Vagabond vs Musashi: The Way of the Warrior

How the manga and the original novel compare in their telling of Musashi's life and philosophy.

Vagabond is one of the great masterpieces of Japanese Manga. A story that has touched and inspired countless people from all over the world. It’s a work so fundamentally Japanese, so specific to Japanese history, culture and mindset yet so universal and human that it achieved what few works accomplished. It found the infinite within the finite. The universal within the particular. The whole universe within the atom. The divine in the man.

Very few works are capable of doing this. The western equivalent in our culture now would be the Lord of the rings which achieved the same for English culture.

And yet despite all this I could never read Vagabond for more than a few issues. And I probably, most likely, almost definitely, will never read it. I’m pretty sure.

Why? Why do I refuse to read it? After kissing its poopoo so hard in the opening paragraph of this essay?

And no it’s not because of the infamous hiatus, and the uncertain future of the Manga where an ending to the story might never be written. Though that certainly doesn’t help.

We’ll do something personal today as I try to explain why I will never read vagabond. And not because I hate it or find it bad in anyway. I’m fully aware of just how good a manga this is. But the reason I’ll never read it is because I’ve tried it before and I just couldn’t get through it. Why? And Am I alone?

Myamoto Musashi the protagonist of Vagabond, is without a doubt one of the most important historical figures that ever impacted my life. Fourteen years ago, I got caught up in the beautiful world of Japanese martial arts. And I’m not talking about judo classes at the super mall. No, I had my mother buy me an expensive Jo Woden staff and a bokken hand carved by a genuine martial arts master in Brazil so I could practice under the tutelage of an old Japanese-Brazilian sensei in a Buddhist temple with the nisei community in Brazil.

I used to practice the way of the Jo staff the very martial art claimed to be founded by Muso Gonnosuke who is said to have been the only man able to fight musashi to a draw and some say he actually defeat him. And I’d hope so since according to legend this martial art and the Jo staff itself with its precise measurements were developed specifically to defeat Musashi the invincible master samurai. And yeah I was obsessed with the history of it all.

This was long before I ever got into Anime. In fact I didn’t like anime back then unless… it was about hip hop Samurai.

(Samurai champloo)

Because most anime felt too modern and too polluted by Gaijin nonsense for me.

(full metal alchemist)

I mean these characters are obviously meant to be westerners. If I wanted to watch an angry blond kid struggling against the legacy of the furher I’d just move to the south of Brazil, you know what I’m saying? Ironically I only started liking anime only AFTER I learned to appreciate my European roots since so much of anime depicts European culture.

Yeah I was one of those cringey suburban white kids who wanted to be Japanese. Or the Brazilian version of that anyway.

I had read Sun Tzu’s the art of war and Lao Tu’s the Tao te Ching at 17 because they were often mentioned in the Japanese history books I was consuming at the time, but they were nothing compared to the Book of Five rings written of course by the real Musashi of the 17th century.

I had known all I could about his life in my late teens so you’d think that when I encountered an intriguing manga with beautiful art depicting a romanticized telling of Musashi’s life more than a decade ago, that I would jump at the chance of devouring that bad boy… but I didn’t.

I couldn’t ever read past five or six issues of Vagabond even after four attempts at doing so. Why? Well because it’s a story I had already read, but in book form and it was the single most important novel I had ever read. One that changed the trajectory of my life for the better and helped me grow up from an edgy aggressive feral adolescent getting suspended in high school for starting fights with my classmates into a man and genuine human being by giving me that exact journey in Myamoto Musashi, the hero of the novel written by eiji Yoshikawa. I even have the same balding pattern as the image of musashi on the novel cover. If you’re going to lose your hair might as well lose it in a cool way with the vegeta style like a friend of mine says.

Anyway, with vagabond, revisiting these terrific characters again but seeing them in a new light within the manga always felt a little… blasphemous to me. And yeah it’s partly because Everything was more aggressive, edgy and dare I say cynical when compared to the novel.

I could never get over the differences in not only the story and plot, but also the characters, the overall narrative and the tone of the story. All of that just reminded me of what was so special about the original novel and how the manga was missing the point in my opinion.

I’ll get into mild spoilers in both stories but keep in mind they’re each close to a 1000 pages long so discussing some plot points and character arcs won’t ruin the story by any means. Also it’s based on actual real world events and you can’t really spoil history I mean come on.

But Both versions have the same story elements and characters but deviate completely in spirit. It’s the typical problem of adaptation. Which I’ll explain in a bit.

Anyway, both begin at the end of the battle of sekigahara and portray Musashi’s violent adolescence. I mean this is a guy who killed his first man at 13 years old. We see his experience of rebirth at the hands of the Buddhist monk Takuan, and him later going on a pilgrimage across Japan to perfect the way of the sword and become a great samurai. And on the way he gets a proto-yandere stalker waifu (Otsu)

“Don’t talk about Otsu that way you filthy bastard!”

musashi also Picks up two young boys as his apprentices and has two rival characters who act as his foils in contrast against him. The hedonist Matahachi his childhood friend who makes a series of bad life decisions, ending up poor and Sasake Kojiro the privileged aristocrat and only other Samurai who can challenge Musashi. These two are destined for a duel of the ages where by facing each other they’ll conclude their respective journeys in the way of the sword. Since only by defeating the other can they become the greatest warrior in Japan. Effectively becoming each other’s final boss you could say. The bowser to each other’s racially hilarious Italian caricature (Mario)

And a lot of the plot arcs are similar: Musashi single handedly facing the entire Yoshioka school, learning from Older warrior masters about the true meaning of strength and of course going farming as a way of warrior training and facing the overwhelming power of the elements in order to learn more about the universe and his place in it.

However, though Vagabond by Takehido Inoe may have started out as an adaptation of Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa, Inoe gradually parted from Yoshikawa’s telling and did his own thing which is still a terrific work of quality specially the gorgeous art style. It’s one one the most beloved manga for a reason but what happened to me personally was the typical problem of adaptation.

You know, when it’s too different to the original that you feel like it betrays it’s vision and you can’t enjoy it on its own terms because it’s too close to the original story you love so much that you can’t divorce the two versions in your mind? This overall tension inevitably becomes an unpleasant experience.

That doesn’t mean I don’t respect inoe. This tension I feel is entirely personal it says nothing about his talents as a writer. But it’s the uncanny valley of adaptation and why it bothers so many people. Most adaptations these days fail simply because the adaptation itself just sucks because it was a soulless cash grab banking on brand recognition and the people adapting it had no respect for the original. The adapters are usually talentless hacks, which is why they have to pillage other people’s intellectual property like story parasites because no one would pay if they had written their own thing.

But this often makes us assume that for adaptations to work it just has to be written as a good story by a great writer but I don’t think that’s true. I think adaptations always have an extra layer of difficulty going on. Which is why you don’t hire amateurs to adapt a billion dollar show of one of the greatest stories of all time Amazon!

But even when the original creator tries adapting his own IP into another medium it can still fail because he’s just not experienced in the new format and he fails at retelling his own story. Which is what ruined the Percy Jackson show apparently.

