- Location
- Leeds
As strong as a full body blow even though he's just using his arms?
Capitalism ho! Let's Read Kengan Asura
- Thread starter Manic Dogma
- Start date
- Discussion Manga
It's an awkward bit of phrasing but the idea is this: a standard boxing blow doesn't actually use a lot of muscle. It's mostly a question of weight transfer, carefully managing your joints to transmit the power from the ground to your fist without losing balance.
What this means is that there's a ton of snap to it, but not a commensurate amount of torque. What Seki's doing is basically all torque. It's the difference between a bike in first gear and in ninth.
Also, the bonus chapter is extremely good and y'all should read it.
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- Location
- Wörms, the half continent
I do love what we see of Julius in that side comic, where he's just like... weirdly kind of a normal dude? He's obsessed about bodybuilding, but otherwise like, he's practically one of the most normal in that group.
Manic Dogma
This, I can't deny.
- Location
- The far side of tired
- Pronouns
- Whatever
It's so fucking funny, yeah. I couldn't really do it justice in a Let's Read without just spoiling all the jokes, but it's very good.
I think my favourite gag in it is the one with the guy in the skull mask tbh, just for the mundanity of it.
Peanut-007
Hat or Hair? America decides.
- Location
- Maryland, United States of America
Julius is the straight man in most of these. I can't remember if it's in Ashura or Omega but the one where he and Muteba are clothes shopping is also gold.
- Location
- boundless optimism
Pretty sure Julius said his favorite food is tofu.
i'm sorry... i didn't know my bodybuilding goat is a soyboy...
i'm sorry... i didn't know my bodybuilding goat is a soyboy...
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That's a low bar. Most Kengan fighters are weirdos, and the folks in that side comic are weirder than the median fighter.
Vintage HBomberguy Link
Chapter 144+145 - Hearing and Acting
Manic Dogma
This, I can't deny.
- Location
- The far side of tired
- Pronouns
- Whatever
Everything has returned to neutral in the Kengan Dome, and as such we need a new moment of anticipation for who is going to kick things back off. Once again for this match, Muteba takes it upon himself to assume that role, as he begins a very particular ritual. A familiar one, to longtime followers of martial arts media. Hopping in place, bobbing back and forth, loose and poised. Wakatsuki, watching the monitor through his single exposed eye, recognises it as a footwork exercise. That's right, it's boxing, baby. Marvelous Seki recognises as much, but isn't presently inclined to give it the time of day. "Playing" Boxer, he calls it, with a bloody smile. With his own mildly soggy smile, Muteba jabs back. Verbally, that is. Playing is more than enough for a faker like Seki. Familiar sounding banter. Is Muteba riffing intentionally on match 1-8? Surely he must be, he isn't a martial artist he's a soldier, he's got no horse in these style specialist pissing matches.
Which isn't to say he doesn't have his own skill. We pull away from the Arena floor to briefly sweep over Gaolang, the resident boxing specialist, who courteously sets up the following exchanges with one note. He's Mastered It.
Mmmmmm mm, love me some dissipating afterimages.
As Marvelous Seki grits his teeth, pain visibly radiating out from his flank, Haruo immediately clocks to the strat. Muteba is aiming for Seki's injuries. Which seem to be in the same places as the injuries Sekibayashi Jun took fighting Kiozan, funny that. Maybe they're connected, like a voodoo doll. Whatever the explanation it's probably not hard to get at those injuries, Sekibayashi took a shitton of hits in that match, but Muteba is still pleased with the tactic. He muses on how it must hurt, and encourages Seki through it. There's nothing to be ashamed of, Pro Wrestlers are still only human, they do in fact feel pain. They, heh, could not in fact beat a tank.
