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under-sengoku-skies · 5 years

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I'm back babey! This is it folks. Tomorrow's the day Ikemen Sengoku's Sasuke aka the love of my life gets his EN route. To celebrate, I wanted to look into the OG Sasuke. The mans our mans was named after.

In honor of this momentus route release and reaching 200 followers I will delve deep into the lore of the man, the myth, the legend: Sarutobi Sasuke.

The Sanada Ten Braves, aka juyushi (真田十勇士) or Ten Heroes of Sanada, are as you probably know after playing ikesen long enough a legendary group of ninjas that served Sanada Yukimura and were led by Sasuke. As for their names ya got...

Sarutobi Sasuke (猿飛佐助)

Kirigakure Saizo (霧隠才蔵)

Miyoshi Seikai (三好清海)

Miyoshi Isa (三好伊三)

Anayama Kousuke (穴山小助)

Unno Rokuro (海野六郎)

Kakei Juzo (筧十蔵)

Nezu Jinpaichi (根津甚八)

Mochizuki Rokuro (望月六郎)

Aaaaaaaand

Yuri Kamanosuke (由利鎌之助)

The story of the Sanada Ten Braves was first recorded in Tatsukawa Bunko (立川文庫), a series of children's books written during the Taisho period (大正時代, 1912-26). The stories that made up Tatsukawa Bunko were made up by professional storyteller Gyokushusai Tamada (玉秀斎玉田).

So anyways, when you get down to it the OG Sasuke's character was thought to be a fusion of historical and fictional accounts of Ninja and the literary hero from Journey to The West, Sun Wukong: the monkey king. HOWEVER, recently there had been a lot more room for doubt that Sun Wukong was chosen as a model for Sasuke. There's also various other theories about real-life figures that could've been an inspiration. Ya got ninjas like Kozui Sasuke (上月佐助): master of Iga ninjutsu, Sarutobi Nisuke (猿飛仁助), or Mikumo Sasuke (三雲佐助) who was an extant Koga-ninja (甲賀忍者) who worked under the Toyotomi family if you've read Sasuke's JP route or spoilers for it then you're probably also freaking about this little easter egg.

The original Sasuke wasn't a whole lot like our ikesen Sasuke. He fit the general genki stereotype character with some mischief thrown in there to keep things interesting, and was an anti-hero who used his powers for good. Said powers were crazy Naruto-style jutsu.

So here's how things went down for Sasuke:

Deep in the mountains of Shinano (信濃) (now Nagano prefecture) born and raised, playing with monkeys (I mean it suits him, sarutobi literally means monkey jump) is how he spend most of his days (also probably where he got his "monkey-like agility"). Then one day he comes across a mysterious ninja master of Koga ninjutsu (甲賀忍術), allegedly while he was practice sparring with a tree, who laughs at his tree fighting and agrees to teach him some mad ninja skillz. Later he meets a theif who knows ninjutsu: Kirigakure Saizo. Honestly, this Saizo is a lot like his slbp counterpart. A sharp contrast to this Sasuke, who's basically just your average shonen protagonist. Obviously, they gotta become rivals. They battle it out and Sasuke ends up winning. After that the two of them join Yukimura's ninja avengers (the Braves). Seriously. Yuki is the Nick Fury to their avengers. They all have Naruto-esque superpowers. Eventually they fought for the Toyotomi army against Ieyasu at the siege of Osaka, only to lose. What happened to Sasuke and the Braves? Their fates were never revealed. What a shitty ending. But fear not! There's an alternate ending!... In which Sasuke gets his foot caught in a bear trap while trying to infiltrate Ieyasu's stronghold. Then he...... Realizes he couldn't complete his mission and he.... Kills himself. No happy ending here I guess, only ones that remind me of that one lyric from actual cannibal Shia LaBeouf.

THIS DUDE. Has SO MUCH SHIT NAMED AFTER HIM. AND HE AIN'T EVEN REAL.

Tatsukawa Bunko began a ninja boom in Japanese pop culture. The forerunner of this was the character who would become synonymous with ninja: Sasuke. You've got...

Smol 80s Steven Universe Sasuke

Yu-Gi-Oh card robo-Sasuke

Mitsuhide-lookin Sasuke

The OG wipeout style game show was LITERALLY CALLED SASUKE

He is everywhere. There is no escape.

Disclaimer: I am not a historian, my japanese skills are mediocre at best, and I don't have access to like actual archives or anything. Pls correct me if anything I said here was wrong.