Anyway this relationship between the musashi novel and the vagabond manga is a perfect example of this tension of conflicting interpretations and why adaptations are so difficult to do. And this tension is made worse precisely BECAUSE Vagabond is actually good and well made as its own story.

However, despite Takahido Inoe’s talent, I do believe that a lot of Vagabond’s greatness comes from the musashi novel that it’s based on. When vagabond fans make long YouTube videos explaining how deep and amazing the story is, they’re actually indirectly in love with Yoshikawa’s narrative of which Inoe is drawing from. Because that novel is the best narrative goldmine imaginable. It’s the best novel of ALL time after all. And although the changes Inoe makes to the story can be some of the greatest bits of unique story telling I’ve ever seen, they’re only great on their own and kind of ruins the story he’s adapting.

There’s nothing wrong with changes in an adaptation as long as the spirit of the original is still there. Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings is the best example we all know of. Aragorn might have some added self doubt, Frodo and Sam might have an added conflict in their relationship and Pippin is functionally retarded in the movie version but their motivations don’t change, the backstories don’t change and the point of the plot doesn’t change and the character journeys don’t change destinations. And there’s no constant gratuitous sex added for no reason.

While with vagabond, Inoe changes what the very story is even about to the point where I think it would have been better if he engaged in his own reimagining of Musashi’s historical real life. Rather than falling into this uncanny valley of narrative adaptation, where it’s kind of the original plot of the novel but not really and these are kind of the original characters but so fundamentally changed they feel like they murdered the originals and dressed up in their clothes.

And nowhere is this more true than with Vagabond’s interpretation of Sasake Kojiro, Musashi’s legendary rival and real historical last duel.

Takahiko Inoe created an absolutely fantastic character with one of the most intriguing backstories I’ve ever seen. Making Kojiro the orphaned child of a slain great lord cast adrift in the ocean to be found at the beach by his dead father’s former sensei who’s now an old hermit. The old failed warrior rediscovers meaning to his own life by raising this child who turns out to be deaf and mute yet this handicap just makes little kojiro hone his instincts. His harsh childhood conspires to make him master of the blade he carried with him since he was a baby because it was the last relic of his biological father.

Oh man. Beautiful! Great Character background. Something really special and a testament to how good inoue is as a mangaka.

Unfortunately it completely ruins Musashi’s story.

The dynamic between musashi and kojiro is that of two destined rivals who represent the two different yet very real historical, social and spiritual sides of the samurai in Japan.

Kojiro, both the version in Yoshikawa’s novel as well the real historical Kojiro who actually existed was a privileged warrior Aristocrat with impeccable skills derived from his excellent lifelong training. Learning from teachers, attending formal debates and lectures with other Samurai in the presence of Daimyo lords and going hunting with fellow privileged aristocrats of other distinguished lineages. He was handsome, well groomed, elegant as well as incredibly charming and articulate as well as an expert in calligraphy and writing. He was even an appreciature of fine arts. but his attractive well designed exterior masked a cold and nearly psychopathic mental state shaped by the brutal cloak and dagger shenanigans of his social class. This was a man trained for war by the finest resources that Japanese society could afford.

By contrast Musashi was, as you can tell by the thumbnail, basically a mystical murder hobo. No formal training but constant practice and willingly living a life of unceasing religious asceticism where he wandered from place to place learning all he could not only via duels with other warriors during his travels, but by experiencing nature, meditating in cold waterfalls and sleeping in Buddhist temples when not by the side of the road. And when he did engage in book learning it was in an obsessively monastic style of study where he’d pore through pages and pages in a dark room believed to be haunted by old ghosts. As a result Musashi was messy, dirty and one tough mother hugger. But his harsh exterior was juxtaposed by his spiritual nature which made him compassionate, honest and kind even if a bit mysterious and sometimes clueless about how to handle women and children. But he still did his best to be a gentleman or a good father figure. And his obsession with self improvement means that Musashi does eventually master the finer arts in his journey, even having an adorable moment where he learns to improve his writing skills along side school children because he had neglected his earlier education.

Inoue changing Kojiro the way he did ruins Musashi’s character arc. Although I think I know why he did it this way which I’ll get into in a bit.

But in the novel Musashi is an under dog outsider by choice and his destined duel with Kojiro becomes about human civilization Vs the power of heaven. Human knowledge Vs mystical knowledge. The warrior as a socio-political role one fulfills Vs the warrior as a spiritual calling one answers. The princeling Vs the pilgrim.

But in the manga it’s the Vagabond Vs the super vagabond. Kojiro doesn’t contrast Musashi at all but is just an even cooler more awesome version of him and is even MORE of an underdog. You know, being disabled and raised by a a hobo in the middle of nowhere. It’s to the point where I’m rooting for kojiro, but knowing that he’s destined to be killed by musashi at the end leaves me prematurely heartbroken and it’s just another factor holding me back from reading this version of the story.

And no that’s not a spoiler, it’s a historical event guys! Wait till I spoil who lost the First World War. Spoiler alert! Humanity did! RIP Kaiser Karl. Too beautiful for this world sniff.

Anyway The Manga version of Kojiro would work a lot better as the protagonist of his own completely fictional samurai story. Now THAT is a manga I’d devour without hesitation.

Changing Kojiro the way Inoue did would be like doing a retelling of the Napoleonic wars but where Napoleon’s greatest rival the Duke of Wellington is an Irish orphan raised by wolves in the highlands where he learned the ways of war by leading his wolf pack in the wilderness against other wolf packs. Then he’s discovered by humans, adopted and quickly learns that human society isn’t that different. only that here the wolves wear clothing and his animal instincts compel him to challenge Napoleon the baddest wolf around.

Does this sound awesome? You bet! I’m sure my UK viewers just got an Anglogasm all over their screens. But that’s not the Duke of Wellington.

Just like that’s not Kojiro even if it makes his character more interesting it makes the story as a whole less interesting in my opinion.

The changes are much less drastic with other characters but most character changes still affect musashi and make him a worse version to his counterpart in the novel.

Seijuro Yoshioka is portrayed as a chill guy who just wants to enjoy life and protect his brother which makes Musashi the villain of that arc. While in the books he’s a drunken, aggressive, vicious sexual predator that Musashi doesn’t even kill. But just destroys his arm in a duel which humbles Seijuro who becomes a monk to redeem himself of his sinful ways.

As for Matahachi the other foil for musashi … he’s pretty much the same but more nuanced with a better character arc and his mother doesn’t die but instead has a terrific ending to her story while his uncle dies like in vagabond but with a better more beautiful and heroic death that almost made me shed man tears while in vagabond his death is cynical and his life is wasted.

When it comes to Otsu, Musashi’s love interest she is serviceable in the manga, but in the novel she’s THE ABSOLUTE BEST GIRL in any story ever, she’s like the waifu to end all waifus, the kind of woman a man can only DREAM of marrying but none of us will deserve her anyway so it’s best not to fantasize and accept reality. But in a story like this she’s the perfect maiden archetype for Musashi’s knight errant archetype.

having her as an idealized view of femininity matched with Musashi’s idealized masculinity was really interesting for me as a teenager.