And from there things don't improve much for Seki. He lunges for Muteba, swiping, punching and chopping, but Muteba isn't letting a single hit go through. His evasion is on point, and he isn't pausing to go for a single actually telling blow. Just sharp little jabs, aimed right for the points where Seki is hurting most. Which would be impressive on its own even for someone with working eyes. The audience don't really appreciate what they're seeing, several heckling Muteba to stop dancing, but Wakatsuki knows better. He recognises the shift that has happened and is…concerned. Muteba's a mercenary, not a 1v1 unarmed expert. And yet, he's throwing down on even terms with top warriors within the association after only a match or two, he's adapting at an alarming pace. Which isn't to say he has a countermeasure for Wakatsuki himself yet, but it does suggest Muteba is a legitimate threat even outside of fighting other killers.
Back down in the arena the game of cat and mouse continues as Muteba muses on the boxing footwork he's using like he'd think about a specialised gun. It's not something he'd use on the battlefield, Kengan Asura might be heightened reality but it's probably not heightened enough people could dempsey roll through gunfire, but he's applying it with superb precision and, well. As he notes as he drops a kick right onto Sekibayashi's battered knee, his goal structures aren't really much different here than on the battlefield. Hit the opponent where they're weak, open up the objective, take that shit for all it's worth.
Not that Seki's going to go down like that. He glowers, plants his foot, and goes for another ring-shaking haymaker. For nothing. Muteba hooks his leading food before it hits the floor, catches him by the dreadlocks, and rams his fingers into Seki's eye sockets.
Muteba grins.
I love Seki's manic grins, they're so good. Especially right after some wrath he was probably playing up for effect.
Muteba is fucking flummoxed though. He missed his killer technique twice? What the fuck? He then tries to break free of Seki's grip, hammering him with blows, but as Kiozan notes that's not gonna work. Not from this range. Muteba doesn't have the meat or the technique for that kind of explosive, point-blank impact. And the opportunity quickly closes off as Seki begins to give him the sandbag treatment. Confused and in pain, Muteba tries to consider the angles. Was his positional data wrong? Maybe because of his right ear? No, he quickly dismisses the notion. It's Seki himself. What is he doing.
And now, it's time for your favourite educational show. Facts with Kengan Asura!
There are, we are informed, some moves that a Pro Wrestler cannot just tank. No matter how tough they are, no matter how good their kayfabe, there are some things you have to actually defend yourself against because there are simply limits to what biology will allow. For a few examples, eye pokes, nutshots, throws at dangerous angles, and so on. That last one didn't stop him from obliterating Kiozan's grey matter in his last match, but whatever. Pro Wrestlers still don't have the option of just dodging, so they have to find means of taking the move safely. With eye pokes specifically, there's two methods. One is to step back at the moment of impact, make the poke shallow and sap it of impact. This is obviously insanely risky, so noone bothers. Instead, the second tactic is favoured, shifting the eyes and taking the poke somewhere else on the face. This makes it appear like the eye poke missed, the manga says. Which is an extremely weird way of phrasing it, because like…isn't that what's happening? Like, it did miss. That's what missing is. And indeed that's how Muteba says it, Seki is making all of his killer blows miss. But Sekibayashi has one more lesson to teach him.
Anything goes in Pro Wrestling, as long as you aren't caught, he says. Immediately before rupturing Muteba's other ear.
This is the moment we enter the next chapter. Muteba reels in agony, a shower of blood from his remaining functional ear. He couldn't protect his vulnerable organs as well as Sekibayashi and he pays the price for it. We get a single panel from his perspective, the blackened world, to see how Seki fades from it almost completely. Before one of the Wrestler's fists flatten Muteba's face. He's thrown back, trailing blood, until Seki catches his wrist again and yanks him back in. Right into the path of a lariat so vicious Muteba flips over 180 degrees, landing right on his face and flopping onto his front.
Excellently placed for an Elbow drop right to the spine.
We get a couple of great panels as Seki begins to fold Muteba up for some sort of brutality. Because the focus is, briefly, not on the fighters but on Sayaka and Jerry yelling impassioned commentary into their mics. The audience throwing out there own voice, a thousand shouts across the concrete. A wide shot with a half-dozen speech bubbles crossing its space. But they're all blank. We don't know what Sayaka and Jerry are saying, or the audience. It's not an especially fancy trick of presentation, but it's a very compelling one in my opinion. We don't need a word of exposition to understand what's happening to Muteba right now. And we don't need any more as Seki piledrives him into a crater all of his own.
