The soundtrack for Shogun Assassin is where my writing music started. Here Lone Wolf defeats three ninja women who are disguised as dancer acrobats in the circus de soleil of their day. Some writers like to immerse themselves in the place and setting of the action. We put on our music and takes us to another world. Music helps the author visualize place, mood and setting. And it is not just in samurai novels....
Painting the life of the common people in a world where the major daily chore was finding enough food, can lead readers to think they are indeed being presented with a bleak world. And yet, the Japanese culture has always been one of songs and dance and laughter. Some genre readers are excited by the swordplay, but wonder why the farmers (they are never called “peasants” in Yamabuki books) are included....
Yamabuki travels from the Taka compound to the capital of Heian-kyo.
Toshiro Mifune carries a nodachi in Seven Samurai. In Kurosawa’s film Seven Samurai, Toshiro Mifune plays the character Kikuchiyo, the seventh (and odd-ball member) of the seven samurai. For those not familiar with the film, the concept is that seven unemployed samurai (sometimes called ronin, literally “man of the wave”) are hired by a group of hapless farmers to protect the farmers’ village against a relentless band of marauders. Mifune’s character is shown hefting a sword so long that it has to be carried over the shoulder like a lance....
An excerpt.