Re: "A fake form of old-fashioned Japanese speech supposed to represent the old style of the language is used."


"Bart Mathias" <mathias@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:eaqdnXw25s2p3STZnZ2dnUVZ_sGdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
aesthete8@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
That was from Wikipedia's article on JIDAIGEKI:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jidaigeki

I was puzzled by the next two "dramatic conventions," which seem rather natural.

# In long-running TV series, like Mito Kōmon and Zenigata Heiji, the lead and supporting actors sometimes change. This is done without any rationale for the change of appearance. The new actor simply appears in the place of the old one and the stories continue.

They don't choose actors who look exactly like the person they are playing. In the case of those who really exist, such as Mito Kōmon, there aren't any photographs, and the others didn't even really have any looks.

The same thing is done in American soap operas.

I thought they said that the character has had cosmetic surgery or something? For some reason, I watched the whole of Dynasty (that's called die-nasty in the USA), and I remember that Stephen (Blake's son) was played by a different actor after he reappeared. The ending of Dynasty was that all the characters were machine-gunned to death in a church, maybe because they called it "die nasty" there had to be an ending like that.

There is a statue of Mito Komon in Mito, by the train station. Next time I go there I'll take a photo of it.

# In a sword fight, absurdly, when a large number of villains attacks the main character, they never act simulaneously. Instead, the villains each politely wait their turn to be dispatched, often standing motionless holding their sword within easy striking distance of the main character until their turn to be easily defeated arrives.

The villains know that if they tried a simultaneous attack, the main character would duck and let them chop each other up over his head. I would think that was obvious.

What bothers me the most is when they stand in a circle, and the villain behind the hero could very easily slash the hero's back or head, but just stands there waiting.

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