It isn't the end of him though, for all blood showers from his open mouth. His hand reaches shaking into the air, and he pushes shaking to his feet. Which isn't to say he's in a good way. He rises, yes, but his expression is wholly, totally distraught.
Even as the Deathmatch King of SJPW, Seki can't quite shake off his edge of nobility and empathy, can he? Look at that expression, I'd almost say he regrets what he did, but for the fact it's lighting the way to victory. He gathers up his fist, the blood of Muteba's ear still on his hand, and winds up to finish it.
And then his haymaker does nothing.
Oh I'm sure it would have done horrendous things to Muteba if it had hit, but it whiffs completely. Sails right over the mercenary's head, as his thumbs sink into both of a flabbergasted Seki's ears. And you can actually see the holes Muteba's eye pokes left in Seki's cheeks here too, it's fucking vicious. But not so vicious that Muteba can't take a moment to have a little fun with it. He asks the following question on the assumption that Seki can't hear him, solely for the sake of being that much of a dramatic bitch.
Oh now this. I like this. It's up in the air whether he, Muteba the individual, is intentionally calling back to Ohma vs Sekibayashi. It's possible, I think? But the manga 100% is, without question. And it's a great moment, with strong grounding in everyone involved, and a lot of effort put into setting it up without going too hard on it. We only got most of a single page of Muteba staggering around in apparent despair, and honestly I think the panels of Seki's reaction were more convincing than anything else. It's easy to oversell triumph, but sadness at your own victory? That's not used to bait-and-switch nearly as often.
All that said, Muteba immediately goes for the immediate followup. Two fingers streaking right for Seki's eyes. The Wrestler braces in place, fists clenched. It's going to hurt like a motherfucker, but he's ready to take it to the cheeks one more time.
And then something else happens.
As Muteba shifts course, pulling his extended fingers back in a blur to make a different strike, the Manga makes a case to us. Mercenaries and Martial artists, it poses, have one crucial thing in common. Both try to overwhelm their opponent with minimal effort. And yeah, that's fair. One just has far more latitude in the tools they allow themselves access to in the pursuit of that endeavour. And thus, the manga continues, they both regard the "One Hit Kill" as their ultimate ideal. Thus the proliferation of things like the sniper rifle as tools in the modern battlefield. In both cases it isn't necessarily practical to always and immediately go for the one-shot, but when you can…do you really have any excuse not to? Especially since in both cases the individual in question has in all likelihood gone to some lengths to set it up.
This whole little lecture goes down to a particular backdrop. Seki stands, stock still. Eyes wide, with veins standing starkly in his eyes. Blood begins to seep from one, just a tad, just a drop. His mouth hangs slightly open. And exhales a cloud of blood. Haruo, Wakatsuki, Shikano, both Syaka and Jerry, are all aghast. Completely and utterly taken aback as Seki stares sightlessly into the middle distance with blood streaming down his chest before his head tilts back. And, step by step, we see him fall to his knees and then to the floor. Right at Muteba Gizenga's feet.
It's an extremely valid line of shock, and a great angle for a twist. Throughout the entire tournament, hell the entire manga, Sekibayashi has been one of the Manga's premier juggernauts. The definition of someone not necessarily untouchable, but by god it's going to take more than just touching them. Implacable, powerful walls, who entirely shrug off the attacks of lesser fighters and command an air of intimidation by sheer, overwhelming momentum. Sekibayashi is such a byword for sheer, invincible MEAT that he's the person who gets referenced in terms of that field of strength when the manga is trying to sell us on Raian's Authorial Pet Privileges. He's the man who intentionally lets people hit him to strike them right back, or to explicitly force opponents to break themselves upon him. He is, more than anyone else in the tournament, the ideal target for this kind of twist. Which, of course, raises the bar on what the story needs to do to sell that it happened legitimately.
So, what did Muteba Gizenga do to fell the colossus?
See you all next time, to find out.
Which isn't to say he doesn't have his own skill. We pull away from the Arena floor to briefly sweep over Gaolang, the resident boxing specialist, who courteously sets up the following exchanges with one note. He's Mastered It.
