xxxHolic, chapter 189

[snarp]

Is this a deliberate reference to Shunkin? Or is Beautiful Morally-Problematic Blind Shamisen Player Woman a trope in itself, to which Shunkin herself is a reference?

Comments

[starlady]

…Given that one shogunate assassin in Samurai Champloo, I think we're looking at a trope here, but I have no idea about origins. (I didn't think the one in HOLiC was particularly morally problematic, though.)

[snarp]

OMG WIKIPEDIA

I had never heard of this. I demand a manga about these women right now.

(She's probably not; I just got mad at her for talking casually about killing cats. I'd just rescued mine from a cabinet he'd climbed up and couldn't get back down.)

[starlady]

Fascinating!

[octopedingenue]

Here ya go.

[snarp]

Awesome! It looks suspiciously like a genderswapped Zatoichi, though. (after googling) Apparently so - the writer is listed as being Kan Shimozawa, who created Zatoichi.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

That plotline also sounds even more suspiciously like the 2008 Zatoichi reboot/sequel Ichi, which is also credited to Kan Shimozawa: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1060256/ However, he died in 1968, and all the English-language references I can find on his work seem very cursory and incomplete -- which makes me wonder if the girl-Ichi film and manga are directly based on some sequel title he actually wrote, or if these were modern adaptations and he's just getting original-concept credit?

[octopedingenue]

Sara! She is pretty much the awesome.

Blind shamisen-playing women are A JapaneseThing, themselves: from the Champloo link, the wikipage for goze, which is pretty much the most intriguing ancient organization that actually existed, Knight Templars be demned.. I'm not sure whether Beautiful and Morally Problematic were requirements of the job or whether that's lore that built up around the inherently romantic profession of blind (tragic!), traveling (exotic!), musician (mysterious!) women (scandalous!).

[snarp]

I'm not sure whether Beautiful and Morally Problematic were requirements of the job or whether that's lore that built up around the inherently romantic profession of blind (tragic!), traveling (exotic!), musician (mysterious!) women (scandalous!).

Seems likely. Or maybe it's just the part where they're outside local family-based social structures that makes them so suspicious. Travelling medicine sellers usually seem to be portrayed as morally gray-to-black, too.