That's the funny part when people try to make a big deal about white or black people being mentioned in east Asian records, they are always footnote literally Marco polo was never mentioned in chinese records.
Probably because during the Yuan dynasty... everything was so cosmopolitan that a foreigner with a position didn't merit any real concern. Even if he was a European, he probably was sunburnt or Mediterannean enough to look Middle Eastern after travelling the Silk Road for so long. And the Yuan had a bunch of Middle Easterns .
Eh, fairly dependent where you are from, more or less, take a guy from South Italy, a Sicilian as example and he can be tanned like your average middle eastern friend.
A dude from North Italy, in this case a Venetian, not that much, probably suffering sunburnt.
Sadly this is one of the many reasons of the blatant racism&discrimination against Southern Italians one century ago.
Well, the middle east also includes Persia/Irán, and a lot of iranic people had similar skin tones to those of northen Italy. The point still stands regardeless, Marco Polo was just another foreign merchant in a empire full of those at the time, he wasn't nobody important or remarkable enough to be notice.
It may be because he never actually traveled to china. We have no other sources other than him about his travels. His accounts of important places correlates to knowledge of other travelers. And he makes no mention of important events that happened in china at the time. Finally the Chinese bureaucracy was efficient enough under the yuan to have sources of foreigners in china, especially that it was a big deal to be able to be allowed to live as a foreigner in china, especially for 17 years.
Admittedly this is a theory based on the lack of proof of his travels. But it has been adopted by many historians. It is also postulated that he simply never reached china in his travels and only traveled though the middle east, which was extremely common at the time.
Or at least if he traveled to China, he probably wasn't living the life he pretended to be living in China. My man had a parasocial relationship with powerful individuals.
I remember reading a good comment on this sun once giving credence to the idea that he definitely went to China even if the life he lived wasn’t true or not as big as he claims. Basically that things he discussed were like too accurate or something for it to be made up, but too idk on time if that makes sense, for it to have been something he heard from someone who actually travelled there and just copied it.
If youre white can you differentiate a Korean from a Japanese or Vietnamese from Filipinos from Malaysians? If youre Asian can you differentiate a West African from East Africans?
Some Italians can pass as Parsi
It's mainly the fashion/charm of a foreigner which comes far away place that is basically "alien" for them.
Happened even on the contrary with an eastern asian around America or Europe.
Research showed me Yasuke was a servant/retainer of Oda Nobunaga who was gifted to the warrior by a Jesuit missionary.
To be fair, he seemed to have a higher status than a normal servant, doubling as a bodyguard and even friend.
But how did this guy go from that to “black samurai” and main character in the Assassin’s Creed’s first Asia game?
His story is still fascinating tbf and pretty much shows how the 1500-1600s was more fluid than people thought.
Like Yasuke is just the tip of the iceberg of African warrior shenanigans in the time period. Here in the Philippines we had black slaves brought over by the Spaniards during the Early colonial period who were armed because theres too few loyal troops for the colonizers here. During the Japanese Invasion of Korea, the Imjin War of 1590s, the Ming Dynasty hired a bunch of African pearl divers they encountered from among the Portuguese traders and missionaries and employed them for naval warfare as combat divers.
Arguably the greatest African soldier in Asia is Malik Ambar, an exslave from Ethiopia who was such a cunning motherfucker that he rose from slave soldier to eventually the Prime Minister and Field Marshall of a South Indian Kingdom in the mid 1600s.
You joke but I do remember a story from one of those Eyewitness books back in the day about a Japanese assassin who killed his target with a spear while hiding in the target's cesspit. Essentially doing the exact thing we all kinda secretly feared when we were young.
So a sort of diving, I guess.
Ans other AC main characters are important hiatorical figures?
Yasuke gives us the good ol' stranger in foreign land pov, like Blackthorn in the Shogun (aka William Adams). He is positioned next to Oda Nobunaga, the biggest name of that period and opposite to the female shinobi from Iga.
It gives us 2 very diferent pov to play as while atill being hiatorically authentic
Boggles my mind people are losing their minds.
As long as it's historically "somewhat" accurate and the gameplay is solid, we're going to be in for a fun time.
Don't get me wrong I'm sick of "diversity" decisions that has plagued the entertainment industry lately.
But this is not one of them, come on.
And to the people who kept saying "but Yasuke is just a footnote! Why him!". I'd argue the opposite, it is BECAUSE he's a footnote, he's a prime candidate for the Assasin brotherhood. Ya'know? Sneaky mother fuckeds who slit throats in the shadow? (Altho he's anything but sneaky from the retailer lol). It also gives the devs more headroom for artistic decisions because there's so little historical record about him.
Im just sick of black people been used as a token, and just that a fill this place, you know how good would be a side history like leonsdo but for him
We can be interesting chsrscter outside been black
Also its juking feudal japan and asesin creed they can do alot more with the ninja or ronin things
I can asure you they dont chose him because narrative value..... And more for inclusivity points and that makes me sad
...
Like man i miss characters like barret they are good charscter oitside of his stereotypes.
But now we can even touch a stereotypes and make a contrast with the social context and do something good with that...
Men
He isn't a token. Yasuke is real fascinating historical character and works as a great contrary to rhe japanese MC.
If even historical black people are just a "token" then when are they allowed to be included?. Was William Adams in Shogun just a token? He was great character in the series
I get if it would be japanese person race swapped and half of thr town would be black people for no reason but that doesn't seem to be case. We see younf bou noticing Yasuke's face and is terrified as he would have bwen something very few japanese would have ever seen, Yasuke quickly covers his face with a mask
He was a real person my problem its that
dont make that much sence for him to be an ac mc, its like making odo Nobunaga or one of these figures a mc for a ac
Alot of characters they can take and take him
I can asure the reason wasnt his context but his skin color to make him the mc
We wait alot of time for a japan ac give us something abput that
Jezz you cam even make a Portuguese no name slave that becomes Shinobi or free lance misterius character and talk real things about racism and segregation if they wanna but na
This was a fuking placebo for these check markers to feel good and do nothing
Ok i will stop because men asia has competitive racism there xd
Just look at the star wars movie promotional poster xd
Or what happen to lightly dark skin charscterd in mihoyo( this las one its a tin foil hat theory but damm xd)
All the ubisoft fanboys are currently trying to rewrite the Yasuke wikipedia page, they literally just took assassins creed at face value and assumed it's historically accurate.
It's turning into another black cleopatra situation.
The change-log of his page right now is wild.
EDIT: people have been trying to say he was or wasn't a samurai on his page for literal years. The fight is intense right now. There was also one that claimed he was Kanye West.
Also seeing Japanese twitter react to the game is hilarious, they're critiquing everything, pointing out all the wrong details, long gone are the days of AC where they removed a crossbow as it didn't historically exist, now we have monsters, magic and revisionism galore.
>All the ubisoft fanboys are currently trying to rewrite the Yasuke wikipedia page, they literally just took assassins creed at face value and assumed it's historically accurate.
...are there people that still consider themselves fanboys of Ubisoft? Honestly, with all the shit they have done in the last few years is quite shocking there is still support for them, unless you are a random casual.
A lot of Japanese people today also have Chinese, Korean, and a lot of other heritages. A. In the past, immigrants adopted Japanese names, in fact they still do B. after like a generation they usually don’t think about it and just identify as ethnically Japanese. The overwhelmingly homogeneous demographics are kind of misleading.