Mmmmmm mm, love me some dissipating afterimages.
As Marvelous Seki grits his teeth, pain visibly radiating out from his flank, Haruo immediately clocks to the strat. Muteba is aiming for Seki's injuries. Which seem to be in the same places as the injuries Sekibayashi Jun took fighting Kiozan, funny that. Maybe they're connected, like a voodoo doll. Whatever the explanation it's probably not hard to get at those injuries, Sekibayashi took a shitton of hits in that match, but Muteba is still pleased with the tactic. He muses on how it must hurt, and encourages Seki through it. There's nothing to be ashamed of, Pro Wrestlers are still only human, they do in fact feel pain. They, heh, could not in fact beat a tank.
And from there things don't improve much for Seki. He lunges for Muteba, swiping, punching and chopping, but Muteba isn't letting a single hit go through. His evasion is on point, and he isn't pausing to go for a single actually telling blow. Just sharp little jabs, aimed right for the points where Seki is hurting most. Which would be impressive on its own even for someone with working eyes. The audience don't really appreciate what they're seeing, several heckling Muteba to stop dancing, but Wakatsuki knows better. He recognises the shift that has happened and is…concerned. Muteba's a mercenary, not a 1v1 unarmed expert. And yet, he's throwing down on even terms with top warriors within the association after only a match or two, he's adapting at an alarming pace. Which isn't to say he has a countermeasure for Wakatsuki himself yet, but it does suggest Muteba is a legitimate threat even outside of fighting other killers.
Back down in the arena the game of cat and mouse continues as Muteba muses on the boxing footwork he's using like he'd think about a specialised gun. It's not something he'd use on the battlefield, Kengan Asura might be heightened reality but it's probably not heightened enough people could dempsey roll through gunfire, but he's applying it with superb precision and, well. As he notes as he drops a kick right onto Sekibayashi's battered knee, his goal structures aren't really much different here than on the battlefield. Hit the opponent where they're weak, open up the objective, take that shit for all it's worth.
Not that Seki's going to go down like that. He glowers, plants his foot, and goes for another ring-shaking haymaker. For nothing. Muteba hooks his leading food before it hits the floor, catches him by the dreadlocks, and rams his fingers into Seki's eye sockets.
Muteba grins.
I love Seki's manic grins, they're so good. Especially right after some wrath he was probably playing up for effect.
Muteba is fucking flummoxed though. He missed his killer technique twice? What the fuck? He then tries to break free of Seki's grip, hammering him with blows, but as Kiozan notes that's not gonna work. Not from this range. Muteba doesn't have the meat or the technique for that kind of explosive, point-blank impact. And the opportunity quickly closes off as Seki begins to give him the sandbag treatment. Confused and in pain, Muteba tries to consider the angles. Was his positional data wrong? Maybe because of his right ear? No, he quickly dismisses the notion. It's Seki himself. What is he doing.
And now, it's time for your favourite educational show. Facts with Kengan Asura!
There are, we are informed, some moves that a Pro Wrestler cannot just tank. No matter how tough they are, no matter how good their kayfabe, there are some things you have to actually defend yourself against because there are simply limits to what biology will allow. For a few examples, eye pokes, nutshots, throws at dangerous angles, and so on. That last one didn't stop him from obliterating Kiozan's grey matter in his last match, but whatever. Pro Wrestlers still don't have the option of just dodging, so they have to find means of taking the move safely. With eye pokes specifically, there's two methods. One is to step back at the moment of impact, make the poke shallow and sap it of impact. This is obviously insanely risky, so noone bothers. Instead, the second tactic is favoured, shifting the eyes and taking the poke somewhere else on the face. This makes it appear like the eye poke missed, the manga says. Which is an extremely weird way of phrasing it, because like…isn't that what's happening? Like, it did miss. That's what missing is. And indeed that's how Muteba says it, Seki is making all of his killer blows miss. But Sekibayashi has one more lesson to teach him.
Anything goes in Pro Wrestling, as long as you aren't caught, he says. Immediately before rupturing Muteba's other ear.
