The Grand Finale

Tama River Fireworks Festival

The Annual Tama River Fireworks Festival was tonight, so Kei's family decided to have a party. We crammed about 20 people into our little apartment, and then headed down to the river to watch the show. Kei and I decided to hang back with a couple of her friends and her father until the action started but soon realized moving down to the river was pointless. We were cleaning up empty beer cans and sushi platters when the windows rattled making us think that the Big One had finally come. Turns out the Fireworks Festival was happening only two hundred yards off our balcony. The sonic booms were causing our whole building to shake!

I recently discovered Photek's "Ni Ten Ichi Ryu," which is a pretty cool piece of techno if I say so myself. Of course, I have no alternative but to pick apart the swordsmanship in this video since I just KNOW that all of my blog readers care so much about what I think.
Ni Ten Ichi Ryu is one of several names that Miyamoto Musashi, perhaps Japan's most famous shugyosha (samurai who lived to train and perfect their skill while doing their best to avoid the luxuries of high samurai society), gave to the style of swordsmanship that he spent the better part of his adult life developing. He actually referred to this style as a "school of strategy," since he was able to apply the same basic principles of skill development into arts other than swordsmanship. During the last few years of his life, Musashi lived in a cave where he did nothing but zazen, caligraphy, as well as finishing a couple of texts on his "school of strategy," called "The Book of Five Rings" and "Going My Own Way." "Ni Ten Ichi Ryu" means "Two Heavens One Style," which, of course is rather ambiguous. Most people just refer to Musashi's style as "Nito Ichi Ryu" or "Two Swords One Style."

This video kicks A, but still, the actor gets a zero for sword fundamentals. He draws with his hand on top of the tsuka. That's fine if you like getting your hand cut off at the wrist. Grabbing the hilt of the sword that way exposes your wrist. Anyone with half a brain knows that you draw from under the tsuka. There are countless other things I could ramble on about, but I won't. I'd rather keep this video filed away in the back of my brain under "badass techno videos."

I do like the two-on-one duel at the end in the snow which is a rather obvious homage to Okamoto's Daibosatsu Toge. In the film, Mifune Toshiro takes on about a dozen rival clansmen in the same way. There are a couple of subtle references to Kurosawa's Sanjuro too. Whoever directed this music video shares my taste for classic samurai flicks.