Kaze no Junction

🌸 Suzaku / lazy artist

🌸 She/her

🌸 midnightparty.bsky / @asksamuraitroopers

Elder millennial. Lighthearted sarcastic. YST/RW fan since 1995. 80s/90s animation holds a special place in my heart. I draw sometimes. Gamer. My love language is poking fun at media I enjoy.

Disclaimer: the opinions herein are my own. If they sound overly serious, they’re probably not. At the end of the day I’m enjoying YSST. That said, I have every intent of projecting a bit of friendly psychic damage your way. I do my best to present correct information. Any mistakes within are my own.

The following contains spoilers for Yoroi Shinden Samurai Troopers Episodes 13 and 14.

I'm combing back through these episodes before Ep 15 drops on Tuesday. Any mistakes are mine.

We start out with Ramaga discovering the Three Sacred Treasures / Sanshu no Jingi packaged up neatly in a limited edition collector's box, which is for some reason thrown in the back of a dilapidated cave. What is this cave, and why was the treasure box hidden here? I assume we'll come back to this in a future episode.

Almost immediately the jewel glows an ominous purple, a color that's been associated with Ramaga and his eeeevil Braves since Cour 1. Ramaga subsequently becomes obsessed with obtaining Haoutei and tells the inner senshi children he's going to claim their lives for this purpose.

My Japanese is terrible but I try to listen along and pick things out for funsies. It sure looked like Ramaga was talking about killing them, but I wondered if he could have meant "claim" as in taking them as his servants. Sounds like he says "omaetachi no inochi tataku" which seems to agree with killing intent.

Everybody dies. Got it. Sorry I doubted you.

Sagume intervenes but her crew are defeated by Ramaga. Sagume casts lighting bolt. It's super effective. Is this supposed to be some sort of visual hint that ties her to Ryusei later on?

Also, Sagume's people reclaimed the Three Sacred Treasures prior to Ramaga fleeing with the kids. We already know from Cour 1 that the jewel worked its way into Nasuti's hands through a note left with Kaito's grandmom. The jewel that Ramaga used to communicate with Nasuti. The jewel that was used to confirm the new boys as Troopers. I'll take it as another on-screen hint that Sagume has been orchestrating events for a very long time.

Oh hey, the PM is alive again so the propaganda has returned! And Musashi is back to reading horoscopes.

I've thrown the idea out as a rambling theory (and it's just as likely I'm reading too far into things) but I've wondered if it's supposed to be a contrast of the sort of "fate/destiny" that's basically drivel for entertainment purposes, versus the "real" kind of "fate/destiny" that the Troopers are faced with. Inevitable battles and all that.

Poor Nasuti. I hope her unemployment benefits cover therapy. Meanwhile Byakuen is sidelined again.

This is where I'd like to see the Rising Sun Party and the creation and management of the DST expanded on. I've speculated that post YST-TV series, the Troopers might have found themselves in a situation like Leon S. Kennedy after Resident Evil 2: a survivor of a nightmare who was conscripted by the government. Even if the OVAs are decided to be non-canon, YST-TV alone left off with Shinjuku getting trashed for a third (fourth?) time. Someone must have figured out that Something Was Wrong and stumbled upon the Troopers. Anyhow.

There's a lot of story telling that could take place within the frame of "the Japanese government controlling the Troopers as military assets." Knowing what our boys are capable of when armored, their connections to pesky things like families and friends and morals at play might be the only reason they've agreed to go along with the DST. I'd also like to know more about why and how Nasuti became part of the military into DST. Plenty of room for psychological warfare, using the Troopers and their allies as more or less hostages against one another to secure "cooperation."

I'm also curious about the handling of Byakuen v Jun. The general public deems the white tiger who helped save the world is a threat, but the guy who speaks to heaven and opened a portal to the demon realm gets a hall pass. Unless he falls under the umbrella of "a controlled military asset" himself.