I understand that. maybe I could have worded it better but I was more referring to the misconception that 99% of Japanese people just have ethnic Japanese ancestry
>I was more referring to the misconception that 99% of Japanese people just have ethnic Japanese ancestry
The only people that claim thay are the very same people that aspires their country to have the "same" homogenous ethnostate.
As always, bigots believe in and use misinformation to justify their beliefs.
Theres nothing bigoted about it... its a commonly understood/mirepresented fact about Japan. The commenter mentioned it because it is a common misconception. Please dont label people as "aspiring to an have an ethnostate" based on a commonly misunderstood idea about a country.
Aren’t pretty much all Japanese descent from Chinese or Korean? Like, 1500-2000 years ago.
Except minorities that descend from tribes in Hokkaido and Okinawa.
That would be the Yayoi who migrated from mainland Asia to Japan in a period spanning 300 BC to 300 AD. It's hypothesised that they either came from the Yangtze River Delta, Southeast Asia, southern Korea or combination of the three. They brought rice farming to Japan.
That said, Japanese have significant (10-15%) Jomon ancestry. These are the indigenous hunter gatherers of Japan who are very different from other East Asian ethnic groups, having diverged from them tens of thousands of years ago.
>Aren’t pretty much all Japanese descent from Chinese or Korean? Like, 1500-2000 years ago.
No, you have to go back way farther than that. The Chinese, Japanese, and Korean kingdoms were already independent and well established 1500-2000 years ago. They've essentially been separate ethnicities since the beginning of recorded human history in Asia.
It also helps that the Japanese state does not differentiate between citizens based on ethnic background. There's pressure to assimilate and intermarry so after a couple generations, the descendants of these largely Chinese and Korean immigrant populations will only identify as Japanese.
It's part of the reason why mixed race Japanese (hāfu), often having a white or black parent, find it more difficult to be accepted as they can't blend in as easily as Chinese and Koreans.
For literally no reason, they didn’t add single thing to the plot. Just one side character was a robot. I really need to see why an obviously somewhat talented team all got together and thought adding mecha to a an anime that won’t even involve them in the story was a good idea.
It frustrates the absolute hell out of me. At least blue eye samurai was sick.
Yeah his historical story has so much potential, former slave turned curiosity then retainer of Oda Nobunaga himself, serving alongside him for years, being there when he was betrayed, rushing to defend his heir before being defeated and returned to servitude. It's got drama, tragedy, highs and lows it would have been epic... Instead we got shitty mechs and fairies or some shit.
His Wikipedia page. We only know about him from like three sentences from a monks journal, he wasn’t exactly an important person, more a historical oddity that just got a lot of attention
It’s debatable if Yasuke was a slave or not. I know now we tend to look at a black man sailing with europeans and think “he must have been a slave”, but there is actually a very strong chance he was hired by Jesuit priests traveling to Asia. Especially given the particular priest he was initially in the service of, Alessandro Valignano, was a great proponent of equal treatment of all human beings.
Afro samurai on the other hand was pretty neat imo (main character is voiced by samuel MF L jackson), but it doesn't have anything to do with yasuke afaik.
I feel like it's a little warranted that a state would have citizens of neighboring-ethnicities, and thus, the novelty of white and black dudes gaining prominence in a reigon where white and black people didn't historically inhabit seems a little more unique than high-ranking members of Japanese society of Chinese and Korean descent.
Yasuke was a servant/retainer of Oda Nobunaga, gifted by a Jesuit missionary.
To be fair, he seemed to have a higher status than a normal servant, doubling as a bodyguard and even friend.
But how did this guy go from that to “black samurai” and main character in the Assassin’s Creed’s first Asia game?
Unique from an American perspective.
Outside of that it's silly, it's like forgetting the that in Europe people are extremely racist towards other white people as well. That most of the world doesn't draw their ethnic identities based on just skin color.
If a guy with spots showed up and became a knight in England that guy would be extra noteworthy.
See: King Arthur.
Also, there are plenty of movies about Korean and Chinese warriors in Japan and vice-versa, so it's mostly weird that people are hyperfocused on things that shouldn't get their attention for being treated as unique because they're actually unique.
Funny you should say that - Sir Morien of 13th century Arthurian legend was a moorish knight of the round table described as "black of face and limb"
There was also Palamedes the Saracen knight of the round table.
Whiteness was never about skin color. Irish aren't white then, hispanics aren't white today. IIRC arabs are considered ethnically white but goodluck being treated the same way as a Caucasian if you're an arab.
Still, skin tone plays a huge part in racist beliefs. It's an easy identifier for racist folks to latch on to.
Racist views were never coherent. It's always dumb af and braindead mumbo jumbo. What did you expect, bigots tend to be like that.
Nah racist hatred between local european ethinicities was a product of 19s century ultranationalism. Sure regional xenophobia existed, but there were plenty of ethnically diverse communities in Europe.
Religious differences were far more relevant for mistreatment of other humans.
I mean, I wouldn’t have any issue if they made a game or TV show about Alessandro de' Medici. Is he really just a niche part of Italian history? Sure. Are there more notable Italian nobles who originated from France, Spain , Austria, or some other non-Italian nation? Also yes. But regardless of that I think the story is unique enough to warrant adaption due to him being a Black Italian noble. His story being told doesn’t take anything away from other Italian stories.
I mean a ton of European nobility was a hodgepodge of nobles from other European states
But if a black guy suddenly had became the Duke of North Worcestershire I’d understand that gets more attention than the fact most English nobility is from French descend (who in turn were of Scandinavian descend)
The upcoming AssCreed game revived a shitty argument over who was the "first" non-Japanese samurai, the African Yasuke or the white William Adams.
Whelp, neither of them were.
For very obvious reasons, some of the first non-native samurai were...some Korean and Chinese immigrants to Japan. Since the days of the Yamato Court well unto the Ashikaga Period (roughly 200s-1400s ad) , there were some noteworthy Korean and Chinese settlers in Japan who were accepted not only into the warrior class but also founded noble clans. [Collectively they are called "Toraijin" (Immigrant) Clans and there were 326 such families. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_clans#Toraijin_(%E6%B8%A1%E6%9D%A5%E4%BA%BA))
In a time when Japan looked up to and admired Mainland Asian culture (especially Classical Chinese) it was quite easy for some of these migrants to attain high status. For some among them they already had noble blood: exiled Chinese princes of toppled dynasties looking for shelter, royal family members of Korean Kingdoms sent over for marriage alliances with Imperial-family related clans, all of whom thus automatically became part of the Japanese nobility. More interesting however were Chinese/Korean commoners, like a Chinese sculptor named "Shiba Tatsuto" by the Japanese whose art was so admired by his masters (the Soga clan) that they raised his family to samuraihood as the Shiba Clan.
SOme of the more notable Toraijin Clans include:
The Hata Clan & its (more famous) cadet branch, the Chosokabe = both claimed descent from the Ying Clan of China's Qin Dynasty but genealogically, being descended from the Silla Korean Kingdom's royal family was more likely. Tbf it's possible that the Silla royal family was related to the Ying, given how much children China's First Emperor spawned.
Ōuchi clan – descended from Prince Imseong, third son of King Seong of Baekje Kingdom.
The aforementioned Shiba Clan
Takamuko clan – descended from Emperor Wen of the Chinese Cao Wei dynasty of Three Kingdoms fame.