She tempered the testosterone overdrive of the story making her a terrific breath of fresh air whenever she appears. And her love story with musashi is interesting because in western tales of Chivarly it’s the knight who has to be worthy of the lady and risk his life for her but here the man must be focused on his holy quest and it’s the maiden who has to risk her life because of her love for him. They both go on a quest but he is on a quest to become a perfected man and she is on a quest for the perfect man, the holy warrior that she loves so much. Which adds some nuanced tragedy to their relationship. Because if musashi abandons his quest prematurely to take her he becomes vulgar and profane like a normal man which makes her see his predatory passions and dark side and this frightens her and makes her run away going all “no not you too I thought you were better than normal men!” But when he’s focused on his quest and is attractive to her then it is he who runs away from her because she’s a distraction to self perfection. So he has to meditate for hours under a freezing waterfall going all “WASH AWAY THE HORNY!” And “with my sword I protect my virginity.”

The idea that Chastity is crucial for the way of the warrior actually has historical precedence with the real Myamoto musashi. He literally wrote a book called “the way of walking alone” where abstaining from the pleasures of the flesh is a crucial principle to achieve perfection in the way of the warrior.

“Getting Pussy makes you a pussy!” -Myamoto Musashi… probably.

What was I talking about again? Oh yeah.

Otsu and Musashi can only be together at the right moment when he’s accomplished his goal and she is ready for him to take her. Which leads to a fantastic moment between them at the end of the novel. It’s a Great romance truly the most romance of all time. Never have I been happier at seeing a couple finally get together after 1000 pages! Otsu is also a great representation of the pure hearted virgin archetype that you see absolutely nowhere in stories these days. a desexualized girl boss robot is not the same thing as a Virgin heroin, the latter still has her sexuality only it’s PRECIOUS and her power comes from withholding her sexuality to most men who are unworthy. The slut snake archetype who uses sex as a weapon that you see in stories like blue eyed samurai like that Akemi character who has to lose her virginity to become powerful is a psyop pushed by horny billionaires who want to gaslight women into becoming socially atomized career slaves who work in their corporations then sleep with them for promotions.

However, one thing vagabond did well was portray how essential Otsu was for Musashi’s redemption to become the man of legend.

Takuan the Monk is the other character crucial for Musashi’s rebirth and character motivation. But Takuan is less explored and toned waaay down from his awesome depiction in the novel. Which would seem like a small change but it has profound consequences and it’s actually what truly makes vagabond unreadable for me. because changing takuan slightly in the manga completely alters Musashi’s character and his journey into something I don’t recognize or admire.

Musashi in Vagabond is decidedly not the hero of my late adolescence who taught me how to be a man. This fact alone should reveal why it’s so difficult for me to accept the Vagabond version of the story.

For one thing the goals of these two are completely different.

Vagabond Musashi’s entire plot motivation is to become “invincible under the sun”, the strongest mofo around the toughest cookie in the jar. His character journey is about learning to let go of that, to value life and escape the so called spiral of killing. He’s constantly facing the ghost of his father, by encountering wiser father figures who went on this journey before him. He learns that the true meaning of strength is not about what you can destroy but what you can sustain, build, protect etc. which is why the wiser old warriors are peaceful lords of grand estates or gardeners making life grow etc.

Which is all fine and dandy but the problem for me is that this particular character journey is pretty superficial when you think about it because most of us grow out of this childish need to be the toughest kid in the playground. And most of us can figure out that killing people for your own vanity is messed up even if in a consensual duel. But meanwhile this musashi guy in vagabond needs 700 pages to figure that out?

Now of course this is a story about feudal 17th century Japan. So you can argue as many have that Vagabond is a commentary on the values of that era and using it to explore broader themes of inter-generational trauma and social critique etc. since it’s true that the value of human life was different at the time. Though feudal times weren’t as bad or psychopathic as the manga assumes.

Which gives the novel vs manga dynamic a “lord of the rings Vs game of thrones” feel to it. Where Vagabond is more cynical, excessively depressing and with pointless nudity and vulgarity everywhere which distracts from the deeper themes. While Musashi is a great epic absolutely dripping with faith in the heroic journey. Heck Vagabond is even in a interminable hiatus with fans starting to fear that the story might never get finished… sound familiar?

However, it’s not a perfect comparison because the Manga is a lot more respectful to the history it’s portraying with more genuine meaningful moments and tries to legitimately tell its own story while not being obsessed with deconstructing narrative tropes and archetypes laid down by greater authors the way game of thrones is.

while the Musashi Novel is not a mythical tale like the lord of the rings but a surprisingly nuanced romanticization history. It’s a completely character driven story where extremely complex people with a myriad of conflicting motivations, personal strengths, moral weaknesses and their own personal perspectives, clash with each other and with themselves as they’re all trying to obtain what every human needs and desires: meaning, fulfillment, happiness, love, respect etc.

I remember getting a distinct quasi mystical feeling while I read this book and witnessed all these 17th century people struggle with one another. It felt like I was observing humanity through the eyes of God. I’ll never forget that feeling. I could understand where everyone was coming from. I could appreciate their struggles and love them. Which would lead me to lament how they clashed and hurt each other and it all being in vain. But I would find great joy every time a character would find redemption and mourn the lives taken in senseless violence. Or every time a character lost his or her way and died without being redeemed.

Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa is the true story of the human heart in conflict with itself. It’s the real deal. The story that the Song of Ice and Fire pretends to be.

While in reality it just gets caught up in moral ambiguity and nihilism. The characters might also do horrific things in Eiji Yoshikawa’s novel but it’s never gratuitous or for cheap shock value. even the heroic protagonist does evil like killing a scared 12 year old child because he mistakenly thinks that’s what his samurai honor demands. But he later repents doing so and spends time in penitential religious practice in a monastery.

But there’s no moral ambiguity. There’s a clear right and wrong with a true path to true wisdom as the novel reveals to us that a story about the human heart in conflict with its self is actually a story about human beings trying to figure out the difference between good and evil. Or having to let go of their mistaken desires for the true good. Which is something the Vagabond manga also does it just doesn’t go as deep as the novel.

Takahido Inoe focuses on the true meaning of strength, and although this lends itself to some beautiful moments of insight, we’re unfortunately in a time saturated by movies, shows and comics obsessed with deconstruction and slander of traditional and masculine ideals and although Vagabond is NOT one of those works it gets a little too close for comfort. While The novel is an interesting blend of a historical story super imposed with a classic story of a knight errant finding the way to holiness and his pure maiden but those are such hated tropes now it makes the novel an extremely unique experience to read despite being the traditional storyline.

Even though I joke around about murder hobos, the whole point of the novel is that Musashi is not really a Vagabond. Because in the novel it’s an insult given by those who don’t understand Musashi’s path. There’s also a moment in the novel where musashi himself explains that a warrior who takes a spiritual pilgrimage like this to master himself, his soul and his weapon is NOT a vagrant precisely because his spiritual purpose means that he’s not lost or abandoned the way a vagabond is. The use of that very word as the title of the manga has a cynical connotation to it. It might just be my impression but it does come across that way at times.

