Word and image

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

I've been away for a while, discovered an intriguing martial arts shop on my travels, had a laptop with me and came up with this idea for combining my interests in Gackt, martial arts and poetry.

The image is from a photobook related to the NHK TV drama series Fuurin Kazan which features Gackt in his role as Uesugi Kenshin.  The photographer is Seiichi Nomura.  The imagery and content of the poem comes from a Japanese martial arts notion (e.g. in the bow art kyudo) that the weapon-holder becomes united with the target through the weapon itself, which is converted to a channel for the focus of the warrior's spirit.  The "bridal" nature of Kenshin's costume is, I guess, entirely incidental!
 

Comments

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

You are clever at finding things! This looks fascinating and I see you've put up a dedicated post too, which is excellent.

When I was rummaging through a datastick to find a good image match for my sword-finger poem, I was struck by the regular and significant recurrence of the sword theme in Gackt's photo archive. Whether contemporary, period or fantasy, he does preserve that Japanese essence of the sword which I think you get over very, very well in your article.

I'm so pleased and grateful that you have the time and willingness to work some of these themes up. I have lots of ideas but I'm either stretched too thin activity-wise or too lacking (no Japanese, sometimes internet deprived, not very glossy tech base, little knowledge of the resources available etc) to do much.

I've got one or two fun Gackt-based ideas which would make quizzes/games for Christmas but am getting to the stage (near to Christmas!) of making a plea to a couple of likely suspects to take them on.

[ Oh, and your words, "interested in ... martial arts ... and weaponry" are a kindly polite description of an unbalanced and anachronistic obsession! ]

[karadin.livejournal.com]

We share some of the same obsessions, I am research mad, if I want to write a story, or draw a manga, I have to know all about the subject and time period, (down to the food on the table if I can figure out what it is) history has always fascinated because you couldn't make up some of the stuff that happened in rl.

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

I have to confess to having dropped history as a subject at the earliest possibiity opportunity (and have since been reading biographies of people that interest me as a means of repairing the gaping holes in my knowledge!).

I have a nervousness of retrospection, partly because history is so often used as a figleaf for uphelpful political posturing and partly because we can only ever look at the evidence (however representative or truthful that may or may not be) with a modern mind. We are all products of our own times, no? Oxford is a great place for the promotion of Early Music - played on "authentic instruments" (replicas) and often in period costume - but with contact lenses, electric light, printed sheet music and WITHOUT fleas, TB, hunger and fear! I like the spectacle for its difference, and for its assistance in showing how things have moved on, but I'm always conscious that my enjoyment is on an artistic level and I take a pretty lenient view of the anachronisms, because I don't want to keep modernity out of my view of the past.

There's a similar take in my fondness for Minekura's Saiyuki manga (Journey to the West), which has a 7thC Chinese priest using a Smith and Wesson and riding in a Jeep. Oh, and I saw a beer can on more than one occasion! It somehow always the past to poke fun at the present.

I do appreciate decent (reliable) research and admire enormously the way that some people can dedicate themselves to investigating a minute or arcane topic for several years (PhD students spring to mind). I don't think I have the patience or application to do this myself though! The opportunity cost in terms of losing a broad perspective is too high a price for me to pay.

Meanwhile, I'll enjoy all the Saiyuki, Gackt, literature, art, music, martial arts crossovers that I can find!

[karadin.livejournal.com]

A few things I've learned by studying history, the victors always write it, and often you learn more about the biographer and how they use an historical figure as their medium, than the figure him/her self.

That said, there are such wonderful stories in history, it's always been a source of interest to me, not the dry dusty details.

And, I think the idea that the human race is moving forward can be very wrong, there are achievements in ancient times we have yet to surpass, and periods of enlightenment and social justice (gay marriage in Korea a thousand years ago, for one thing) that we still aspire to.

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

"the victors always write it" - that is so true! And the literate. The voiceless have little voice in the past beyond archaeology; their bones do speak sometimes.

Yes, I'm with you on the inspirational quality of many "stories" in history. I can easily see how my adult character had its seedbed in my childhood love of explorers sailing into the unknown and heroes whose (noble) thoughts put their bodies into peril!

I think Man does move forward (in time and technology) but agree that we seem to have progressed very little in the wisdom of using either the time or the technology for anything other than the instinctive feeding of primitive appetites (which you could call selfishness and egotism).

No wonder we enjoy our hard-working, responsible Gackt as a relief, eh?