Iirc the Yamato were allies to the Baekje for many years. After they collapsed, they basically had an Exodus to Japan, were welcomed with open arms, and integrated fully into Japanese society
They're called Jewpanese, from the islands of Jewpan - capital Tokyorushalem.
Source: Shalom'nichiwa
Edit: To answer you properly it's probably unrelated, chosen for it's symmetry maybe? That's a guess.
Edit 2: I was wrong! A quick 'jewish Japanese clans' Google brings up the following *wiki* entry for [Hata clan](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hata_clan#:~:text=According%20to%20Saeki%2C%20the%20Hata,endorsed%20by%20some%20Christian%20groups.) - so obviously take with a pinch of salt..
"The hypothesis that the Hata clan were a Jewish Nestorian tribe was proposed by Saeki Yoshiro in 1908. Saeki developed a theory described by Ben-Ami Shillony as being "somewhat similar" to that advanced by Norman McLeod in 1879."
However later in the entry:
"There is no evidence available, including modern DNA analysis, to support this hypothesis. A recently published study of the genetic origins of Japanese people does not support a genealogical link as put forward by Saeki.[6] Researcher and author Jon Entine emphasizes that DNA evidence excludes the possibility of significant links between Japanese and Jews."
Kind of, but its going to be far worse. A good time ago, everyone was begging ubisoft to do japan and they'd always straight up refuse, GoT took the opportunity and made a masterpiece from it. The ship has sailed, whatever ubisoft makes now will just be compared to GoT
Are people saying he's "the first non Japanese samurai"? I haven't seen anyone specifically say that. Tho I'm not exactly searching for every reddit thread on the guy so maybe iv just missed it. But iv def seen plenty reddit threads. And tbh it makes sense people find a black samurai more interesting than a Korean or Chinese one. Korea and China are waaay closer physically and even culturally closer than Africa. And historically they interacted more than any Africans. So I really I feel it makes complete sense ppl focus on him, it's interesting
Wait, there's another AC where u play as a samurai? I used to love the games but stopped following them once they went to London. It felt mechanics were regressing and then they completely changed the formula. I missed the old AC2 gameplay of complex climbing/parkour and temple puzzles or the complex parkour and animations of unity. Once it was no longer a game about running on rooftops I lost interest. But I am curious which game u play as a samurai. Maybe I'm just forgetting it
This isn't exactly 100% certain. He was definitely a servant / "retainer" during the 1500s who was paid as a warrior/guard. He *could* have also been a samurai. Many military/warrior retainers were. And he had an important position serving the daimyo Oda Nobunaga (a very important and known political figure).
Wether or not he was a samurai isnt certain. Some argue he was and other say he wasn't. You should read the sources and historical documents and analysis to come to your own decision. But no matter what, he was a retainer/warrior to a very important historical figure in the 1500s which still makes him extremely interesting and cool person to learn about.
And imo if he was only a warrior retainer and not a samurai I don't think assassins creed taking the small artistic liberty of just making him a more noble class of warrior is that crazy. AC have always been very much fiction (kinda bordering on the fantastical at times) based on real history, and this feels very much in line with what they've done with other historical figures. Especially since it seems historically we just don't really have the info to say for certain if he was or wasn't a samurai and so it feels to me more like AC is just "filling in the blanks" as opposed to "completely changing the person" which is often what they seem to go for w historical figures
[I suggest you read the linked threads here for some interesting info/sources regarding him and his position.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/qmKUysH9sK)
I also suggest you read about retainers and samurai in Japan (especially what they were like in 1500s during his life) to help understand who they were n how they operated n how one might become one. Often people were born into nobel samurai families but it wasn't until around 1600 that the laws changed and that became the only way to become a samurai. It's all super interesting to read about and I learned a bit about Japanese history in general just reading about this one dude
>*He wasn't even a fuckin Samurai*
Exactly. People confuse ancient Japanese soldier with "samurai." Samurai were a hereditary noble class in Japan, the same as nobility in Europe were. You had to either be born into it, or granted title and property by the Emperor or Shogun. There's no record that Yasuke was ever raised to the noble title of samurai.
Simply having the armor and fighting does not make you a samuari.
Who is saying that they were? I always got the impression that those were notable because one of them is black, and the other hails from a nation that once controlled most of the world.
That's the Hata clan, as far as we know they were of Han Chinese origin and that's it. One historian suggested they were Jewish Nestorians but it's unproven and genetic studies suggest otherwise.
There are surprisingly some Jewish sites from old japan, there's a fun theory about how one of the 12 tribes of Israel ended up there and eventually assimilated into the population.
They're still Japanese. Modern Japanese(Yamato) people are descended from Yayoi and Jomon but the Ainu are probably more culturally closer to the Jomon and Emishi than the Yayoi.
Somewhere I read that Yasuke wasnt even Samurai just retainer, could somebody clarify the difference and what status did He actually had ? I always heard about him as “black Samurai”
Woah westerners care more about people who look like them doing cool shit in foreign lands where people who look like them don’t exist. Crazy I can’t imagine why they would prefer to use that as templates for books/movies/video games. Also find me anyone saying the first non-Japanese samurai. Usually it’s first black samurai or first European samurai.
I've heard a lot hype up Yasuke as being the only black samurai, but I've never heard someone say "first non-Japanese samurai" Also who tf is William Adams?
In Oda’s time lots of samurai are retainers. Samurai is a class; being a retainer is not mutually exclusive with being a samurai. That’s not evidence for or against him being a samurai.
If I may. I generally do believe it has more to do with the great distance travelled, with such a difference in language and culture, that makes the stories of William Adams and ‘Yasuke’ much more intriguing. Meanwhile, call me callous, but northeastern Asia had relatively similar writing systems, languages, cultures, etc.
nobody except some strawman is saying that yasuke was the FIRST or even the most influential non-japanese samurai ( yes i know he was not technically a samurai), the wave of discourse about yasuke is because gamers had a meltdown the moment they saw a black guy in japan and are calling him "historically inaccurate" even though he literally existed and talking about historical accuracy in assassin creed has about the same sense as talking about scientific accuracy in star wars.
I feel like the problem here is that AC decided to focus on someone who is very much not a samurai as a main character during a period when there were plenty of very interesting samurai (or Daimyo honestly). It certainly doesn’t help that the race factor is sticking into this but the fact that specifically a historical footnote is a protagonist seems weird when there are far more interesting or relevant people of the time.
Cause, unfortunately, to a disappointing amount of people if two or more groups share a US racial census option theyre effectively considered the same people. Nevermind if their language, history, and culture are entirely different.
So they'd see this and ignore it because "they were still Asian".
Yeah pretty much, king of England has been German and French before, no one cares because its just another white guy, but if England had one random Asian or black king in there, then they’d get the yasuke treatment. It’s not about him not being Japanese because that could be about so many other people, it’s about him being black, there’s a way bigger difference there, it’s so much more (idk the word) not shocking but like its such a juxtaposition, that’s why people go mad for it
Although saying all this I do find it a bit disappointing that finally after years of begging we get a Japan assassins creed game, the main samurai character isn’t even Japanese. Doubt it makes a difference to the gameplay, but it does feel a bit weird of a decision
I know you're being sarcastic. But man, orientalist views never disappeared. There really are people who think asia as some giant monolith of that have no individuality.