I'm hopeful that this is expanded on before Cour 2 wraps. However that's also getting into the old crew's lives again, and this is ultimately a show about our new boys. We'll see how it plays out. If nothing else, I'm expecting more explanation of Jun's role. Since Sagume went to the trouble of telling him to isolate from his friends (though as others have noted, the heavenly realm's symbol was weirdly warped in that scene) to this monk connection we've seen between the orphanage's caretaker and Jun, he's been set up as an important player. It feels like an obvious open thread we're intended to come back to.

BOY. I would love to hear more about this. Do any of those people remember dying? That would suck. Therapy for Nasuti might be in budget, but maybe not the 100,000+ temporarily killed in Cour 1.

You had nothing to do with their deaths, Commander. Only the deaths of my original team, which I still have nightmares about.

Aurora Borealis!? At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely above my head?

Shion realizes that Ramaga and the Braves aren't using demonic power, but no one is listening. Anyhow, the heavens have placed Tokyo under a glass lid but it's OK this time because they still have wifi.

Also, the way the writer has lampshaded some things between YST -> YSST thus far, I have to wonder if the new commander was created as some prophetic play on the treatment of the OG boys vs the new ones by YST fans.

So, how spiritually powerful is Jun by now? Maybe he's got a sponsorship from Sagume. I'm just saying, Kaosu died to create a bridge while Jun didn't break a sweat. I really hope he's grown into his own by his own will. He went through enough trauma with being manipulated by the heavens and the following disappearance of his friends.

The kids make it into the demon realm. Hey, this looks familiar.

Still need to learn how the demon realm went from looking like a fairly snazzy place to a "garbage dump" under the new management.

Let me tell you. If nothing else, I appreciate the writer lampshading things from YST.

It happened a few times in YST without rhyme or reason. Pretty damn funny when Shuten was chasing a couple soldiers through the woods and they started talking.

This is taking much longer to write up than I'd anticipated.

Shion (by way of Jun) notes that strong hatred in the youja soldiers makes them "closer to human." The youja market scene is pretty interesting. YST fans get a few easter eggs as old enemies make an appearance. Granted, I thought those old enemies had on screen deaths in YST but what do I know. Knowing now that these guys talk and have a whole society, they might be family. Thinking too hard about the moral implications there isn't healthy for anyone involved.

Musashi makes a friend.

Oh, god. Please don't be Mirei.

Kaito, showing us he's as brilliant as his predecessor, wastes no time chowing down on the local food. Good thing humans can stomach youja chow.

A messenger alerts the crowd that the Samurai Troopers have invaded. What sort of a printing press are they running in the demon realm? Seriously, how fast did they draw up that many flyers? Next you'll tell me they have xerox machines.

The boys begin to wonder if they might be the bad guys. You can smell the smoke as Musashi ponders this.

Cue a Scooby Doo chase through the market.

The kids find their way to the Fountain of Annihilation where Gai has turned to stone. The Braves drop in, and Sasuke explains that the magma obliterates anyone who falls in. "Except this time, for some reason." Makes you wonder how many dudes have fallen into that thing.

Another training accident. OSHA's going to be pissed.

Interestingly, the Braves have tried everything they could think of to revive Gai, without success. Yamato accuses them of launching a new invasion, but Shion rubs a few brain cells together and realizes the Braves aren't behind it.

I love this little gremlin. Do the 3D models look a bit smoother in this episode?

Fight ensues. +1 to the Kamanosuke whump counter. As a Shu fan, I've naturally gravitated to Yamato and Seikai. Sigh.

Inmei swings in and conscripts the demon soldiers for the heavenly army.

The union will hear about this!

I was a little surprised that Inmei came right out and said the divine realm are their enemies now, but I guess we don't have time to spare on the boys figuring it out the long way.

Kaito revives Gai. Gaimaga. Ramagai. The long hair reminds me of Goku from Gensomaden Saiyuki in his demon form. And then of course, Ryusei shows up to close us out on a cliffhanger.

