Tell me about the Sengoku Jidai, /his/. I recently watched the Extra History series on the period and found it really interesting. However, I know they aren't always accurate with their history and take some liberties with their portrayals and interpretations to make a better narrative.
Also if you have some recommendations for better documentaries on the period or about Tokugawa Ieyasu I'd appreciate it.
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I always want to learn more about this period but the English sources for it are mostly really crappy. There's only a few good ones and I'm too lazy to learn Japanese, or at least currently while I'm trying to learn Mandarin.
I do know a little bit about the era from reading some of the few good English books that exist though, as well as from fucking around on Samurai Archives Wiki. Anything specific you want to know about?
>>1158336
Mostly just overall thoughts on the era. Maybe about how accurate the Extra History series is if you've seen it
>>1158286
Just go play Shogun II.
>>1158382
I think I saw parts of it a long time ago.
IIRC it was pretty good, but was kind of generalized. It didn't really give much focus outside of the three unifiers. If you wanted to know more details or more about specific clans or overall economic and cultural changes during the period, it didn't provide a whole lot.
>>1158382
In terms of overall thoughts on the era, I think one thing to keep in mind is that the Hollywood depictions of ninjas and samurai are basically bullshit.
A lot of the common views of bushido come from a book called Hagakure, which was written by a retainer from Hizen province in Kyushu roughly a hundred years after the end of the Sengoku-Jidai period. The book has a lot of anecdotes about the Nabeshima and Ryuzoji clans which I find interesting, but it also isn't very representative of how samurai actually behaved. Things like loyalty and honor were kind of loose concepts during the time and there were plenty of betrayals, dastardly actions and vassals overthrowing their masters. For example, some daimyo such as Ukita Naoie and Saito Dosan rose to power by backstabbing their overlords. Takeda Shingen rose to power by exiling his own father. Todo Takatora and several other samurai switched allegiance several times rather than deliberately trying to die in battle or committing seppuku when loss was imminent (though certainly some samurai did do both, it wasn't a universal thing).
Daily reminder that this ugly fucker was a genius.
>>1159482
Too bad he was a retard who basically strengthened Ieyasu to usurp his son in the future
>>1159482
>trying to conquer China
>loses to some gooks who were poorly equipped, poorly trained, a shit country
>pissing off his loyal retainers
>giving Ieyasu the time and justification needed to overthrow his clan
>dies when his son is a wee babe, his entire clan ruined
Hideyoshi was a fucking cuck.