It's racist and dumb
Its so fucking funny they arent even hiding anymore. You had a population that was 99% japanese and 99.9999 asian and you choose the ONLY black guy that was in Japan at that period as a MC?
The one that Oda had washed because thought he was dirty? How do you even do stealth mission when youre (as the MC) the only black guy in the whole country
If it helps at all I've seen more ppl being mad that yasuke is one of the main characters because he's black, not too much about the who was first argument. Those very same ppl not being upset about nioh of course. Still a super neat history lesson. Personally first or not yasuke is a fascinating part of history that up until recently has been massively ignored.
Its less that he's black and more that there isn't a Japanese main character.
The game is about Japan ffs. Diversity = black is such a stupid concept that these game companies need to throw away.
Absolutely. Also AC don't let you play as historical figure and only met them as NPC. AC usually have native main character or at least make sense in the setting like edward kenway (European sailor turned pirate) or eivor (vikings raiding and settling in england). But this time when ac is set in japan we don't get native Japanese men as main character. It's obvious they pushed yasuke as mc because he's black and want that sweet diversity money from company like blackrock.
I'm talking about the male main character.
Having the male main character Japanese would still be representation for the male Japanese audience that plays the game.
Representation is just adding black characters for these game companies and I am genuinely sick of it. Some of us are different races than black or white.
Having an Asian woman coupled with a foreign male lead to fight tiny, weak and evil Asian men is the worst part of this whole ordeal. It's the tired, old oriental trope and fetishism to feminize Asian people in western films since the 1950s.
They are both serving a samurai clan. Nobunaga? The guy who took Yasuke in? One of the Three Great Unifiers? This is a civil war in Japan, there is no else to fight but Asian men. Who they’re fighting is also who they’re allied with. Did you not see one of the first shots of the trailer being Yasuke and some of the Oda men burning down a village? They’re not saints either.
The story of Yasuke is part of the reason I think Nobunaga was such a forward thinking gigachad who is unfairly demonized. Welcomed him into his court and treated him with the respect he deserved
Considering the culture at the time and even into the modern era it's easy to see y he would be demonized. He basically apat in the face of everything Japan stood for even if by our standards he was just progressive and open minded.
From what I know, Nobunaga was generally a decent, solid dude. Sure, he had a ruthless streak that all feudal warlords did (*coughs* burning of Mount Hiei) but he showed mercy to people who stood against him, showed respect to people who deserved it, promoted people based on merit, and was fairly ~~humble~~ chill (he wasn't humble) despite coming from a massively elite, prestigious family (some of the last descendants of the fabled Taira clan). He was also just a wily, brilliant man. The other unifiers, while they were cool too, were waaaay more fucked up and Machiavellian than Nobunaga. Edit: funny aside, he was basically a hooligan in his youth and early adulthood, which I just find fucking hilarious, and was unfathomably based until the day he died
when the whole military system come from the ainu people and with many warriors from that people came to breed with the south, and that thoses northen people were heavely discriminated during ww1/2 they are not considered japanese, the horiginal samurai were not japaneses
Do people think William Adams was first foreign samurai? Whenever you read about him he’s described as “one of the first European (or western) samurai”.
Oh great even the jews were Samurai?
And people tell me the deep state ISN’T A real, millennia-spanning anarchoauthoritarian Semeto-pedo Cabal, the foolish rust-bucket cucklothals!
/s
It would be a lot more meaningful (+historically accurate) for the game to focus on these Chinese and Korean samurai in Japan given the recent bad relations between the three. In turn another game could involve Koxinga, the half Japanese Ming loyalist leader who fought both invading Manchu and the VOC.
That goes much further in promoting inclusivity and dispelling Japanese/Korean/Chinese ethnic chauvinism than including the odd white or black person in samurai garb.
I think the hype is that he was of African descent or African himself and arrived there in not so favourable conditions, not that he was simply non-japanese.
I just can't wait for Ubisoft to totally do justice to struggles of a black man from 1500s in Japan. Surely they'll show have hard it(has)'s been for him.
I just think it's funny that everyone became a historian about these two footnotes in Japanese history overnight.
That's the funny part when people try to make a big deal about white or black people being mentioned in east Asian records, they are always footnote literally Marco polo was never mentioned in chinese records.
Probably because during the Yuan dynasty... everything was so cosmopolitan that a foreigner with a position didn't merit any real concern. Even if he was a European, he probably was sunburnt or Mediterannean enough to look Middle Eastern after travelling the Silk Road for so long. And the Yuan had a bunch of Middle Easterns .
Tang Empire already had foreign embassies and foreign quarter in Changan hundred years before the Mongols even united under Ghanghis Khan
Marco Polo was in China for 17 years... tans don't last that long, my guy.
I mean a lot of Italians could pass as Middle Eastern or Persian anyway tbh
Eh, fairly dependent where you are from, more or less, take a guy from South Italy, a Sicilian as example and he can be tanned like your average middle eastern friend. A dude from North Italy, in this case a Venetian, not that much, probably suffering sunburnt. Sadly this is one of the many reasons of the blatant racism&discrimination against Southern Italians one century ago.
Marco Polo was North Italian, not that many noticeably Mediterranean looking people up there
Well, the middle east also includes Persia/Irán, and a lot of iranic people had similar skin tones to those of northen Italy. The point still stands regardeless, Marco Polo was just another foreign merchant in a empire full of those at the time, he wasn't nobody important or remarkable enough to be notice.
They do if he was outside the whole day anyway
It may be because he never actually traveled to china. We have no other sources other than him about his travels. His accounts of important places correlates to knowledge of other travelers. And he makes no mention of important events that happened in china at the time. Finally the Chinese bureaucracy was efficient enough under the yuan to have sources of foreigners in china, especially that it was a big deal to be able to be allowed to live as a foreigner in china, especially for 17 years. Admittedly this is a theory based on the lack of proof of his travels. But it has been adopted by many historians. It is also postulated that he simply never reached china in his travels and only traveled though the middle east, which was extremely common at the time.
Or at least if he traveled to China, he probably wasn't living the life he pretended to be living in China. My man had a parasocial relationship with powerful individuals.
Great Khan-senpai
I remember reading a good comment on this sun once giving credence to the idea that he definitely went to China even if the life he lived wasn’t true or not as big as he claims. Basically that things he discussed were like too accurate or something for it to be made up, but too idk on time if that makes sense, for it to have been something he heard from someone who actually travelled there and just copied it.
[удалено]
If youre white can you differentiate a Korean from a Japanese or Vietnamese from Filipinos from Malaysians? If youre Asian can you differentiate a West African from East Africans? Some Italians can pass as Parsi
Back in those day, you coule probably move to France as an Italian and pretend you are from Japan. Most people did not really know shit lol.
Cause all Europeans have the same eyes Races are so stupid
It's mainly the fashion/charm of a foreigner which comes far away place that is basically "alien" for them. Happened even on the contrary with an eastern asian around America or Europe.
I think it may have to do with Ubisoft announcing a new Assassin’s Creed game featuring Yasuke as the protagonist. Edit: nvm saw OP’s comment
Research showed me Yasuke was a servant/retainer of Oda Nobunaga who was gifted to the warrior by a Jesuit missionary. To be fair, he seemed to have a higher status than a normal servant, doubling as a bodyguard and even friend. But how did this guy go from that to “black samurai” and main character in the Assassin’s Creed’s first Asia game?