Closing Thoughts

Well, I'm not disagreeing with anyone that the pace has been breakneck. We're halfway through the number of anticipated episodes and I can understand where some viewers are frustrated. I don't have the brain power at the moment to expand on my thoughts about the cour format, the amount of material being covered, and how much of it is a product of the current state of the anime industry vs decisions made by the writer and production staff. I do want to touch on it another time, though.

I'm happy to see more of the Braves. Throughout Cour 1 I was hopeful they'd be our heel-turn characters that ultimately team up with the Troopers against Sagume and the divine realm, and it seems we're leaning in that direction.

If I find time tomorrow I'd like to recap Episode 14 before Tuesday, but we'll see.

Here to trouble your Saturday morning, it's me! Suzaku. 👋

During the summer vacation of 1995 a friend called to tell me about a cool new anime on TV, Ronin Warriors. Three decades later I'm still invested.

Back then, we didn't yet have an internet connection at home. That would happen between 1996-97. I started as a pre-teen who drew fan art in a notebook every day. Eventually I connected with a whole web (no pun intended) of other people who loved this anime as much as I did, and that was my first experience with a fandom.

Most of us were kids back then. Kids who had been handed a burlap sack filled with sugar and crack. Once we touched the internet we learned that Ronin Warriors had started out in Japan as Yoroiden Samurai Troopers. Our young minds were blown. We were eager to know more. We essentially crowd funded an effort to get our hands on as much of the Japanese material as possible, while firing emails back and forth to dissect every little lore nugget we could find. A few college-aged fans were studying Japanese and did their best to provide translations. We connected with English speakers in Japan who funneled us merchandise. We petitioned Cartoon Network to bring our boys back! We upgraded our grubby TV to VHS bootlegs to authentic DVDs! We finally had official translations of Message and still couldn't wrap our heads around it!

I have many fond memories of people and experiences from back then. These things took place during some pretty formative years of my life, and helped weather me through tough times. It's safe to say that Ronin Warriors / Yoroiden Samurai Troopers has always had a special little place in my heart.

Some years later, after navigating early adulthood and getting a foothold in life, I found myself between jobs. While reminiscing on the good old days I had the idea to start the Ask blog. Life picked up sooner than later, and my posts dwindled.

But then Sunrise / Bandai-Namco came out of left field and announced a sequel: Yoroi Shinden Samurai Troopers. Like many others, my spider senses were going haywire and I was eager to reconnect with other fans and share the excitement. So here I am. Again. Meeting new faces and reconnecting with people from way back when. It's been pretty neat.

However, this has also exposed me to the less than pleasant side of fandoms. This fandom, specifically.

I'm an individual who rarely engages with fandoms. I've heard stories, and those didn't incentivize me in any way to engage in the fandoms of other media I've enjoyed. But YST is special, and I know cool people are still out there, so I wasn't about to be deterred. If there are a few shitlords along the way, so be it.

I'm not on social media much. I don't engage through Facebook. I've recently created a Bluesky account, but most of my interactions have been through Discord. In other words, the pool of fans I've interacted with is fairly small, and there are many others out there I've never met and may never meet. And that's fine. My goal isn't to reach as many people as possible. It's to just vibe and exist in my own little corner, and have fun with those I meet along the way.

Now that I'm poking around Tumblr and limited other outlets again, I see pockets of fandom drama. Granted yes, there's a bit of it in the spaces I inhabit too, but thankfully it's very, very small and isolated. And the very few involved... are evidently well known to other people in other spaces, with embarrassing reputation.

YSST has obviously not been everyone's cup of tea. I've seen a wide, wide spectrum of opinions. And there's nothing wrong with that. People are allowed to enjoy things. People are allowed to dislike things. What's unfortunate is when we can't have good faith discussions about the things we like, or don't like, because the criticisms feel or become personal.