I say that because Vagabond as far as I’ve seen has a mostly negative portrayal of the way of the warrior. The masters of the sword are mostly blood thirsty psychopaths, tragic children of trauma or jaded old guys who are wise because they abandoned it. There might be a few scenes depicting how the warrior can be a positive force but overall those who follow that path aren’t healthy functioning people at all, least of all our main character who is feral even after his supposed moment of rebirth as he drools at the mouth at the very idea of killing an innocent man in a duel!? What? That’s not Musashi! That might be Takezo! But that’s not Musashi.

What I mean is that the novel by Eiji Yoshikawa is a celebration of the virtuous warrior, and a celebration of genuine heroism much like the lord of the rings. But it goes even further and explores the path a man takes to become a legend. Musashi in the novel is like Aragorn or at least he transforms into an Aragorn-like figure in an awesome journey of a 1000 beautiful pages. Instead of showing up at the start of the story an already maxxed out Prince Charming. Which is why I love the Musashi novel a lot more than the lord of the rings and why musashi is my favorite book of all time. Even though I know the lord of the rings isn’t about that, it’s not bad in anyway heck I made my YouTube career talking about how awesome it is. this is a purely personal matter of taste

Musashi is a deeply spiritual and religious book about a man’s ascension that is far deeper and more developed than anything in the Manga, not even close.

They start out pretty much the same, with a young beast of a 17 year old boy called Takezo. Who goes to play at war and almost dies in one of the most brutal samurai battles in Japan’s history. And he comes back even more feral and is a wanted fugitive because he was fighting for the losing side in the war. He basically becomes a criminal terrorizing his home village that the authorities can’t handle until Takuan the monk approaches him and Is able to appeal to Takezo’s sense of transcendent morality beyond his might makes right mindset. Takezo feels so guilty he lets the monk tie him to a tree where he hangs for several days in penance. In vagabond it stops there. Takezo is untied, has an insight about what he wants in life calls himself a different name and leaves. In this version Takezo has a premature rebirth so to speak so he is still very underdeveloped. This version of Musashi is a little better than he was as Takezo but is still basically the same brutal character searching for strength. But in the novel oh no, Takezo’s gestation is MUCH longer.

After the penance in a tree, Takuan isn’t done. He traps Takezo in a dark haunted room for THREE years with nothing but the Chinese classics and religious texts to read while being fed through a door. You can interpret this as musashi being Japan’s first hekikomori haha but it’s more like a monastic cloister. He goes through a mystical experience of profound meditation and reading and understands the value of human life in those years. Once Takuan returns, Takezo is a completely different man which is why he’s given the new name Musashi. It truly is a born again experience.

From that moment on he feels a calling to follow the way of the sword but NOT to become “invincible under the sun.” his goal is actually self perfection, knowledge and enlightenment. He wants to live an ascetic life of warrior pilgrimage called Musha Shugyo To become a Kensei which is a warrior saint.

This means that the entire character development that vagabond musashi is going through happens in like the first five chapters of this a thousand page novel. So where do we go from here if the protagonist already knows that it’s not about being the top dog in the kennel? And that human life has value?

Now you’re starting to understand why this novel is so fantastic. The idea of a warrior Saint isn’t explored much in fiction is it? Yeah good virtuous people who are warriors like Captain America, invincible or Superman are a dime a dozen but I can’t think of a single story that explores the way of the warrior as a path to holiness, self improvement and an almost religious vocation of sorts.

Hero stories are also very formulaic and by the numbers now, very rarely explaining the social and historical purpose of the heroic fighter. Why does Spider-Man fight? Yeah he has great power which means great responsibility but why punch bad guys to a pulp? Spider-Man could work for the fire department or rescue operations or do the high risk construction jobs for free. Why does Spider-Man need to get violent? Even then these stories shy away from the hero actually having to take a life. Trying to have ones cake and eat it too where we admire the heroic fighter but not the full implications of his actions.

The Musashi novel actually reflects on and explains this by using a lot of agricultural imagery. Making life grow in a garden or farm is all fine and dandy but if you don’t cut the weeds life will suffocate and you’ll starve. The way of the warrior is about keeping life and helping it grow by carefully cutting down the parasites that would feed on all the life and then kill itself after it’s done with the host. The virtuous warrior is in fact an essential part of life in the garden of civilization. Pruning and slicing the plants are essential for there to be room for the weaker flowers and fruit trees that wouldn’t have a chance otherwise and their beauty is what makes the garden worth it. There’s plenty of biblical verses making very similar analogies too.

Another fun coincidence is that the real historical musashi in his book of five rings talked about the importance of discerning good and evil and compared the way of the warrior to carpentry. A carpenter uses blades to cut and mold wood and builds structures. So being a warrior Is about using weapons to build a foundation for a society that shelters those from men who would misuse the weapons.

This doesn’t mean executing everyone who committed a crime. In the novel Musashi himself was a criminal given a second chance. Which is why self improvement is so necessary for the noble warrior. If you’re going to fight the evil in others you need to first fight it in yourself. The way of the warrior is about defeating yourself, your evil, undisciplined feral self. You are your own worst enemy. Once you conquer yourself there’s nothing left for anyone else to conquer in you. This is how to become invincible under the sun. In a way

Since the way of the warrior is a spiritual and mystical exercise it has values of mercy and compassion which make it about defending the weak. Serving life by protecting people from death. the way of the warrior is defined by the resolute acceptance of death. As the historical musashi himself defined the way of the warrior. a virtuous warrior dies so that others may live so In a way they are martyrs in the name of life, the life of other people.

While those who abuse violence become servants of death and must be given what they serve. The virtuous warrior is not himself causing death when ending the criminal. He is cutting down the real cause of death. It may seem unmerciful to the wrongdoer but to the contrary, it’s a mercy to those who were wronged and those who still would be wronged in the future. You’re not doing anyone a favor by letting parasitic weeds fester in the garden of civilization. Not even the weeds themselves who are contributing to their own demise by diminishing the life they take from while contributing nothing in return.

But since people often do deserve second chances then the way of the warrior becomes about wisdom, to know when to use the sword and when to use the word.

Therefore it must be well understood that it’s not about judging people from on high as who is worthy of life and death and then using death as punishment for those judged unfavorably.

What I’m talking about here in the way of the warrior are moments of split second decision making where the warrior first tries talking down a threatening person and only when the latter pulls out a weapon then all bets are off. Which is typical of traditional Knight errant and noble samurai stories.

Capital punishment I think is a misguided concept. And I think it’s not what the Musashi Novel condones otherwise many character redemption moments wouldn’t be a thing or such such a prevailing theme. What I’m talking about is social self defense. only people who are an active legitimate danger to others and who cannot be adequately stopped in any other way then should be dealt with. If the dangerous person can be neutralized by being locked up and no longer becomes a danger to anyone then they must be the given a chance at redemption.

Dealing legitimate death is not about punishment otherwise we fall into purity spiraling about who deserves to die and society would lose great people who might have found redemption and then do great things like St Paul the apostle.

Which is explicit stated in the Musashi novel, when the Lord of the Castle where musashi was locked up praises Takuan the monk for his mercy in imprisoning musashi for his rehabilitation and laments how most of his Samurai are too quick with the death penalty as a punishment and thus a lot of people who could have become great contributors to society after redemption, are lost.