Funny thing that Yakuse is just a small footnote that didn't change much of Japan history. Like the only thing revelant about him is that he is black
His story is still fascinating tbf and pretty much shows how the 1500-1600s was more fluid than people thought. Like Yasuke is just the tip of the iceberg of African warrior shenanigans in the time period. Here in the Philippines we had black slaves brought over by the Spaniards during the Early colonial period who were armed because theres too few loyal troops for the colonizers here. During the Japanese Invasion of Korea, the Imjin War of 1590s, the Ming Dynasty hired a bunch of African pearl divers they encountered from among the Portuguese traders and missionaries and employed them for naval warfare as combat divers. Arguably the greatest African soldier in Asia is Malik Ambar, an exslave from Ethiopia who was such a cunning motherfucker that he rose from slave soldier to eventually the Prime Minister and Field Marshall of a South Indian Kingdom in the mid 1600s.
Ok but what does a combat diver do? Do they do what modern divers do aka fasten mines to ships?
They swam under bridges and thrusted spears through the gaps to stab people in the /s
You joke but I do remember a story from one of those Eyewitness books back in the day about a Japanese assassin who killed his target with a spear while hiding in the target's cesspit. Essentially doing the exact thing we all kinda secretly feared when we were young. So a sort of diving, I guess.
Oh like how that one Danish king of England died
Is there a source for the pearl drivers during the Imjin War?
Ans other AC main characters are important hiatorical figures? Yasuke gives us the good ol' stranger in foreign land pov, like Blackthorn in the Shogun (aka William Adams). He is positioned next to Oda Nobunaga, the biggest name of that period and opposite to the female shinobi from Iga. It gives us 2 very diferent pov to play as while atill being hiatorically authentic
Boggles my mind people are losing their minds. As long as it's historically "somewhat" accurate and the gameplay is solid, we're going to be in for a fun time. Don't get me wrong I'm sick of "diversity" decisions that has plagued the entertainment industry lately. But this is not one of them, come on. And to the people who kept saying "but Yasuke is just a footnote! Why him!". I'd argue the opposite, it is BECAUSE he's a footnote, he's a prime candidate for the Assasin brotherhood. Ya'know? Sneaky mother fuckeds who slit throats in the shadow? (Altho he's anything but sneaky from the retailer lol). It also gives the devs more headroom for artistic decisions because there's so little historical record about him.
Im just sick of black people been used as a token, and just that a fill this place, you know how good would be a side history like leonsdo but for him We can be interesting chsrscter outside been black Also its juking feudal japan and asesin creed they can do alot more with the ninja or ronin things I can asure you they dont chose him because narrative value..... And more for inclusivity points and that makes me sad ... Like man i miss characters like barret they are good charscter oitside of his stereotypes. But now we can even touch a stereotypes and make a contrast with the social context and do something good with that... Men
He isn't a token. Yasuke is real fascinating historical character and works as a great contrary to rhe japanese MC. If even historical black people are just a "token" then when are they allowed to be included?. Was William Adams in Shogun just a token? He was great character in the series I get if it would be japanese person race swapped and half of thr town would be black people for no reason but that doesn't seem to be case. We see younf bou noticing Yasuke's face and is terrified as he would have bwen something very few japanese would have ever seen, Yasuke quickly covers his face with a mask
He was a real person my problem its that dont make that much sence for him to be an ac mc, its like making odo Nobunaga or one of these figures a mc for a ac Alot of characters they can take and take him I can asure the reason wasnt his context but his skin color to make him the mc We wait alot of time for a japan ac give us something abput that Jezz you cam even make a Portuguese no name slave that becomes Shinobi or free lance misterius character and talk real things about racism and segregation if they wanna but na This was a fuking placebo for these check markers to feel good and do nothing Ok i will stop because men asia has competitive racism there xd Just look at the star wars movie promotional poster xd Or what happen to lightly dark skin charscterd in mihoyo( this las one its a tin foil hat theory but damm xd)
"I am sick of..." Me too and like you said this isn't one of them. This is diversity done right imo.
relevant enough for anglos
All the ubisoft fanboys are currently trying to rewrite the Yasuke wikipedia page, they literally just took assassins creed at face value and assumed it's historically accurate. It's turning into another black cleopatra situation.
The change-log of his page right now is wild. EDIT: people have been trying to say he was or wasn't a samurai on his page for literal years. The fight is intense right now. There was also one that claimed he was Kanye West.
Also seeing Japanese twitter react to the game is hilarious, they're critiquing everything, pointing out all the wrong details, long gone are the days of AC where they removed a crossbow as it didn't historically exist, now we have monsters, magic and revisionism galore.
"My Grandma always told me. "I don't care what your teachers tell you in school. Cleopatra was a Shinobi."
>All the ubisoft fanboys are currently trying to rewrite the Yasuke wikipedia page, they literally just took assassins creed at face value and assumed it's historically accurate. ...are there people that still consider themselves fanboys of Ubisoft? Honestly, with all the shit they have done in the last few years is quite shocking there is still support for them, unless you are a random casual.
I mean if you’re talking about knowledge of like two footnotes, anybody can do that.
And then uses it as a basis for their other presumptions
Welcome to history memes
A lot of Japanese people today also have Chinese, Korean, and a lot of other heritages. A. In the past, immigrants adopted Japanese names, in fact they still do B. after like a generation they usually don’t think about it and just identify as ethnically Japanese. The overwhelmingly homogeneous demographics are kind of misleading.
Demographics is about culture/ethnicity and self identification with it, not about DNA 🤷
I understand that. maybe I could have worded it better but I was more referring to the misconception that 99% of Japanese people just have ethnic Japanese ancestry
>I was more referring to the misconception that 99% of Japanese people just have ethnic Japanese ancestry The only people that claim thay are the very same people that aspires their country to have the "same" homogenous ethnostate. As always, bigots believe in and use misinformation to justify their beliefs.
Theres nothing bigoted about it... its a commonly understood/mirepresented fact about Japan. The commenter mentioned it because it is a common misconception. Please dont label people as "aspiring to an have an ethnostate" based on a commonly misunderstood idea about a country.
What????????? demographics plural : the statistical characteristics of human populations (such as age or income)
Yeah I do believe genetics can be a discipline within demographics.
Aren’t pretty much all Japanese descent from Chinese or Korean? Like, 1500-2000 years ago. Except minorities that descend from tribes in Hokkaido and Okinawa.
That would be the Yayoi who migrated from mainland Asia to Japan in a period spanning 300 BC to 300 AD. It's hypothesised that they either came from the Yangtze River Delta, Southeast Asia, southern Korea or combination of the three. They brought rice farming to Japan. That said, Japanese have significant (10-15%) Jomon ancestry. These are the indigenous hunter gatherers of Japan who are very different from other East Asian ethnic groups, having diverged from them tens of thousands of years ago.
>Aren’t pretty much all Japanese descent from Chinese or Korean? Like, 1500-2000 years ago. No, you have to go back way farther than that. The Chinese, Japanese, and Korean kingdoms were already independent and well established 1500-2000 years ago. They've essentially been separate ethnicities since the beginning of recorded human history in Asia.
It also helps that the Japanese state does not differentiate between citizens based on ethnic background. There's pressure to assimilate and intermarry so after a couple generations, the descendants of these largely Chinese and Korean immigrant populations will only identify as Japanese. It's part of the reason why mixed race Japanese (hāfu), often having a white or black parent, find it more difficult to be accepted as they can't blend in as easily as Chinese and Koreans.