S O U R C E S

#halley's otome history notebook #ikesen #ikemen sengoku #ikesen sasuke #ikemen series #otome

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oh-my-otome · 7 years

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One of the other blogs here told me that Cybird's game Ikémen sengoku has the same characters/same era as slbp, so I was wondering if you had any brief historical info for a young pleb such as myself 👀

Cybird’s Ikemen Sengoku has a similar premise to their game Destined to Love: you’re out somewhere minding your business and then you mysteriously do the time warp again.

The starting point of the Sengoku period can vary depending on who you’re talking to, but for most it’s 1467 when the Onin war (1467-1477) broke out over who would be next in line after shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa. And for others, it’s 1490, the year Hosokawa Katsumoto, a deputy of the shogun, snatched up power.

At this point, the samurai have long since stepped in to keep order. The introduction of the first Europeans to arrive in Japan, the Portuguese, changed how battles were fought. In particular, was how clans Oda and Tokugawa combined forces, using their European arquebuses to decimate the Takeda by staggering reload and firing times. In no time at all, Japanese smiths were able to reproduce the mechanism in the muskets and manufactured similar firearms.

The Portuguese also traded goods from China with the Japanese, such as silk, porcelain, soap and tobacco, among other things, which was forbidden by the emperor due to the many attacks by pirates. This was called the Nanban trade.

By the way, the Portuguese slave trade also extended to Japan, with the Portuguese purchasing slaves and sending them to other nations including Portugal. Large amounts of Japanese women, and girls as well, were purchased for sex and sold as slaves.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi was livid with this practice, wanted the enslavement of his people to end. He wanted the slaves who were sold to be returned, and wrote a letter to Gaspar Coelho, a Portuguese missionary and leader of the Christian contingent in Japan. Hideyoshi had him scared up in the middle of the night to answer for it. Hideyoshi made it clear that Coelho and the others were to get out of Japan.

Unfortunately, it didn’t end there, and there is so much going on around this time, so instead let’s go to the men of Cybird’s Ikemen Sengoku:

Click here for eargasm. I have no idea what Nobunaga and Mitsuhide said, but they can say it again and again.

There are three men who are considered to have unified Japan. They are, in order: Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Before his death in 1582, Nobunaga was able to conquer a third of the daimyō. In 1590, Hideyoshi unified all of Japan and became its first leader. And in 1603, Ieyasu set himself up as shogun, founding the Tokugawa shogunate

A famous idiom is “Nobunaga pounds the national rice cake, Hideyoshi kneads it, and in the end Ieyasu sits down and eats it.”

Below: Oda Nobunaga on the left and Tokugawa Ieyasu on the right:

Oda Nobunaga was the second son of Oda Nobuhide and his legitimate successor, being the oldest legitimate son. He had a penchant for ignoring his societal rank and enjoyed playing with children his age across the social strata.

With the death of his father, the were a power struggle in the Oda clan, which was under Shiba Yoshimune to begin with. When Nobunaga stepped in to rule, his uncle, Oda Nobutomo, had Yoshimune murdered for his support of Nobunaga.

Nobunaga would spend much of his live trying to attain, maintain, and exert military control in his attempt to unify Japan.

He found himself betrayed many times, but it was his trusted ally Akechi Mitsuhide who finally got the drop on him and it is not known if Nobunaga was killed in Akechi Mitsuhide’s ambush or if Nobunaga committed seppuku. This was known as the Honnō-ji incident.

Tokugawa Ieyasu spent much of his young life as a hostage of both the Oda and the Imagawa.

Nobuhide proposed killing Ieyasu, who was 5 at the time, if Tokugawa Hirotada, Ieyasu’s father, did not cut ties with the Imagawa clan, but Hirotada refused. Rather than killing Ieyasu, Nobuhide kept him as a hostage of the Oda clan and sent him to Nagoya where he remained in a temple for three years.

With the murder of Hirotada by his own men, and Nobuhide succumbing to an illness, Oda Nobunaga took power. In agreement with Imagawa Sessai, who promised to draw his armies back if he was given Ieyasu, Nobunaga handed the young boy over, thereby making him a hostage yet again. This time Ieyasu was taken to Sunpu where he remained from ages 9-13.

While he did have occasional conflict with the Oda clan, Ieyasu would become one of Oda’s strongest allies.

After becoming shogun, Ieyasu made his power inheritable, and in doing so, established a military government that would last for almost three hundred years.

Cybird’s Destined to Love features his descendant Tokugawa Yoshinobu (Keiki), the last shogun Japan would see.