The death penalty is only legitimate if it’s used by a society as means to defend itself and it should be weighed in this context. Old feudal societies were forced to use it a lot because they didn’t have the resources to lock people up and preform lengthy rehabilitation processes in a large scale. Not to mention there was no forensic science so criminals got away with it all the time making brutal public executions of the few criminals caught a necessary and legitimate strategy to try to dissuade future criminals with a warning.

But when a more prosperous society has other options like ours then that’s when it should be taken. Everything should be done to increase the thriving of human life.

It’s important to confront a parasitic person because when such a person encounters the consequences of their action they’re given a choice to either stop being that way which will help everyone even themselves or continue on and being responsible for the escalation until the logical conclusion of deadly force occurs if that’s what they chose. But it’s important to always remember that criminal prisoners are not parasites, they’re people in rehabilitation. A parasite is someone actively harming others for their own benefit.

Only people who are extremely dangerous like mafia bosses who can still run their criminal network in prisons and get people killed or prisoners who constantly abuse and harm the other prisoners in horrific fashion would require something more extreme. For the protection of the other prisoners because we can’t let our prisons become grape dungeons that’s horrible.

one of Musashi’s great insights in the novel is that Good governance is not just based on the sword I.e the monopoly of violence but the mastery of letters as well. I.e effective communication. The holy warrior uses the sword and the Word. The sword and the Word are actually one. Because both are a means of defending life. One by fighting physical threats and the other by fighting evil ideas. Which is why the true way of the warrior is deeply connected to religious truth.

If you study the world’s Religious texts from all cultures you’ll see that all of them use military and violent metaphors for spirituality. It’s not just the Abrahamic religions, you guys ever read the Hindu text called the Bhagavad Gita? It’s literally combining the way of the warrior with the spiritual path. Buddhism also has plenty of sword imagery for metaphorical purposes but its also the single most weaponized religion in history since it’s literally incorporated into martial arts and killing techniques and it’s teachings are a part of warrior training. Why?

Because religion is concerned about morality and ethics which means good Vs evil. If there are good and bad actions then there are people who do good and bad and the latter often have to be stopped. Some people say it’s wrong for you to impose your views of right and wrong on others and that you shouldn’t do it. But they don’t realize that this idea is a silly contradictory paradox that cancels itself out. By definition it can’t be wrong to believe in right and wrong because you are wrong if you believe that. And saying one can’t impose their ideas of right and wrong on others is itself an idea trying to impose itself. That’s why the solution is not to fall into a paradox where you still perpetuate what you’re condemning but to use reason, wisdom and experience to discern the objective standard of good and evil then engage in an appropriate use of force.

Violence itself isn’t inherently evil it’s what you use it for. Violence can be used for love. Would you fight to defend someone you love? If your answer is no then how can you say you love them?

pacifists are well intentioned but they mistake peace as the highest good. Which it isn’t. LIFE is the highest good. Peace is wonderful because it preserves life. MOST OF THE TIME. But not always. There are moments when more people will live if you go to war now to stop an advancing enemy then if you don’t and they ravage across the land unrestrained. Or if you don’t violently suppress criminal activity.

Fighting for peace may seem like a paradox and a result of cognitive dissidence and it is. So fighting for life is a better Maxim. And fighting for life means preserving peace as much as possible until duty obliges you to pick up the sword before greater catastrophe happens. Violence is a last resort, but it is still a resort, which is why society needs noble warriors.

Because real strength is service which connects you to life and life itself fights with you and for you in mutual service. Weakness is death and selfishness which separates you from the whole and thus alone you are weak. which is why the virtuous warrior is so concerned with being a part of something bigger, united to a greater cause. Which is why feeling connected to a larger cosmic order is so important which leads to Eiji Yoshikawa’s reflections on social classes.

The comparisons to carpentry and gardening indicate that there’s a blue collar element to the way of the warrior which is why it’s been historically beneficial for elite classes to be warriors. Not only for power in the monopoly of violence so necessary for the state, but because mastering the art of war connected the elites to the working classes. Because if the elites are warriors then they have a clear practical job involving the application of tools in a craft that they dedicate themselves to in order to fulfill their purpose. Much like the working man. Not to mention the suffering and sacrifice involved molded them into hardy and efficient leaders.

The inherent element of service in a warrior ruling class is evident in language. Both the word Samurai and Knight actually means “servant” in their etymological roots. The idea of elites preforming some practical service to the lower classes is one I always felt to be more compelling than the pampered corporate overlords or technocratic intellectual university elites of the modern era.

And though some people of the working class can also be insufferably arrogant like: “shut the eff up I have a real job that contributes to society unlike you YouTubers!” When it’s like, bro you’re an internet Edge lord with aspergers and a Warhammer profile pic like the rest of us in the chat. Being a construction worker or a truck driver doesn’t make you special! Also you consume our YouTube content to make the grind bearable don’t pretend like you don’t. I grind to help you grind! Show me some respect anon!

What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, the over bearing bureaucrats high in their ivory towers completely out of touch while trying to implement disastrous policies that just ruin the lives of normal people. or the giant faceless corporations that put everything for sale including human rights and dignity.

The prevalence of these two demographics in the ruling elite these days perfectly explains the overly Cynical attitude and slander towards pre-modern cultures run by warrior classes that you see in big budget stories like game of thrones or blue eyed samurai now on Netflix. Because they’re from the perspective of the pampered university educated HR harpies and soulless greedy corporate douchebags.

the merchant class was at the bottom of society, in Japan.

even lower than peasants who did vital work on farms. Japanese society forbade the ruling classes from engaging in profit making ventures which made them poorer over time but the samurai held pride in their frugal ascetic life. And the Merchants were forced by law not to flaunt their wealth in obscene displays. Which is why Japanese architecture and interior design of their castles are so Spartan and minimalist with very little furniture and decorations are typically used in comparison to other cultures, and why over the centuries samurai fashion started having less and less layers of clothing and simpler garments that were worn by the RUILING class. As explained by “Winston L King in Zen and the way of the sword”.

The samurai may have served a highly bureaucratic purpose in the two centuries of peace during the Tokugawa shogunate but they didn’t identify themselves as bureaucrats and it was expected of them to live highly disciplined ascetic lives Of constant warrior practice.

One reason why I love Japanese history so much is that it’s the perfect counter argument against the assumption that a warrior led society would lead to eternal war since Japan had 260 years of deep peace under the samurai of the Edo Period. Can there still be a warrior class in peace time? Definitely, the samurai were waging an eternal war against crime, instability and corruption but most importantly the corruption in themselves. In their souls.

Which is why that it was in this time period when a lot of our notions of bushido, the Japanese concept of the way of the warrior, truly developed as we understand it.

The historical Myamoto Musashi himself took part in this development, having been born in the sengoku period of civil war and then dying of old age in the peaceful Tokugawa era. the story of musashi is that of a warrior realizing that the objective of a noble warrior is to protect order from chaos through the sword. As the samurai transitioned from soldiers to peace keepers and administrators.

the presence of Takuan the monk in the novel and manga was a fictional addition to Musashi’s story but it reminds us that the warrior class is naturally religious due to their constant proximity to death. That’s why a spiritual priest class naturally rises to the top of society as well. spiritual training is also essential for warrior elites to handle ptsd and preserve their mental health necessary for leadership. It’s Societies run by Merchants or bureaucrats that have more incentive to dismiss spirituality, since the former rely on materialist consumerism for profit and the latter naturally abhors alternative power structures like the clergy.

