Takemura represents the romanticised idea of the honourable and loyal samurai, while Smasher represents the grim reality of them having been brutal enforcers for the ruling class that slaughtered even civilians indiscriminately.
Takemura represents the romanticised idea of the honourable and loyal samurai, while Smasher represents the grim reality of them having been brutal enforcers for the ruling class that slaughtered even civilians indiscriminately.
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samurai loyalty isn’t really romanticized though; and the ruling class where themselves, at least for 600 years. They were loyal because family/clan is at the basis of feudalism with some sprinkles of confucianism.
The emperor is the symbol, but it’s the Shogun, and his samurai that were in the top of the hierarchy of social classes.
Takemura is just as capable of cruelty and brutality as Smasher.The difference is that there is more to Takemura than just muscle and brutality.
君はヤリたい肉の切り身みたいだね。本当にそうなのか？
At least Smasher doesn’t pretend to be your friend. He’s so honest his name and function are the same thing.
Takemura is exactly the non-romanticized Samurai you mentioned. He is polite, supposedly honorable and loyal, but he clearly has no scruples regarding how far his loyalty takes him. I don’t think it’s shown in the story, but if Saburo ordered him to flatline innocent people, he’d do it without a second thought.
Adam Smasher is just a mercenary. No honor and no loyalty to nothing other than money. Sure, he might be as cruel as some samurai were, but he is missing other aspects of the samurai archetype, namely the positive ones.
Cool connection, reminds me of the ways knights can be romanticized too
No, not at all. Smasher is most definitely not at peace with the idea of dying, a core tenant for samurai.
If you want to get technical killing a random civilian led to a whole lot of bureaucracy coming into effect because well you just killed insert name here who was a farmer and when he wasn’t farming he was a insert skill tradesmen so we’re going to have to gather multiple witnesses both peasant and samurai and from there it’ll be you were in the right to kill the peasant for not showing you the required respect or you’ll be forced to commit sepeku to spare your family or you might’ve killed a master sword smith at which point sepeku is out the window.