Speaking strictly for myself, I'm having fun with YSST. Is it perfect? Not by any means. But it's fresh, it's new, and it hasn't concluded yet. However this plays out, I'm having a great time throwing out absolutely baseless theories and some intentionally crazy ones hello aliens and seeing what sticks. I like the new characters. I'm excited to see industry veterans, both on the production side and on the acting side, attached to the project. I have a ton of trivia floating around in my head in terms of seiyuu / voice actors and creators, so I'm very excited when a familiar name pops up.

This is my first experience with writer Shogo Muto, though I have been watching some of Kamen Rider Build in parallel. I don't believe I've seen any of director Yoichi Fujita's work outside of some clips, but I'm aware of Gintama and Osomatsu-san on at least a surface level. I'm someone who enjoys levity mixed with heavy plot points, but it's obviously quite a tonal shift from YST.

I think there's something to be said for people like myself, who are ancient fans of RW / YST and have had 38 years to beat the information to death. Last year I rewatched YST with a friend who had only caught it in passing back in the Toonami days. I had a great time hearing his perspective as someone not so invested in this vintage anime, which is arguably a product of its time. It's had the unintended consequence of now referring to all four Masho as "Anubis" (or "Anubii" I suppose) but, he's also raised some good points of discussion in terms of nostalgia and how that impacts the reception of YSST by us old heads.

Ten episodes remain in Cour 2, so we have a while yet to see what happens. At some point I'll make a separate post about the current state of the Japanese animation industry, and speculations on how that may have impacted the production angle. I'll eventually chime in with thoughts on the writing and direction.

Disclaimer: the opinions herein are my own. If they sound overly serious, they’re probably not. At the end of the day I’m enjoying YSST. That said, I have every intent of projecting a bit of friendly psychic damage your way.I do my best to present correct information. Any mistakes within are my own.

The following contains mild spoilers through Episode 14.

Hello again. You thought I was done for the day? Not while there is work to be done.

Many of us carrying over from YST have the same question: where are Kayura and the Three Stooges? Masho, Warlords, whatever you'd like to call them. At the end of the TV series we see them float away on beams of sunlight, with Kayura stating they'll turn the demon realm into a nicer place.

Cue Episode 14 and we have the surviving Braves talking about the demon realm being a "garbage dump."

Yeah, this place is a garbage dump, but it's OUR garbage dump!

After their absence for the duration of Cour 1 plus this reflection on the demon realm being a not-so-nice place to live, one has to think that Kayura-tachi didn't accomplish their goal. And if they did, something pretty significant happened between then and now.

Now, for kicks and giggles I'd like to point out that YSST has already shown the Masho on screen. Via a flashback. Using stock footage from YST.

You know what this does? It acknowledges that these guys exist in the frame of YSST.

Now, perhaps their story is over and there's no more to tell. I'm telling you guys, they'll show up at the very end to put their hands on the Moon Wand together with everyone else and help Gai vanquish Queen--oh, pardon me.

Ahem. I truly am hedging my bets on some sort of acknowledgement later in Cour 2. All commentary about the pacing and exposition aside, to this point we've had visual acknowledgements of both Kaosu / The Ancient and also these chuckleheads. We haven't acknowledged Kayura on screen yet but there's no way we get to the end without that happening. We also need to figure out where Jun's shakujo / staff came from.

Anyhow, I'm pleased to announce that I've gained insight to where Kayura and company have been all this time. Say it with me everyone...

Hear me out. HEAR ME OUT. In Episode 14, Sagume drops the very unfortunate possibility of aliens existing in universe. I personally hope that isn't the case, I'm just pointing it out.

Now, think back to the end of YST Episode 39.

We thought that Kayura and her compadres ascended on a beam of sunlight, having returned to their human hearts and sensibilities.

Behold! 38 years later with the help of digital restoration, an unsanctioned ritual and a can of cola, I've solved the mystery of their disappearance.

This post contains spoilers for YSST through Episode 14.