While a society with a warrior class aligned with a priest class are capable of maintaining stability in decentralized local regional polities that are more self sufficient. That’s why this is the natural arrangement in agrarian feudal structures. But the dark side to it is constant fighting. The Tokugawa shogunate solved this by centralization of authority but that has a whole other dark side to it.

The musashi novel occurs just as the Tokugawa shogunate starts instituting a the stratified feudal class system. Our protagonist inhabits a world in transition as it were. The end of an era where there was more class mobility and individual entrepreneurship and people choosing their career paths personally. Which you can see hints of in the real history of his life and in his own writings when Musashi talks about choosing your path in life and uses much more individualist language than you might see later in something like the Hagakure which is much more collectivist and about submission to authority rather than being the master of your own fate like Musashi teaches.

Yoshikawa’s novel also explains how the ruling warrior class instituted a large scale bureaucracy to keep people trapped in their respective classes. And Eiji Yoshikawa himself breaks the 4th wall and criticizes this process enacted by Tokugawa ieyasu and how the merchant class was duped into collaborating due to increased initial profits as the infrastructure of this system was being built… right until the walls closed in all around them. Sound familiar?

(Jack Ma)

It was similar to medieval Europe where if you were an enterprising knight with success in battle and got wealthy enough to buy a castle or manor you became a noble. The stratified class system with emphasis on hereditary lineages came after towards the high Middle Ages.

When you read the musashi novel you actually see cases of class dynamics with Matahachi rejecting the life of a scholar bureaucrat as being something for losers who couldn’t make it as a samurai. There’s also another scene where the merchants are ridiculing the priests and warriors as being superstitious and poor and not being smart like them who live a soft life of luxury.

So it’s no wonder that there’s so much propaganda and historical exaggerations against knights and Samurai. The managerial bureaucrats and the capitalist merchants are The two ruling classes of the modern era. Modernity’s two halves that run the societies of the world now. And naturally they don’t identify with the austere values or perspectives of a ruling warrior class.

So of course the Klingons are the “primitive”, “barbaric” or “unsophisticated” cartoonish antagonists against the goody goody civilized and humanitarian technocratic vegan pencil pushers of the United Federation.

And of course the TERRAN Federation must be slandered and deceptively portrayed as scary fascists because these people are frightened by the idea of an elective republic run by a class of citizen soldiers. You know, just like most Republics.

This cultural tendency is not an intentional conspiracy from a ring of capitalists or commie bureaucrats

but a natural distaste and manifestation of the incentives that people in these ruling classes of the modern elite experience.

(blue eyed Samurai)

it’s in their subconscious interest to portray warrior run societies as deeply brutal, corrupt or tyrannical. Especially in the west. You think that a university educated artist or writer in the entertainment business would have a natural affinity for the values of stoicism and harsh religious discipline present in bushido or Chivarly? Of course not. and the ones that do feel such an affinity were usually military veterans like Tolkien, cs Lewis and Robert Heinlein.

That’s why Many of our current Starbucks soy infused stories portray societies ruled by the warrior class as deeply hypocritical where all the discipline is a social facade and the stoic warriors are actually hedonistic fetishists into kinky stuff and love luxury behind closed doors

(Blue eyed samurai/ Game of Thrones)

OR are cultures doomed to constant warfare and an underdeveloped society (Klingon)

I suppose we’d have more peace and less hypocrisy if we were ruled by wealthy socialists (show communist leaders) or the Oil merchants (show picture of George W Bush)

Still, vagabond by Inoe Takahido is fundamentally different at its core from the goofy crap going on in western culture. when it comes to Vagabond’s highly critical portrayal of the way of the warrior, it actually is valid. Inoue is exploring the pathological aspect to the warrior mindset when not properly practiced. Which is warranted, considering how Yoshikawa’s musashi novel inspired Japanese troops in wwii for instance. There was even a Japanese warship called the Musashi because of Yoshikawa’s seminal novel. But the Japanese soldiers certainly didn’t behave like gentlemen warriors as my Asian friends constantly remind me.

And in Musashi’s time, Japan was crawling with similar armed psychopaths prowling about hurting others for vain personal glory. Yet there were also notions of bushido born to counteract that. virtuous warriors appear in war torn eras because they’re necessary to keep the peace and balance out the savagery by tempering the excesses. which is why people like musashi and Tsukahara bokuden appeared in feudal Japan. And Morihei Ueshiba who Appeared around wwii and was a veteran of the brutal Japanese army but also became the founder of Aikido. a spiritual peaceful martial art that seeks holiness by mastering yourself and avoiding the hurt of others.

When reading Vagabond you really get the sense that Inoe takahido loves his culture and history. But unlike the novel which makes an attempt and seeing 17th century Japan through the eyes of the people of that time and bring forth the best of that era as well as criticizing the worst when it’s due, Inoe interprets the path of Musashi’s life in a different way.

The manga has moments of mystical insight too where musashi had out of body experiences as a child but they don’t seem to be that related to the warrior path itself. In fact, the martial life musashi lives appears to be hindering a more fulfilling spiritual life.

The differences in the farming arc indicate this, where musashi manifests the true holy purpose of the sword when he alone defends the entire rural village from a group of bandits. The villagers become so grateful they put up a shrine in his honor that they pay daily respects to when a few months earlier they were making fun of his ignorance in agricultural matters.

But I’ve yet to see such a cathartic moment where Musashi’s use of the sword is as selfless, heroic and fulfilling to him in any of the vagabond issues or summaries I’ve seen. So far his path seems to be a discovery of how seeking to be invincible was just vanity or trauma.

However, i get the impression that musashi in vagabond will realize that his path to true invincibility is him defeating himself. Which is probably why Kojiro is just a super vagabond version of musashi. Because when the two do finally face off I imagine musashi will see the man he was on the path he was on and defeating Kojiro would be him overcoming that mistaken path and then he’ll retire with Otsu and give up the sword like lord Yagyu before him.

But the Manga experience becomes shallow by being overly pessimistic. While the Musashi novel is a holistic story. it does a better job of showing the full scope of what humans can be. The tragedy and triumph of the human condition. Women can be angry belligerent girl bosses, manipulative sexual vipers, good people or victims dealing with the trauma of an unfair hyper masculine world, or they can even be pure hearted heroins that manifest divine virtues and never lose faith in love no matter what horrors they face. Likewise the men can be psychopathic brutes that feed on the weak, power hungry Machiavellians, selfish parasites, normal average dudes just trying to get by, wise sages, noble lords and heroic warrior saints. And characters often shift from one state of being to another as they are redeemed or corrupted.

However, when it comes to the historical musashi, both the novel and manga capture a different side to him that were both probably true. When reading the book of five rings and historical accounts of his life it does seem like both interpretations of musashi and his motivations are possible. Maybe at the same time since real people are complicated like that.

