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Rambling On About Culture Poison
I've already thought of a name for my laptop. My Sharp Mebius Muramasa will be named Masamune. Some reviews spoke of this Muramasa as being a man who made swords so sharp, you could stick a sword in the river and it would cleave passing leaves.
I've been searching around a little and as things turn out, this isn't the entire story.
On the one side you have Masamune. Masamune appears to be thé single greatest blacksmith in Japanese history. He seemed to have lived from late 1200s until mid-1300s, an age in which it was extremely difficult to get your steel pure enough to forge quality swords with.
However, he seemed to have succeeded with it pretty well. It was a time in which the true Japanese Zen-Samurai warrior flourished, revering his sword as much as using it to kill. Sources tell that he made the Hanjo Masamune, which became a symbol of the powerful Tokugawa shogunate, who effectively ruled Japan from +/-1600 to +/-1870. Somewhere along the line though, some Tokugawa family were killed or committed hara-kiri with a Masamune, resulting in a ban on the swords.
On the other hand you have Muramasa. He forged much throughout the early 16th century, the time of the Sengoku-Jidai, the great internal conflict (which resulted in the Tokugawa daimyo's rise to power). Basically everybody was fighting everybody.
Although different in style and build, also because of changed circumstances and demands, the quality of his blades seem to be considered (almost) equal to Masamune's.
Somewhere along the line this legend pops up:
Masamune and his pupil Muramasa met near a small stream.
Each of them brought one of their finest blades.
To show his teacher the quality of his craft, Muramasa stuck his blade into the stream. As leaves floated past, they were neatly cut in two, he held his blade up, proud of his work. Then, Masamune stuck his blade into the stream. As Muramasa watched, the leaves that floated past avoided the blade altogether.
This then is the entire story. And then suddenly, watching things from a different perspective, we see that Muramasa's blades, though sharp, miss the quintessential spirtuality. Hence, they're only good for killing. When a Muramasa is drawn, legend has it that blood MUST be shed with it.
Thusly Masamune and Muramasa become a different philosophical view on fighting.
I can't help the laptop is named Muramasa. But to be honest, I'm with Masamune on this one. However, the contradiction is intrigueing since we are talking weapons of war here. So keeping true to my multilateral view of the world I feel I should bring this contradiction into the nomenclature.
But: shame on Sharp. Using a part of a legend as a marketing tool without even hinting at the true meaning of it is an insult to any culture.
And I must also say that I completely understand and sympathize with Japanese peoples' general distrust of the commercialisation of their culture. You wouldn't believe the crap that's been written with these two names slapped on it and claiming it was true because they saw it in a Manga/Anime Movie.
Alas, this is no different from our own legends and myths. Any movie you go see today, be it Troy, Gladiator, Van Hellsing or whatever. Nowadays things got so twisted and mixed that there are actually people who believe Conan The Barbarian was real, while Hitler was not.
But who gives a crap? Who cares that Achilles never made it into Troy? Who cares Van Hellsing never hunted Dr. Jekyll? Who cares that vampires were actually more like bat/human mutant-like creatures?
Nobody, 'cauz' that won't make anybody any money, now will it?