This is the moment we enter the next chapter. Muteba reels in agony, a shower of blood from his remaining functional ear. He couldn't protect his vulnerable organs as well as Sekibayashi and he pays the price for it. We get a single panel from his perspective, the blackened world, to see how Seki fades from it almost completely. Before one of the Wrestler's fists flatten Muteba's face. He's thrown back, trailing blood, until Seki catches his wrist again and yanks him back in. Right into the path of a lariat so vicious Muteba flips over 180 degrees, landing right on his face and flopping onto his front.
Excellently placed for an Elbow drop right to the spine.
We get a couple of great panels as Seki begins to fold Muteba up for some sort of brutality. Because the focus is, briefly, not on the fighters but on Sayaka and Jerry yelling impassioned commentary into their mics. The audience throwing out there own voice, a thousand shouts across the concrete. A wide shot with a half-dozen speech bubbles crossing its space. But they're all blank. We don't know what Sayaka and Jerry are saying, or the audience. It's not an especially fancy trick of presentation, but it's a very compelling one in my opinion. We don't need a word of exposition to understand what's happening to Muteba right now. And we don't need any more as Seki piledrives him into a crater all of his own.
It isn't the end of him though, for all blood showers from his open mouth. His hand reaches shaking into the air, and he pushes shaking to his feet. Which isn't to say he's in a good way. He rises, yes, but his expression is wholly, totally distraught.
Even as the Deathmatch King of SJPW, Seki can't quite shake off his edge of nobility and empathy, can he? Look at that expression, I'd almost say he regrets what he did, but for the fact it's lighting the way to victory. He gathers up his fist, the blood of Muteba's ear still on his hand, and winds up to finish it.
And then his haymaker does nothing.
Oh I'm sure it would have done horrendous things to Muteba if it had hit, but it whiffs completely. Sails right over the mercenary's head, as his thumbs sink into both of a flabbergasted Seki's ears. And you can actually see the holes Muteba's eye pokes left in Seki's cheeks here too, it's fucking vicious. But not so vicious that Muteba can't take a moment to have a little fun with it. He asks the following question on the assumption that Seki can't hear him, solely for the sake of being that much of a dramatic bitch.
Oh now this. I like this. It's up in the air whether he, Muteba the individual, is intentionally calling back to Ohma vs Sekibayashi. It's possible, I think? But the manga 100% is, without question. And it's a great moment, with strong grounding in everyone involved, and a lot of effort put into setting it up without going too hard on it. We only got most of a single page of Muteba staggering around in apparent despair, and honestly I think the panels of Seki's reaction were more convincing than anything else. It's easy to oversell triumph, but sadness at your own victory? That's not used to bait-and-switch nearly as often.
All that said, Muteba immediately goes for the immediate followup. Two fingers streaking right for Seki's eyes. The Wrestler braces in place, fists clenched. It's going to hurt like a motherfucker, but he's ready to take it to the cheeks one more time.
And then something else happens.
As Muteba shifts course, pulling his extended fingers back in a blur to make a different strike, the Manga makes a case to us. Mercenaries and Martial artists, it poses, have one crucial thing in common. Both try to overwhelm their opponent with minimal effort. And yeah, that's fair. One just has far more latitude in the tools they allow themselves access to in the pursuit of that endeavour. And thus, the manga continues, they both regard the "One Hit Kill" as their ultimate ideal. Thus the proliferation of things like the sniper rifle as tools in the modern battlefield. In both cases it isn't necessarily practical to always and immediately go for the one-shot, but when you can…do you really have any excuse not to? Especially since in both cases the individual in question has in all likelihood gone to some lengths to set it up.
This whole little lecture goes down to a particular backdrop. Seki stands, stock still. Eyes wide, with veins standing starkly in his eyes. Blood begins to seep from one, just a tad, just a drop. His mouth hangs slightly open. And exhales a cloud of blood. Haruo, Wakatsuki, Shikano, both Syaka and Jerry, are all aghast. Completely and utterly taken aback as Seki stares sightlessly into the middle distance with blood streaming down his chest before his head tilts back. And, step by step, we see him fall to his knees and then to the floor. Right at Muteba Gizenga's feet.