It’s perfectly possible that musashi had a psychopathic side to him motivated by the vanity of being the strongest and yet over time understood that impulse to be the dark side of him and tried finding spiritual perfection and self knowledge in the way of the warrior so he could put all that dangerous energy flowing through him in the service of something noble and greater than himself.

Both of these sides to the warrior exists. Proven by how the real Musashi had both warrior training from his father and religious Buddhist monk training in a monastery when he lived with his uncle.

But there’s too many works of fiction focusing on just the violent side, either mistakenly glorifying killing or being cynical about it. And when they portray the positive side of the noble warrior it’s either unobtainable like with Batman and captain America who function on comic book logic, ok Batman we’ll pretend that guy you didn’t absolutely body into the pavement is still alive, or are characters like Aragorn who are already at the end of their journeys.

Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa is the only novel I know that portrays the path of the holy warrior in such depth. Musashi seeks to get stronger yes but he uses his victories in duels to measure his spiritual progress by measuring his strength. Because his power is derived from his connection to something infinite. Which is a very Japanese idea. Morihei ueshiba founder of Aikido said similar things about harmonizing with the rythm of existence where “if you fight me you already lost because you’re not facing me you’re facing the universe.” Which makes the duels themselves a religious ritual of sorts.

vagabond also explores this intensely Japanese idea.

it still has great wisdom and I’m sure the manga helped many other teen boys and adolescents who are… (This clip appears:

4:57 "the typical Manga degenerate who can't handle more than 3 sentences per page"

…into realizing that masculinity influencers trying to sell them a pimp fantasy are a weak version of masculinity. But this great wisdom in the manga is just one of many great themes in the much more fulfilling historical novel.

It wasn’t until I was older that I realized that the reason I loved reading this a thousand page Japanese classic was not because I wanted to be Japanese. but because I wanted to reconnect with my own roots that had been severed by my own jaded cynical culture.

Because The way of the warrior is universal and one day I’d hope to study African and Mezoamerican traditions to see the similar elements in their folklore which I already have dabbled into some extent. But musashi from my Latino perspective with ancestors from Italy and the Iberian peninsula, was basically a Chivalric tale of A knight errant traveling to different locations, fighting great opponents, saving villages and conquering the heart of a fair maiden. Except this story was told from Japan, a culture that takes bushido, it’s equivalent to Chivarly incredible seriously. While my culture hasn’t taken chivarly seriously for quite some time. One reason I love musashi by eiji yoshikawa is because it’s the anti-domque xote by miguel Cervantes. A figure crafted specifically to undermine and subvert the Chivalric narrative. And the fact that the samurai protagonist was based on a real historical figure just made it as a rebuttal to Cervantes that much sweeter.

Both Bushido and Chivarly are said to be “complicated” or a “myth” because they weren’t one specific legal code attributed to all knights and samurai of their era and because these warrior ideals changed from region to region and time period to time period. Also their origin is difficult to pinpoint as is their end. But that’s just typical modern arrogance in my opinion. The over emphasis on institutional backing and formal written laws and regulatory bodies etc. I believe that the ethereal nature of Chivalry and bushido as ideals for the warrior to emulate are made even MORE real by being an Omnipresent force and concept that organically emerges in basically every warrior class that forms throughout history. Because the way of the warrior manifests itself as a force of human nature that acts upon history. Something deeply entwined with the human condition. Which is infinitely more real than any institutionalized legal code. Both Bushido and Chivarly were way more real and significant to the very powerful people who dedicated their lives to it than something like modern international law which every government violates on an institutional basis. Did you know that the USA passed The Hague invasion act where they’ll invade the Netherlands if American officials are condemned as war criminals, by the international criminal court look it up.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act

Anyway. When it comes to the similarities between Bushido and Chivarly you see people condemn that idea and claim they were totally different in values and objectives and people claim that they were identical and the same in every way

In reality I think both positions are simultaneously right and wrong. While Chivarly and Bushido are different outlooks on the warrior’s vocation with different priorities in their values but are still the same phenomenon: the attempt of making the warrior’s path a holy and spiritual one with a positive effect on the social order which is backed up by the cosmic order.

They are not formal systems of law, they’re not even a concept or ideal as many others have said, they’re both actually a philosophical school of thought that developed independently in their own regions, with a similar set of axioms like the importance of honor, skill, loyalty, spirituality etc and both these schools of thought are trying to answer the same question. which is: what is the role and purpose of the warrior to himself, his people and the divine?

Proof of chivalry and Bushido actually being schools of thought are all the different knights and samurai who wrote seminal works that contradict each other, like Geoffrey de Charney and Ramon Llul who were both knights who wrote books on their own interpretation of Chivarly and of course Myamoto Musashi and Yamamoto Tsunetomo who were two samurai who wrote books with vastly different interpretations of Bushido.

The way of the warrior becomes In effect a particular way of doing philosophy as the warrior reflects on what it means to be a warrior. Which is exactly what you see in both vagabond and the musashi novel but in a story format which is why it’s so engaging.

In the end it doesn’t matter that chivalry and bushido change according to the ages and have various conflicting conclusions written by different writers just As it doesn’t matter that Platonism, Realism or humanism, etc also changes with different contributions and have conflicting ideas by different prominent thinkers in each respective school of thought. Because the way of the warrior itself is in part a philosophical path just as it is a lifestyle, a profession or a calling.

Another author who wrote a great book on both bushido and Chivarly but who is unfortunately slandered these days as ruining the true understanding of Bushido is a Japanese scholar of the late 19th century called Inazo Nitobe in his seminal work called “Bushido: The soul of Japan” Which I highly recommend you read, it only takes 3 hours it’s a small book.

He does a great job in demonstrating the universal aspect of the way of the warrior and how it’s formed in feudal societies ruled by aristocratic elites. I put a chart on screen for you guys to pause and see how Nitobe draws his parallels.

(Text on Screen:)

Inazo Nitobe was a convert to Christianity, married a white woman and wrote his book in English. So naturally he’s accused of westernizing bushido or at least trying to appeal to the tastes of the west instead of authentically representing Japanese culture and history.

Either that or very much being a man of his time projecting it into the past but aren’t we all? Despite all his western influences Inazo Nitobe was still a Japanese man born in the last years of Japanese feudalism which he grew up in and was the son of one of the last actual legitimate samurai. Which is hilarious because I often see historians of 2024 influenced by post-modern thought using this criticism Nitobe’s book on Bushido, as if THEY are not also men of their time. One much farther away from the era Nitobe was describing than Nitobe himself. Who by the way was basically a samurai by class until the class system was abolished. This is important to understand because then we realize that he wasn’t trying to westernize Bushido or merge it with chivalrous ideas for the benefit of a western audience.

No, Nitobe’s goal was clearly an attempt at ensuring the survival of Bushido beyond the feudal era. So his book was an attempt at adapting Bushido to the new modern era by making it more accessible and appealing to its universalness. In a sense this is no different from any of the other writers on bushido like Musashi and Yamamoto who adapted Bushido to their respective centuries.