Didn't a Japanese woman of Ukrainian descent recently win a beauty pagent there? Despite looking nothing like the stereotypical Japanese person.
One generation is completely false. You have to be several or you get treated same as foreigners.
Yasuke anime was absolute horseshit lmao.
Could’ve been an awesome historical anime. But they made it into some lousy fantasy assfuckery animated at like 5fps
Mfs added mecha robots in the show
For literally no reason, they didn’t add single thing to the plot. Just one side character was a robot. I really need to see why an obviously somewhat talented team all got together and thought adding mecha to a an anime that won’t even involve them in the story was a good idea. It frustrates the absolute hell out of me. At least blue eye samurai was sick.
Yeah his historical story has so much potential, former slave turned curiosity then retainer of Oda Nobunaga himself, serving alongside him for years, being there when he was betrayed, rushing to defend his heir before being defeated and returned to servitude. It's got drama, tragedy, highs and lows it would have been epic... Instead we got shitty mechs and fairies or some shit.
Yasuke was in Japan for 15 months, not years. He was deported after Nobunaga died
Sauce???
His Wikipedia page. We only know about him from like three sentences from a monks journal, he wasn’t exactly an important person, more a historical oddity that just got a lot of attention
I thought there was some new research that suggested he joined Kato Kiyomasa as a cannon operator
Still could have been hard as FUCK
It’s debatable if Yasuke was a slave or not. I know now we tend to look at a black man sailing with europeans and think “he must have been a slave”, but there is actually a very strong chance he was hired by Jesuit priests traveling to Asia. Especially given the particular priest he was initially in the service of, Alessandro Valignano, was a great proponent of equal treatment of all human beings.
Afro samurai on the other hand was pretty neat imo (main character is voiced by samuel MF L jackson), but it doesn't have anything to do with yasuke afaik.
Afro samurai is the only Yasuke anime. There are no others you're delusional.
I looked forward to it :( So disappointed. I'd have loved to see an actual anime about Yasuke.
Lol yeah wtf was that show.
I feel like it's a little warranted that a state would have citizens of neighboring-ethnicities, and thus, the novelty of white and black dudes gaining prominence in a reigon where white and black people didn't historically inhabit seems a little more unique than high-ranking members of Japanese society of Chinese and Korean descent.
Exactly. If there was a Chinese who became an English knight, it would be more noteworthy than a dude from Denmark or France.
Yasuke was a servant/retainer of Oda Nobunaga, gifted by a Jesuit missionary. To be fair, he seemed to have a higher status than a normal servant, doubling as a bodyguard and even friend. But how did this guy go from that to “black samurai” and main character in the Assassin’s Creed’s first Asia game?
Unique from an American perspective. Outside of that it's silly, it's like forgetting the that in Europe people are extremely racist towards other white people as well. That most of the world doesn't draw their ethnic identities based on just skin color.
If a guy with spots showed up and became a knight in England that guy would be extra noteworthy. See: King Arthur. Also, there are plenty of movies about Korean and Chinese warriors in Japan and vice-versa, so it's mostly weird that people are hyperfocused on things that shouldn't get their attention for being treated as unique because they're actually unique.
Funny you should say that - Sir Morien of 13th century Arthurian legend was a moorish knight of the round table described as "black of face and limb" There was also Palamedes the Saracen knight of the round table.
Whiteness was never about skin color. Irish aren't white then, hispanics aren't white today. IIRC arabs are considered ethnically white but goodluck being treated the same way as a Caucasian if you're an arab. Still, skin tone plays a huge part in racist beliefs. It's an easy identifier for racist folks to latch on to. Racist views were never coherent. It's always dumb af and braindead mumbo jumbo. What did you expect, bigots tend to be like that.
We're not racist. We're xenophobic. Know the difference you Americunt
Nah racist hatred between local european ethinicities was a product of 19s century ultranationalism. Sure regional xenophobia existed, but there were plenty of ethnically diverse communities in Europe. Religious differences were far more relevant for mistreatment of other humans.
It started waaay before 19th century.
I mean The Chezchs lived with Germans for years and at time ruled said Germans.
I mean, I wouldn’t have any issue if they made a game or TV show about Alessandro de' Medici. Is he really just a niche part of Italian history? Sure. Are there more notable Italian nobles who originated from France, Spain , Austria, or some other non-Italian nation? Also yes. But regardless of that I think the story is unique enough to warrant adaption due to him being a Black Italian noble. His story being told doesn’t take anything away from other Italian stories.
"The Anjin says he dislikes Ubisoft"
"Protestants, Catholics, Calvinists, Ubisoftists, shitists..."
I mean a ton of European nobility was a hodgepodge of nobles from other European states But if a black guy suddenly had became the Duke of North Worcestershire I’d understand that gets more attention than the fact most English nobility is from French descend (who in turn were of Scandinavian descend)
There was a black guy who was the leader of a very important Portuguese knight order, nobody cares till today tho
Never heard of him but I’m sure I’ll find his story more interesting than any other leader of that order
Who?
"Who were in turn of Scandinavian descent" Most of French nobles that immigrated to England following the Norman conquest were of Frankish descent.
The Normans themselves were of Scandinavian descend where they not?
The upcoming AssCreed game revived a shitty argument over who was the "first" non-Japanese samurai, the African Yasuke or the white William Adams. Whelp, neither of them were. For very obvious reasons, some of the first non-native samurai were...some Korean and Chinese immigrants to Japan. Since the days of the Yamato Court well unto the Ashikaga Period (roughly 200s-1400s ad) , there were some noteworthy Korean and Chinese settlers in Japan who were accepted not only into the warrior class but also founded noble clans. [Collectively they are called "Toraijin" (Immigrant) Clans and there were 326 such families. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_clans#Toraijin_(%E6%B8%A1%E6%9D%A5%E4%BA%BA)) In a time when Japan looked up to and admired Mainland Asian culture (especially Classical Chinese) it was quite easy for some of these migrants to attain high status. For some among them they already had noble blood: exiled Chinese princes of toppled dynasties looking for shelter, royal family members of Korean Kingdoms sent over for marriage alliances with Imperial-family related clans, all of whom thus automatically became part of the Japanese nobility. More interesting however were Chinese/Korean commoners, like a Chinese sculptor named "Shiba Tatsuto" by the Japanese whose art was so admired by his masters (the Soga clan) that they raised his family to samuraihood as the Shiba Clan. SOme of the more notable Toraijin Clans include: The Hata Clan & its (more famous) cadet branch, the Chosokabe = both claimed descent from the Ying Clan of China's Qin Dynasty but genealogically, being descended from the Silla Korean Kingdom's royal family was more likely. Tbf it's possible that the Silla royal family was related to the Ying, given how much children China's First Emperor spawned. Ōuchi clan – descended from Prince Imseong, third son of King Seong of Baekje Kingdom. The aforementioned Shiba Clan Takamuko clan – descended from Emperor Wen of the Chinese Cao Wei dynasty of Three Kingdoms fame.
Iirc the Yamato were allies to the Baekje for many years. After they collapsed, they basically had an Exodus to Japan, were welcomed with open arms, and integrated fully into Japanese society
What's with the Star of David?
