pesant >>caught
with a Katana, who is not a retainer or servent of a samurai, >>was
instantly killed on the spot. There were few greater crimes. >>The
samurai would not have cared about being ignored, he would fight >>Jubei
for having a sword. Funny that Jubei (who is not a samurai, >>but a
ninja) uses a katana and not a ninja-to
Are you sure Juubei's a ninja? He doesn't seem to act much like one.
I always figured he was a ronin.
*Original Story* -snip-
Too much talking, while you have Jubei's reactions and manerisms
correct, the other samurai would just attemp to strike him down.
Now Of course that would rather screw the story. Juubei would just
kill him, and everyone would get blood on their clothes. I mean this
is the classic, bar room, "Let's take this outside. After you." >joke.
There's no point in trying to totally change it. Instead, >what could
make it work better?
Although the samurai would have instantly cut down Jubei for the
apparant offense of having a katana w/o being seemingly of the correct
social rank, one has to remember that this story is more than just the
'classic joke'. I believe the author, who stated that this was 'based on
a folk tale', was referring to the tale of 'Saya-no-unchi' --
invincibility without drawing the sword -- as quoted from "Iai: the
Drawing of the Sword" by Darrell Craig. I have edited this tale to make
it flow more smoothly.
~*~
One of Japan's greatest swordsman was Tsukahara Bokuden (1490-1572),
who had a great depth into the understanding and usage of Saya-no-uchi.
When Bokuden was crossing Beira in a rowboat with a number of
passengers, there was a braggart among them: a rough-looking Samurai who
was stalwart and arrogrant in every possible way.
He boasted of his skill in swordmanship and said that he was the
foremost man in the art. While the fellow passengers were eargerly
listening to his blatant talk, Bokuden was dozing as if nothing were
going on about him. This irritated the braggart very much, and he
apprached Bokuden; shaking him, he said, "You also carry a pair of
swords. Why not say a word?"
Bokuden answered quietly, "My art is different from yours. It consists
of no defeating others, but in not being defeated."
This response incensed the fellow immensely. "What is your school
then?"
"Mine is known as the mutekatsu school (trans: to defeat the enemy
without hands, that is, without using a sword)."
"Then why do you yourself carry a sword?"
"This is meant to do away with selfish motives and not to kill
others," answered Bokuden.
The samurai's anger knew no bounds. He exclaimed in a most impassioned
manner, "Do you really mean to fight me with no swords?"
"Why not?" was Bokuden's answer.
The braggart called out to the boatman to row towards the nearest
island. But bokuden suggested that it would be better to go to the
island farther off because the mainland might attract people who might
somehow, by involving themselves with the fight, get hurt. The samurai
agreed. The boat headed toward the solitary island at some distance.
As soon as they were near enough, the boastful samurai jumped off the
boat and, after drawing his sword, was ready for combat. Bokuden
leisurely took off his own swords (katana and wakizashi) and handed them
to the boatman. It seemed to all that he was about to follow the samurai
onto the island, when Bokuden suddenly took the oar from the boatman
and, pushing it against the shore, gave a hard backstroke to the boat.
As the boat made a precipitous departure from the island and plunged
into deeper water away from the now stranded samurai, Bokuden remarked
with smile, "This is my No Sword School."
~*~
This tale, which was in turn taken from Ibid, pp 74-75, was meant to
exemplify a manner of defeating an opponent through his psychological
weakness, and in turn, strengthen your own resolve and character such
that you do not fall prey to such shortcomings.
As someone mentioned before, if this fanfic were to take the turn of
"Samurai slashes down at Jubei; Jubei dodges stroke and leaps vertically
upward while slashing down with his own sword; the samurai dies
dramatically as the halves of his body fall along with the two halves of
the boat into the water; etc...." then it wouldn't be a fable. And in
order for it to teach a morale, we have to take it with a grain of salt
and give certain liberties to what we perceive as reality. Well, at
least, that's my opinion. ^_^
As for Jubei being ronin or Ninja, well, according to the anime, he's
ronin now. In the flashback scenes, it shows him as part of the honor
guard (samurai) of a daimyo. If he were Ninja, he would have been
dressed in undercover garb and be using a ninja-to. In addition, unlike
ronin, who are pretty much masterless samurai that lords could care less
about, I believe Ninja who desert the clan are -- according to
Legend/Dagger of Kamui -- hunted down to the ends of the earth. And this
was definitely not the case with Jubei. In fact, he was hunting others
and making quite a name of himself as the heroic yet humble (didn't take
a lot of money for payments) swordsman.
~Linna
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