Below: Takeda Shingen on the left and Uesugi Kenshin on the right

A descendant of the Minamoto clan, Shingen, who was given the name Harunobu at his coming of age ceremony, would be called Minamoto Harunobu in imperial records. He received the dharma name Shingen after the completion of his Buddhist training. The kanji for Shingen can also be pronounced Harunobu, so in a sense, he received the same name twice.

Ashikaga Yoshiharu, the 12th shogun, gave a character from his name to Shingen, which was an honor, and Shingen attained the second one through his own merit.

We don’t know the exact reason why Shingen, the firstborn son, rebelled against his father, but it’s thought that his father, Nobutora, may have wanted to give power to his second son, Nobushige. Nobutora was forced into retirement and sent away to be under the watchful eye of the Imagawa. This formed an alliance between the Imagawa and the Takeda.

Strife in the Takeda clan did not end there, as not only his first cousin, but his own son plotted to take his life.

Shingen’s feud with Kenshin began with Shingen’s attempt to gain control of Shinano. The warlords in the area were already involved in a battle and, making the most of the confusion, Shingen did not have much trouble in winning.

Upon adoption into the Uesugi clan, Nagao Kagetora changed his name several times before becoming known as Uesugi Kenshin. He had control over the Echigo province, which was afforded a better standard of living due to Kenshin’s increasing the growth of local trade.

He believed in Bishamonten, the Buddhist god of war, and was even called his avatar by his followers.

Legend has it that Kenshin burst into Shingen’s war ten on horseback and attacked him. Caught off guard, Shingen successfully parried Kenshin’s sword with his war fan.

Below: Sanada Yukimura on the left and Sarutobi Sasuke on the right

Yukimura’s actual name is Nobushige, after Shingen’s younger brother. Historically, he was never referred to as Yukimura. Novels and plays written about him in the Edo period refer to him as Yukimura, though.

Although the Sanada army was small, they succeeded in winning many battle. With the death of his uncles, his father inherited the clan. However, with the destruction of the Takeda clan, the Sanada surrendered to Oda.

After the Honnō-ji incident, the Sanada had no masters, as so tried to find their place serving a number of clans including the Uesugi, Hōjō, and Tokugawa, before becoming vassals of the Toyotomi.

Yukimura himself was known by many colorful names including The Crimson Demon and Number One Warrior in Japan, among others.

Sarutobi Sasuke was not a real person. He is part of the fictional Sanada Ten Braves, who helped Yukimura in battle, in novels written by Sanada Sandaiki.

The fictitious Sanada Ten Braves, are:

Sarutobi Sasuke

Kirigakure Saizo

Miyoshi Seikai

Miyoshi Isa

Anayama Kosuke

Unno Rokuro

Kakei Juzo

Nezu Jinpachi

Mochizuki Rokuro

Yuri Kamanosuke

Below: Toyotomi Hideyoshi on the left and Ishida Mitsunari on the right

Upon Nobunaga’s death, Hideyoshi was successful in ending the warring states. Although he rose through the ranks from humble beginnings, he placed restrictions on who could become a samurai after gaining power. The period of his rule is called the Momoyama period and is named after his castle.

He is responsible for the death by crucifixion of twenty-six martyrs, three of whom were young boys.

Ishida Mitsunari, whose childhood name was Sakichi, was a military commander and leader of the bureaucrats under Hideyoshi.

Below: Akechi Mitsuhide on the left and Date Masamune on the right

Mitsuhide was the first under Nobunaga to receive a castle. After betraying Nobunaga, Mitsuhide’s rule as shogun lasted only 13 days before his death. He is believed to have been killed, although there is a rumor that he lived out his life as a monk.

Masamune became the leader of his clan at the age of 17 following his father Terumune’s retirement.

Under Hideyoshi, the new ruler, Masamune found the size of his land reduced and even feared execution. He dressed in his finest clothes expecting to die, only to have Hideyoshi say that he may be of some use.

At the behest of Katakura Kojuro, Masamune supported Ieyasu, who in turn, increased the size of Masamune’s land.

A patron of the arts, Masamune founded the city of Sendai. Due to his ambitious and aggressive nature, he was sometimes viewed with suspicion, but he served both Hideyoshi and Ieyasu faithfully.

Below: Kōsa, also known as Hongan-ji Kennyo (or Ken’nyo)

The Hongan-ji refers to several things. Ken’nyo, as Cybird spells it, was an Abbott who Shingen turned to for aid against his rivals, Oda, Tokugawa and Uesugi.

#q&a #ikemen sengoku

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