Our American Mishima Author Web Series is back with another installment. Episode 3 decodes our newly re-released revised edition of our Samurai Short Story Hatamoto. This episode discusses in brief details about the story's origins and newly added content.
This week, we at American Mishima are proud to announce the re-release of our Samurai short story Hatamoto by author Louis Edward Rosas. Originally published in 2014, this newly revised edition features new formatting, new characters, and added content. At the time of the book's initial release, the author’s style and format had not been firmly established. New editorial software and enhancements in writing have made this revision possible. It is the author’s hope that this revised story with added content is now suitable for readership and your enjoyment.
To acquire your copy of Hatamoto, please visit us at Amazon.com
It's not even been a week since Reality T.V. Show host turned "President" Donald Trump who previously mocked North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un was last praising him. Now that Kim has catfished Donald in the most humiliating way, he is once again turned his un-presidential rage against Black NFL players in suggesting that if they do not bow to our national anthem then perhaps they should not be in this country. It's outrageous that the White NFL owners caved into Trump's racist demands to punish Black players, but worse, he is emulating the very man in Pyongyang he is angry at and all because he won't be receiving that coveted Nobel Peace Prize. Seeing Donald having the temperament of a spoiled child, it's no wonder Kim Jong Un had no trouble playing him like a fiddle. Truly pathetic!
It's bad enough we are not going to the World Cup this year, but worse that one man has forced another league's players to stand for an anthem as if this was North Korea. What's next? Will people be required to bow before his portrait like they do in Pyongyang? We can't let that happen. Not here, not now. I love this country dearly but hate this blatant racism and police brutality that is taking place. As much as it pains me to say, until further notice, I too will not stand for the anthem because one man says so.
This is not a dictatorship and I as a citizen whose family has served this county during war and in peacetime will not yield to this draft dodgers questionable authority. I am taking this stand in solidarity with our fellow Brothers and Sisters of Color because it is right. They are Americans too and many of them have spilled the same blood in the same mud for this country. This silent protest was never was about our military, or in any way a disrespect to it, but now it has become about one man's ego and you don't get to question this proud son of a Vietnam Veteran's patriotism. When facing social injustice, protest is the most American thing you can do. #EndRacism#NFLProtest
This week, it was announced both here in the United States and in North Korea that the scheduled meeting in Singapore between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un will not take place. The world can now take a major sigh of relief. In a dangerous nuclear world, it is better for South Korea and Japan that these two unstable ruthless men never meet. While Donald loves to play Mob Boss on Reality TV and in the White House, he is too ill-equipped with his unimaginative negotiation skill set comprised of threats and name calling that further lacks any sense of diplomacy to sit down and deal with a real-life gangster like Kim. Anyone who thought to negotiate a peaceful de-nuclearisation of the Korean Penninsula via Twitter is sadly mistaken. The Kim family has had a generations stranglehold on power and will not give it up willingly despite the collapse of the DPRK's sole nuclear testing facility. It will take Korean leaders to work out how to settle their generations-long differences and not by some crass simpleton's threats on social media. We still have a long way to go before truly achieving peace. We hope it can be done in a world without Donald Trump.
In our futile attempts to escape from the never-ending bad news that has gripped our country at the hands of one destructive man, we were pleased to discover a Studio Ghibli cautionary tale from 1994 known in Japan as the Heisei-era Raccoon-Dog War Ponpoko a.k.a Pom Poko in the American DVD release. Set in the Tama Hills of the Kanto Plain, the story is about the urban sprawl of 1960's Japan where the old farms and countryside surrounding Tokyo are bulldozed to make room for urban development. The story is told from the point of view of the raccoons who find their homes being destroyed as the forests are stripped away to build Tama New Town which drives them to war with other raccoons as food becomes scarce.
What makes this story bounce from being a sad tale of environmental destruction to comedy is how the raccoons known as Tanuki appear at first as realistic raccoons then, anamorphically wearing Samurai armor and clothes as well as walking upright. This is explained in the movie as two clans of Tanuki go to war with each other next to a construction site until the elder wise woman named Oroku convinces them that they should all die or unite in order to survive.
Having united the Tanuki of Tama, Oroku joins forces with the village elder Seizaemon, Tanuki warrior leader Gonta, and Shoukichi to devise a plan to stop the construction. While Gonta wishes to wage war, Seizaemon devises a hilarious plan to resurrect the long-forgotten art of transformation in order to scare the humans from destroying the last of their forest. Of course, not all raccoons can transform, thus they send out messengers to find legendary transformation masters to help them.
Once the masters arrive, they train and devise plans while Gonta does his own thing and uses the art of transformation to kill humans. We won't spoil this whole movie for you but in a touching scene, the last of the raccoons transform the stripped hills back into what it looked like before they were destroyed. You'll laugh and cry in this film. After a while, you forget these are raccoons and think of them more like some lost Edo-Period village from a Taiga drama struggling to survive in a war against an enemy they can not defeat. There is lots of Buddhism and Shinto folklore written into this by the late Studio Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata. Its ultimate message reminds both of what we have lost in the name of progress and what we must continue to preserve.
Pom Poko is available on DVD with the option of English dubbing or subtitles. Please enjoy!
As much as American Media focuses much of its attention on one man's chaos, the Chinese military quietly deployed air-to-air and anti-shipping missiles on disputed islands in the South China Seas. According to French sources monitoring the situation, this provocation on the part of the PLA/Navy will only result in escalated tensions in the region. CNBC further confirms these deployments have taken place on the Fiery Cross Reef, Subi Reef, and Mischief Reef. These islands are part of the Spratly archipelago and part of Bejings absurd historical claim to soveriegnty over the entire South china Seas which the United Nations ruled out. Not withstanding the UN's rebuke, they know with full confidence that America is too distracted by our Reality T.V. Host playing President to do anything about it. His endless scandals have served as a distration for him to be concerend with what is happening in the South china Seas and Beijing is taking full advantage of it. This of course, will provoke a response on the part of the U.S. Navy. The situation is a prelude to disaster given our current lack of leadership. Our foolish leader's thinks he can beat a skillful chess player with a lousy game checkers on the high seas provided he himself is not too distracted with his own made up conspiracy theories he peddles to his deplorable voter base and further antagonizing American people who don't support him on Twitter. It's not television. It is a dangerous world. Unless the PRC de-escalates the situation which we know they won't, or Trump is forcibly removed from power, or grows a pair and starts acting like a leader, the region will further inch closer to an armed conflict. Let's hope cooler heads prevail and no one gets hurt.
“American Mishima” is the work of Louis Rosas, the son of Mexican Immigrants, whose father served in Vietnam for the US Army and who grew up on glamorized war films and military aviation in the sleepy seaside plains of Oxnard, Calif. With an early fascination of the Second World War embedded in his young mind during the post-Vietnam era, it was his exposure to Akira Kurosawa's samurai epic Ran (Toho, 1985) that changed his views of war while creating a lasting impression of Japanese culture and history. Further inspired by the works of Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, Rosas would go on to study Japanese language and swordsmanship, which led him to the practice of Shingon Buddhism and Shinto. Rosas is also a former student of Shinkendo, the ideal and practice of the samurai code of Bushido in the modern world, which helped shape the creative force that is “American Mishima.”
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