It's an extremely valid line of shock, and a great angle for a twist. Throughout the entire tournament, hell the entire manga, Sekibayashi has been one of the Manga's premier juggernauts. The definition of someone not necessarily untouchable, but by god it's going to take more than just touching them. Implacable, powerful walls, who entirely shrug off the attacks of lesser fighters and command an air of intimidation by sheer, overwhelming momentum. Sekibayashi is such a byword for sheer, invincible MEAT that he's the person who gets referenced in terms of that field of strength when the manga is trying to sell us on Raian's Authorial Pet Privileges. He's the man who intentionally lets people hit him to strike them right back, or to explicitly force opponents to break themselves upon him. He is, more than anyone else in the tournament, the ideal target for this kind of twist. Which, of course, raises the bar on what the story needs to do to sell that it happened legitimately.
So, what did Muteba Gizenga do to fell the colossus?
See you all next time, to find out.
- Location
- Wörms, the half continent
Okay I love this fight and it's great and an amazing point and all that but like, I just noticed this.
Does Muteba have a womb tattoo? Like, look at that section of his tattoos... I'm sorry I had to
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
Next monday needs to come faster cuz the end to this fight is something beautiful.
These two chapters, I think, are what sold me on Muteba the first time around. This whole fight did, but here, finally, the manga starts showing just how dangerous Muteba really is, and just what kind of guy he really is as well. Sekibayashi had already long since been established, but Muteba's first battle didn't really give us much to go on. He was facing a madman with barely a personality to him, and was clearly far above Masaki in skill, so we knew about as much about him going into this fight as we did then. But here Muteba reveals himself as a really charismatic and really crafty guy, even exploiting his own disability for the sake of landing his win.
A mercenary's acting, turns out, is also really solid.
Also sidenote but I love how this entire match Kiozan has just been in the stands being a massive Sekibayashi stan. Dude really came around to thinking Seki is the fucking best. I guess that concussion did the trick.
These two chapters, I think, are what sold me on Muteba the first time around. This whole fight did, but here, finally, the manga starts showing just how dangerous Muteba really is, and just what kind of guy he really is as well. Sekibayashi had already long since been established, but Muteba's first battle didn't really give us much to go on. He was facing a madman with barely a personality to him, and was clearly far above Masaki in skill, so we knew about as much about him going into this fight as we did then. But here Muteba reveals himself as a really charismatic and really crafty guy, even exploiting his own disability for the sake of landing his win.
A mercenary's acting, turns out, is also really solid.
Also sidenote but I love how this entire match Kiozan has just been in the stands being a massive Sekibayashi stan. Dude really came around to thinking Seki is the fucking best. I guess that concussion did the trick.
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- Location
- Leeds
Don't be silly. Seki is faking those injuries, because Pro Wrestlers are great actors.
E:
Probably has a tramp stamp as well
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
That seems... Poor? Like, has there been any setup for Muteba as an actor of this calibre? This feels like it comes way out of left field - like, a pro wrestler in heightened reality winning fights off the back of acting chops, sure, that makes sense, but how does mercenary work connect to that? Hrm. Innerested in the next post, I guess.
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- Location
- boundless optimism
Muteba faked out Meguro in his first match remember? That's how Sandro told us he was blind.
- Location
- Not your place of residence
Heck, it was kind of the exact same strategy, pretend he had taken a completely debilitating injury to a vital sense, and then end the fight while his opponent's guard was down.
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's a good exchange, one which digs into how diametrically opposed Seki and Muteba are.
Sekibayashi cares a lot about people mastering the path they chose. Muteba is many things, but he's not a boxer. Why pretend otherwise? Be a master of one trade and a jack of none.
Muteba doesn't care about his path; he cares about the destination at the other end. Boxing is a tool like any other. Why worry about mastery? Be a jack of all trades and a master of none.
Now, Seki's last fight shows the value Kengan Ashura puts on mastering your chosen path. But the situation isn't quite that black-and-white, is it?