And in a sense that’s also what Eiji Yoshikawa was doing with his romantic take on Musashi’s life. An attempt of rediscovering Bushido and keeping it alive by being an intrinsically Japanese story but with also a Universal outlook and applicability. Where people from other cultures can identify with.

At least that was my impression while reading it. The novel had many elements of Shintoism but I would say that it’s fundamentally a Buddhist book, spiritually speaking. And I grew up in an interfaith home where my mother raised me Catholic and my father Buddhist. I grew up surrounded by books like this:

This kind of interfaith dialogue was important to hold the family together I guess. And I had to choose which religion I’d follow growing up. So naturally I grew up practicing both at first, visiting holy sites from both religions in Europe and Asia and participating in religious retreats of both traditions in my late teens and early twenties. Which is when I read Yoshikawa’s novel. And as you can imagine the two traditions got blurry in my head and I started seeing aspects of Catholicism in this very Japanese, very Buddhist book.

1. Chastity and purity being necessary for excellence

2. Virginity being divine and veneration of the feminine virgin. (In this case being the goddess Kannon)

3. Being born again in redemption and penance

4. Cloister, asceticism, pilgrimage

5. Warriors submitting to the wisdom of priests.

6. The necessity of faith

7. And of course the way of the virtuous warrior, bushido/chivalry

These Are all things I recognized in the novel. But also things which took me by surprise like this one scene where Takuan the monk guilts Jotaro into confessing his sins to Buddha by confessing them to Takuan who as a monk represents Buddha and thus can act as an agent of Buddha and absolve Jotaro’s guilt. and I remember being like: that’s the sacrament of confession! I don’t remember that in the Buddhist books I read or the retreats I went through.

But one thing of interest is the prevailing mixture of Meekness and the way of the warrior. Since both Buddhism and Christianity are very meek religions but both produced the most prominent martial cultures in history. Even though many admire Nordic Viking warrior mysticism these days, that tradition has a less enduring legacy and was abandoned by the Vikings themselves who found something better.

(Grrrrr why you still believe in Jesus 10 second clip)

There’s much strength in meekness. It’s what Takezo learns and what makes him become Musashi. It’s about how meekness makes a fighter more effective by making him a civilized and sophisticated gentleman warrior attuned to greater truths as opposed to a feral brute.

Musashi’s conclusions about the importance of the way of the sword in state craft as well as personal development also had striking similarities with the conclusions in the Christian New Testament.

“for the State does not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” Romans 13:4

But also Hebrews 4:12

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

People get hung up on verses like “He who lives by the sword shall die by the Sword.” And think that’s a condemnation of the way of the sword because they forget that Christ Himself died by the sword because He lived by the sword of the word. The Old Testament is filled with warriors after all and that’s a foundational part of Christianity which is very much a martial religion. The peace of the New Testament is about how the world should be while the war of the Old Testament is about how the world is. So there’s still very much the need for the warrior vocation even as we do our best to progress to more peaceful eras.

But make no mistake, musashi is a fundamental Japanese masterpiece one that influences all others. From Kenshin’s penitent samurai pilgrimage to Goku’s unceasing dedication for martial perfection to this random guy in Soul X Calibur:

But the coincidental similarities with Christian motifs due to the novel’s successful capture of universal themes is quite ironic considering the last battle that Musashi participated in as an elderly man was in the eradication of the last Catholics in Japan who had risen up to defend themselves in the shimabara rebellions. Though some accounts say he was hit be stones throne at him by the Christians and was wounded for much of that battle.

I do think Bushido is more flawed than Christian chivarly in its intensely suicidal interpretation of honor. An interpretation similar to what the pagan Romans had, where the act of suicide was seen as more preferable to living with shame. But St Augustine correctly pointed out that this was actually cowardly when he said:

“We shall find that greatness of spirit is not the right term to apply to one who has killed himself because he lacked strength to endure hardships, or another’s wrongdoing. In fact we detect weakness in a mind which cannot bear physical oppression, or the stupid opinion of the mob; we rightly ascribe greatness to a spirit that has the strength to endure a life of misery instead of running away from it, and despite the judgment of men—and in particular the judgment of the mob, which is so often clouded in the darkness of error—in comparison with the pure light of good conscience”

So when the Samurai practices the ritual suicide of seppuku he’s not demonstrating courage but caving into the overwhelming fear of social shame which he can’t bare to live through.

I agree wholeheartedly with inazo Nitobe when he says that the artificial Japanese ideals of giri which means “duty” were inferior to the Christian doctrine of Love which should be the true motivating force behind ethical conduct, especially for warriors.

It’s no wonder that when the estimated 27,000-37,000 Catholic peasants revolted lead by the 16 year old Catholic Samurai named Amakusa Shiro, it took all of the shogunate, the greatest warrior in Japanese history (musashi) and even Protestant Duch naval vessels and artillery to take them down after five months of intense fighting. Their whole world was against them so eventually they were crushed and had to move underground when Japan isolated itself.

But if Japan had become Catholic which it could have been, I think things would have turned out a lot better for them. They wouldn’t be isolated for centuries for one thing. They’d develop militarily along side Europe and establish themselves in the pacific way earlier and not finding themselves at a disadvantage in their home turf against the USA and ultimately ending as a vassal state for the American Empire.

In any case Japan did start to get influenced by western Christian ideas again after the Meiji restoration. And i think the Musashi Novel is influenced somewhat by western ideas just as all of Japan was at the time.

Vagabond is similarly influenced by the west. But a west that is way different from the Christian empires that dominated the globe in the early 20th century. Vagabond is influenced by a cynical west, a purely hypocritical and intellectually dishonest anti-imperialist-empire that turned inoue’s nation into a vassal state without having the intellectual cajones to admit it.

And you see that In Inoue’s work, the search for the infinite in a small world. The the need for an angry young man in Japan to reconnect with the eternal truths of his past and to reach back to a lost heritage.

I’m any case, with the Manga being on an indefinite hiatus at the time of this video being recorded, I fully recommend fans of the manga to read the novel to find the much needed closure you guys might be after. As you’ll find an actual conclusion to these characters you love so much.

And You should DEFINITELY read musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa If you’re a soldier, or a police officer or you work with weapons in anyway in a job where you sometimes might have to end a life to make your living. because this book will help you process the emotional toll on a deeper level through a heroic narrative exploring the best ideals of your vocation.

It’ll help you see how you’re a gardener of civilization helping life grow over all by chopping down the weeds. Provided you are rightly motivated and ethical.

Kind of like these cops who unfortunately had to shoot a discord subreddit mod looking bro who charged them with a Katana. Bro took “the way of the sword” a little too literally. Either that or some serious drugs.

And with that I end this video.

Thank you my patrons. You’re all the true warriors in my little internet garden.

Also I’d like to announce that we have a few more video essays planned before this channel leans more towards animations again where the Skyrim animation finale that you guys keep asking for will finally be completed.

Just a few more months my friends!

And if you like my videos and would like more of me rambling, then I recommend that you first see a therapist, then feel free to see my conversation with Dr Upali here on YouTube over on his channel. No script, no nothing just off the cuff pilgrim sounding more retarded than usual.

Thank you all for listening to my ramblings.

Have a good day my friends.