Disclaimer: the opinions herein are my own. If they sound overly serious, they're probably not. At the end of the day I'm enjoying YSST. That said, I have every intent of projecting a bit of friendly psychic damage your way. I do my best to present correct information. Any mistakes within are my own.

At this point I likely need a rewatch of Cour 1 to organize my thoughts. From the start I've been rambling my crackpot theories off to a few unfortunate souls, now I need to jog my memory on what half of those theories even were.

First and foremost, allow me to ruin your week with one word: aliens.

You're welcome.

In Episode 14, Sagume really went and made the implication that other intelligent life may exist in the YSST universe. Now, I've watched Gundam 00. Multiple times, even. If the ELS show up I'm going to be at least mildly upset.

This perhaps ties back to a persistent question I've had: where are the original treasures from YST? And what's the difference between those treasures and the current set that originated from the Heavenly Realm (or at least, we think they originate from the Heavenly Realm)?

For most of Cour 1, Kikoutei (Ryo's white armor) felt like the elephant in the room. We were shown a new jewel, a new sword, and the mirror, but these new treasures were ambiguous. We went on to learn about the existence of another white armor, Haoutei. Meanwhile, we're receiving hints that preserve the events of the original YST TV series.

In other words, it was strange that no one talked about Kikoutei. I felt like Nasuti might have brought up its existence, at least told the new boys a little bit about the original white armor being one hell of a monkey's paw. The ultimate armor comes with terms and conditions and none of you, past or present, read the end user licensing agreement (at least not until after the fact).

The YSST boys continue their adventure and acquire Haoutei. The OG Troopers are free! And then Shu... my boy... my guy... walked up and said with his whole chest:

BAM look at that. Kikoutei is here! Kikoutei is...

It's here? But in the OVA didn't they... th.... blrt... ANYHOW.

We got Kikoutei! We got the swords! We got th--we did not get the inochi no magatama / jewel of life. We haven't seen the jewel since the end of YST TV and there's a more than fair chance the boys completely busted it while playing baseball.

Now, I'd have to perform some serious digging but there's a note in one of the YST books about the jewel of life disappearing "without revealing the proper path." I wonder why that could be. /s

To be serious for a moment, the jewel of life was something like the culmination of the prayers of humanity (as a response to threats from demons). There's also something to be said about the power of grudges, and 1,000 years of Arago v Kaosu contained a lot of juice. However a lot of power was expended by the end of the TV series, so perhaps the jewel's power was simply exhausted and it no longer had a part to play until Muto decides to pull it out of his pocket later in YSST.

But now we're finally getting around to the point I want to make, and that's about humanity.

With YSST we have full acknowledgement of the three realms: ningenkai (human world), youjakai (demon world), and tendoukai (heavenly world). By the start of Cour 2, and within its first episodes, we've established what many of us suspected: a conflict with heaven.

So with the origin of the new treasures confirmed to be from the Heavenly Realm (or at least not from the human world), and the original jewel plus Kikoutei coming from humanity, my personal feeling is that there will be some degree of "humans make their own destiny!" by the end of YSST. We spent a good part of Cour 1 exploring Gai's humanity. We know that the late half of the Braves had origins in the human world, and as of Episode 14 we're told that the remaining Braves are "human."

Yes hello and welcome everyone. 👋

Have you been watching Yoroi Shinden Samurai Troopers (YSST)? What do you think so far? I haven't posted until now so please excuse my random thoughts.

I was very excited to learn that Kia Asamiya created the storyboards for Episode 14. I LOVE Silent Mobius.

I know the 3D animation isn't everyone's cup of tea, but can we talk about the 2D animation? The key frames in this series have been beautiful. Really some fantastic drawings. I would love a groundworks (collection of key frames) book for YSST. Please, Sunrise / Bandai-Namco, I will throw money at this $$$!! Eventually I would also like to go back and look at the production staff credits. There were some impressive studios named as inbetween animators. Production IG and Trigger?? *chefkiss* What else do I want to write about... I'll make another post when it comes to me.