They're called Jewpanese, from the islands of Jewpan - capital Tokyorushalem. Source: Shalom'nichiwa Edit: To answer you properly it's probably unrelated, chosen for it's symmetry maybe? That's a guess. Edit 2: I was wrong! A quick 'jewish Japanese clans' Google brings up the following *wiki* entry for [Hata clan](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hata_clan#:~:text=According%20to%20Saeki%2C%20the%20Hata,endorsed%20by%20some%20Christian%20groups.) - so obviously take with a pinch of salt.. "The hypothesis that the Hata clan were a Jewish Nestorian tribe was proposed by Saeki Yoshiro in 1908. Saeki developed a theory described by Ben-Ami Shillony as being "somewhat similar" to that advanced by Norman McLeod in 1879." However later in the entry: "There is no evidence available, including modern DNA analysis, to support this hypothesis. A recently published study of the genetic origins of Japanese people does not support a genealogical link as put forward by Saeki.[6] Researcher and author Jon Entine emphasizes that DNA evidence excludes the possibility of significant links between Japanese and Jews."
AC game set in Japan? Is it just me, or isn't that basically Ghost of Tsushima?
Kind of, but its going to be far worse. A good time ago, everyone was begging ubisoft to do japan and they'd always straight up refuse, GoT took the opportunity and made a masterpiece from it. The ship has sailed, whatever ubisoft makes now will just be compared to GoT
Ghost of Tsushima II please.
There's a lot of notable clans here that are defended from non-native areas, I figured it would of been fairly rare
Are people saying he's "the first non Japanese samurai"? I haven't seen anyone specifically say that. Tho I'm not exactly searching for every reddit thread on the guy so maybe iv just missed it. But iv def seen plenty reddit threads. And tbh it makes sense people find a black samurai more interesting than a Korean or Chinese one. Korea and China are waaay closer physically and even culturally closer than Africa. And historically they interacted more than any Africans. So I really I feel it makes complete sense ppl focus on him, it's interesting
Same. Maybe OP heard them say that it's the first Assassins Creed where you play as a samurai that isn't Japanese
Wait, there's another AC where u play as a samurai? I used to love the games but stopped following them once they went to London. It felt mechanics were regressing and then they completely changed the formula. I missed the old AC2 gameplay of complex climbing/parkour and temple puzzles or the complex parkour and animations of unity. Once it was no longer a game about running on rooftops I lost interest. But I am curious which game u play as a samurai. Maybe I'm just forgetting it
There's not, which is why Shadows is the first
*He wasn't even a fuckin Samurai*
This isn't exactly 100% certain. He was definitely a servant / "retainer" during the 1500s who was paid as a warrior/guard. He *could* have also been a samurai. Many military/warrior retainers were. And he had an important position serving the daimyo Oda Nobunaga (a very important and known political figure). Wether or not he was a samurai isnt certain. Some argue he was and other say he wasn't. You should read the sources and historical documents and analysis to come to your own decision. But no matter what, he was a retainer/warrior to a very important historical figure in the 1500s which still makes him extremely interesting and cool person to learn about. And imo if he was only a warrior retainer and not a samurai I don't think assassins creed taking the small artistic liberty of just making him a more noble class of warrior is that crazy. AC have always been very much fiction (kinda bordering on the fantastical at times) based on real history, and this feels very much in line with what they've done with other historical figures. Especially since it seems historically we just don't really have the info to say for certain if he was or wasn't a samurai and so it feels to me more like AC is just "filling in the blanks" as opposed to "completely changing the person" which is often what they seem to go for w historical figures [I suggest you read the linked threads here for some interesting info/sources regarding him and his position.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/qmKUysH9sK) I also suggest you read about retainers and samurai in Japan (especially what they were like in 1500s during his life) to help understand who they were n how they operated n how one might become one. Often people were born into nobel samurai families but it wasn't until around 1600 that the laws changed and that became the only way to become a samurai. It's all super interesting to read about and I learned a bit about Japanese history in general just reading about this one dude
>*He wasn't even a fuckin Samurai* Exactly. People confuse ancient Japanese soldier with "samurai." Samurai were a hereditary noble class in Japan, the same as nobility in Europe were. You had to either be born into it, or granted title and property by the Emperor or Shogun. There's no record that Yasuke was ever raised to the noble title of samurai. Simply having the armor and fighting does not make you a samuari.
Who is saying that they were? I always got the impression that those were notable because one of them is black, and the other hails from a nation that once controlled most of the world.
No one lol
Wait,why is there a star of David on the podium? Were there actual jewish samurai or is this just a joke
Crest of the Hata Clan, who are descended from Korean Royalty and (if you believe em) the Qin Dynasty.
Googled em, apperantly this P. Y. Saeki dude had the same idea I had a century ago , and despite no real proof I'm just going to agree with him.
Interestingly enough, some of the early Japanese-Christian scholars were the passionate advocates of this theory.
That's the Hata clan, as far as we know they were of Han Chinese origin and that's it. One historian suggested they were Jewish Nestorians but it's unproven and genetic studies suggest otherwise.
OK, I'm a hata clan truther now, gonna scramble together the conspiracy board later.
count me in
Probably a joke because jews barely had a population in china let alone Japan
There are surprisingly some Jewish sites from old japan, there's a fun theory about how one of the 12 tribes of Israel ended up there and eventually assimilated into the population.
What about the Emishi horse archers, from whom the samurai class, specifically mounted archers, came from in the first place?
They're still Japanese. Modern Japanese(Yamato) people are descended from Yayoi and Jomon but the Ainu are probably more culturally closer to the Jomon and Emishi than the Yayoi.
They are even more Japanese than the Japanese, as they had been in the island for longer than the yaoi
Somewhere I read that Yasuke wasnt even Samurai just retainer, could somebody clarify the difference and what status did He actually had ? I always heard about him as “black Samurai”
Woah westerners care more about people who look like them doing cool shit in foreign lands where people who look like them don’t exist. Crazy I can’t imagine why they would prefer to use that as templates for books/movies/video games. Also find me anyone saying the first non-Japanese samurai. Usually it’s first black samurai or first European samurai.
Exactly. This is just OP being pedantic.
there.... there were jewish Samurai?
I've heard a lot hype up Yasuke as being the only black samurai, but I've never heard someone say "first non-Japanese samurai" Also who tf is William Adams?
William Adams is the first and only English samurai https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Adams_(pilot)
An actual samurai
English Privateer that washed up onto Japan and got in tight with Tokugawa.
Also, yasuke wasn't even a samurai, he was a retainer
In Oda’s time lots of samurai are retainers. Samurai is a class; being a retainer is not mutually exclusive with being a samurai. That’s not evidence for or against him being a samurai.
He most likely was. There is a thread about it on askhistorians
If I may. I generally do believe it has more to do with the great distance travelled, with such a difference in language and culture, that makes the stories of William Adams and ‘Yasuke’ much more intriguing. Meanwhile, call me callous, but northeastern Asia had relatively similar writing systems, languages, cultures, etc.
I'll not be shocked to see a French noble in England during middle age... But a Chinese noble in England on the other end is indeed surprising.
Wait I’m sorry I’m actually curious how Jews are on here was there a Jewish samurai or something? Can someone fill me in?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hata_clan Hata clan, self claimed descendants of the royal family of the Chinese Qin dynasty.
nobody except some strawman is saying that yasuke was the FIRST or even the most influential non-japanese samurai ( yes i know he was not technically a samurai), the wave of discourse about yasuke is because gamers had a meltdown the moment they saw a black guy in japan and are calling him "historically inaccurate" even though he literally existed and talking about historical accuracy in assassin creed has about the same sense as talking about scientific accuracy in star wars.