Muteba hasn't mastered any skill or style the way Seki mastered pro wrestling, but he's dedicated to his philosophy.
I'm guessing Kiozan came to the conclusion that Sekibayashiis the best because he'd feel better about losing to the best than losing to someone who only beat him.
Kensai
我们都是中国人
- Location
- Hel
兵者，诡道也
The soldier walks the path of deception.
Or as more usually translated, "All warfare is based on deception." Right out of the preamble to Sunzi's Art of War.
I am surprised the original used the word soldier. If the default reading really is that soldiers themselves need deception, rather than this being some prosaic stuff, then that means that the common translation kinda sucks.
It's always quoted from the perspective of leaders. I have never seen it used to suggest that those following orders require brains.
- Location
- Leeds
Not familiar with chinese writings but is Soldier really an exclusive term to Officer?
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Depends on the context. And it's pretty common, especially in older texts, for owner-terms and worker-terms to be muddled. Most farmers are farm workers, but sometimes it means someone who manages a farm worked by slaves or poor peasants or whatever.
- Location
- Leeds
Me when I enter the Kengan tournament: My martial art is telling poor people to beat someone up.
👍
Still get my ass kicked easily because I brought the biker gang that Ohma destroyed.
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That's kinda how war works, yeah.
Kensai
我们都是中国人
- Location
- Hel
The thing to remember is that semantic fields aren't necessarily divided up the same in every language. Especially in Old Chinese, where a single character can stand for quite a broad range of meanings. 兵 simply means "something to do with war" - specifically, organized war, especially at the state level, rather than personal conflict or random violence. 者 is "one who is, or does". So 兵者 is "someone who engages in war". It's distinct from 将者, "someone who commands in war".
So it's kind of vague about what level of war deception applies to. The general viewpoint of 兵法 "The Art of War" is definitely biased towards command - for instance, the chapter on intelligence and the use of spies really isn't relevant to the small-unit level - but it also addresses universal principles that are fractally true no matter how you zoom in or out.
It's a fair choice to translate it from the perspective of leadership. That said, there are definitely parts of it that are interesting guides for individual thought and action. In this case, I translated it at that more personal level because it's in the context of discussing personal combat.
Translation is a really massive rabbit hole though, and even more so for archaic writings - Old Chinese is functionally a different language from modern Mandarin, and requires specific learning to access. Knowing a modern Chinese language helps, especially with vocabulary, but the level of inter-intelligibility is not very high.
Still better than the gap between modern English and Old English though.
Hyge sceal þe heardre, heorte þe cenre,
Mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað.
"Will must be the harder, heart the keener,
Spirit the greater, as our strength dwindles."
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- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Literally a "warrior". Though that word has its own set of ill-fitting connotations...
IIRC (and you seem like you know what you're talking about, so feel free to correct me), the Chinese script was designed the way it is in part because it let people from opposite ends of China, who spoke different languages but (depending on the period) obeyed the same emperor, understand messages written by anyone else in the empire.
So it seems like the gap between old Chinese writings and modern Chinese is narrow by design.
Kensai
我们都是中国人
- Location
- Hel
Yeah, I didn't want to go there because nowadays "warrior" has taken on a lot of unsavoury baggage.
Like most scripts, it didn't really appear by design. It evolved from esoteric markings scratched on oracle bones, pictographs that eventually became the characters of today. So it's not as if someone specifically designed a standard script. It's more that the geography of China lends itself to swift long-distance travel (particularly along the great lengths of the two rivers Huanghe and Yangzijiang) and thus unification. With a single emperor and imperial court came the need for standardisation of communication, so basically all official communication used the writing of the court. In an era of low literacy, that basically meant everyone who could actually read and write used more or less the same script.
Because it's a non-phonetic script, it's less prone to change over space and time. It remains meaningful across regional and dialectal variations in pronunciation, and doesn't have to match evolving sound patterns. It helped that Chinese literary culture was (and in some ways remains) deeply conservative, with scholars consciously harking back to the writings of earlier eras. So there just hasn't been much evolutionary pressure on Chinese orthography.