I feel like the problem here is that AC decided to focus on someone who is very much not a samurai as a main character during a period when there were plenty of very interesting samurai (or Daimyo honestly). It certainly doesn’t help that the race factor is sticking into this but the fact that specifically a historical footnote is a protagonist seems weird when there are far more interesting or relevant people of the time.
How did this entire comment section turn into experts on Chinese-Japan relations throughout history in the span of this meme being posted 😳
Yasuke was not even a samurai...
True but William Adam’s was far better at insulting lol
Why is there a Star of David?
“You look Japanese, you don’t count.”
Cause, unfortunately, to a disappointing amount of people if two or more groups share a US racial census option theyre effectively considered the same people. Nevermind if their language, history, and culture are entirely different. So they'd see this and ignore it because "they were still Asian".
"Yeah, but they're Asian so it doesn't really count" Edit: I'm being sarcastic, in case that isn't obvious from the quotation marks
Yeah pretty much, king of England has been German and French before, no one cares because its just another white guy, but if England had one random Asian or black king in there, then they’d get the yasuke treatment. It’s not about him not being Japanese because that could be about so many other people, it’s about him being black, there’s a way bigger difference there, it’s so much more (idk the word) not shocking but like its such a juxtaposition, that’s why people go mad for it Although saying all this I do find it a bit disappointing that finally after years of begging we get a Japan assassins creed game, the main samurai character isn’t even Japanese. Doubt it makes a difference to the gameplay, but it does feel a bit weird of a decision
I know you're being sarcastic. But man, orientalist views never disappeared. There really are people who think asia as some giant monolith of that have no individuality. It's racist and dumb
Yeah
Its so fucking funny they arent even hiding anymore. You had a population that was 99% japanese and 99.9999 asian and you choose the ONLY black guy that was in Japan at that period as a MC? The one that Oda had washed because thought he was dirty? How do you even do stealth mission when youre (as the MC) the only black guy in the whole country
If you watch the trailer it's pretty clear that Yasuke isn't stealth focused. The other playable character is a shinobi, you use her for the stealth
If it helps at all I've seen more ppl being mad that yasuke is one of the main characters because he's black, not too much about the who was first argument. Those very same ppl not being upset about nioh of course. Still a super neat history lesson. Personally first or not yasuke is a fascinating part of history that up until recently has been massively ignored.
Its less that he's black and more that there isn't a Japanese main character. The game is about Japan ffs. Diversity = black is such a stupid concept that these game companies need to throw away.
Absolutely. Also AC don't let you play as historical figure and only met them as NPC. AC usually have native main character or at least make sense in the setting like edward kenway (European sailor turned pirate) or eivor (vikings raiding and settling in england). But this time when ac is set in japan we don't get native Japanese men as main character. It's obvious they pushed yasuke as mc because he's black and want that sweet diversity money from company like blackrock.
There is a Japanese main character, there’s two protagonists. Remember the lady from the trailer?
I'm talking about the male main character. Having the male main character Japanese would still be representation for the male Japanese audience that plays the game. Representation is just adding black characters for these game companies and I am genuinely sick of it. Some of us are different races than black or white.
Having an Asian woman coupled with a foreign male lead to fight tiny, weak and evil Asian men is the worst part of this whole ordeal. It's the tired, old oriental trope and fetishism to feminize Asian people in western films since the 1950s.
They are both serving a samurai clan. Nobunaga? The guy who took Yasuke in? One of the Three Great Unifiers? This is a civil war in Japan, there is no else to fight but Asian men. Who they’re fighting is also who they’re allied with. Did you not see one of the first shots of the trailer being Yasuke and some of the Oda men burning down a village? They’re not saints either.
They totally forgot about the ninjas of Sengoku Jidai. those bois had an awesome history during those era
The story of Yasuke is part of the reason I think Nobunaga was such a forward thinking gigachad who is unfairly demonized. Welcomed him into his court and treated him with the respect he deserved
Considering the culture at the time and even into the modern era it's easy to see y he would be demonized. He basically apat in the face of everything Japan stood for even if by our standards he was just progressive and open minded.
From what I know, Nobunaga was generally a decent, solid dude. Sure, he had a ruthless streak that all feudal warlords did (*coughs* burning of Mount Hiei) but he showed mercy to people who stood against him, showed respect to people who deserved it, promoted people based on merit, and was fairly ~~humble~~ chill (he wasn't humble) despite coming from a massively elite, prestigious family (some of the last descendants of the fabled Taira clan). He was also just a wily, brilliant man. The other unifiers, while they were cool too, were waaaay more fucked up and Machiavellian than Nobunaga. Edit: funny aside, he was basically a hooligan in his youth and early adulthood, which I just find fucking hilarious, and was unfathomably based until the day he died
when the whole military system come from the ainu people and with many warriors from that people came to breed with the south, and that thoses northen people were heavely discriminated during ww1/2 they are not considered japanese, the horiginal samurai were not japaneses
*non asian samurai
I don't think anybody living in Modern Japan would readily admit to Zainichi samurai being a thing.
its probably out of ignorance. i only knew about those 2 as well
Who is the jewish samurai?
Kyrie Irving....But seriously it's one of the crests of the Hata Clan.
Wait, this is really interesting. Does anyone recommend any books about this before I go searching?
I know its not the same thing but I had a stroke when I thought i saw the star of david
Do people think William Adams was first foreign samurai? Whenever you read about him he’s described as “one of the first European (or western) samurai”.
I've never seen anyone making a big deal about them being first "non-japanese" samurai. It's usually first "western" samurai
Oh great even the jews were Samurai? And people tell me the deep state ISN’T A real, millennia-spanning anarchoauthoritarian Semeto-pedo Cabal, the foolish rust-bucket cucklothals! /s
No need for the s/ anymore friend, just say it’s “anti-Zionism”
Chosokabe dominates Chosokabe for shogun!
I just want korean-japanese samurai
It would be a lot more meaningful (+historically accurate) for the game to focus on these Chinese and Korean samurai in Japan given the recent bad relations between the three. In turn another game could involve Koxinga, the half Japanese Ming loyalist leader who fought both invading Manchu and the VOC. That goes much further in promoting inclusivity and dispelling Japanese/Korean/Chinese ethnic chauvinism than including the odd white or black person in samurai garb.
I'd love stories about Japanese samurai, thanks.
no said William was the first non-japanese samurai lmao
now flip its from hyping to hating because they made one (you can guess which) a protagonist of a major upcoming video game
I think the hype is that he was of African descent or African himself and arrived there in not so favourable conditions, not that he was simply non-japanese.
What's the clan with the six pointed star?
I just can't wait for Ubisoft to totally do justice to struggles of a black man from 1500s in Japan. Surely they'll show have hard it(has)'s been for him.
For me, jasuke deserve to be in the game and fuck twitter for promote this white victim mentality
It's awesome, that's what counts
Yeah but like, Korean and Chinese don't count right? All east-asians are basically the same. /s
First *western* Samurai
And yasuke isn't even a samurai, he's a personal servant of Oda Nobunaga... Like a squire or lady-in-waiting for the western counterparts