Advice for paper on Budo Culture

[Garland]

Yeah, so I have to write a paper for my Japanese class. Instead of doing the typical "martial arts" paper, I want to focus on how the lingering spirit of fuedal Japan still affects many of the greater artists of the past century, and the martial sports that have evolved there.
i.e. Yoshio Mishima and Ryunosuke Akutagawa for literature
and of course detail the relationship between western movies and the work of Kurosawa.
It is undeniable that the martial arts are stil very much a part Japan, I mean, look at any manga or movie and they still have characters that utilize or embody the martial arts or martial spirit.

I want to give a brief background on the history of the evolution of the samurai culture in context with imperialism and the shogunate, as well as how the arts evolved; i.e. ancient jiu jitsu, kenjutsu becoming modern jiu jitsu, kendo and iaido, (I know these are pretty huge generalizations, considering every "school" or "style" has it's own unique history) arts used by the samurai*, and the art of karate which was initially developed by the peasant class, and changed overtime to become modern karate, and finally sprouted off to sports and fighting karate schools such as what I consider to be the newest yet still truthful style, Mas Oyama's kyokushin. As well as the other newer arts such as aikido (relatively new, considering the forebearer aikijutsu) judo, shooto, and I'm sure the variety of others.
(I will disclude ninjitsu due to the fact that no modern instructor is able to (nor could they even) produce proof that they are indeed practitioners of the art)
* I won't forget sumo, no worries.
I also want to include some insight into the newer sports that are gaining popularity there, such as K-1 which was founded there, and Pride, as well as some MMA/Vale Tudo fighters that are being glorified there, both foreign and domestic. (i.e. the samurai spirit award given to Rickson Gracie, and the infatution with Bob Sapp) domestic fighters will include Sakuraba, Nagai, and...I think Sato (who's the guy with the bleach blonde or pink hair that does the dynamic pro-wrestling type stuff, the other one, not Sakuraba?)

Anyway...what am I missing, what should I look to for references, comments?

[jubaji]

"Advice for paper on Budo Culture"

You have to write a paper about grapes?

[Garland]

Um...no. I must have fucked up. It's an open ended assignment. I thought Budo was something else...my bad. So...other than that, any constructive criticism? Advice???

I think I might include Hagakure and Musashi Miyamoto's book as well.

[LoneWolf1]

You should write about one section of your ideas that way you can do a more thorough job. All teachers would rather have a thorough paper than a conglomerate of generalized thoughts. You have many good ideas though, just expand on them.

[Garland]

yeah, this is supposed to be a 3 page paper...I have to decide what to cut...which is hard as ****, because it's all so interesting, and it all ties in. I might just want to switch to violence in Japanese film with the evolution of the old samurai movie directors to Takashi Miike and the all the rest of the sickos now-a-days.

I dunno, what do you guys suggest? Should I stick to my previous topic and snip the vast majority of material out, or should I choose a smaller one?

[HtTKar]

a 3 page paper is pretty small. From the way you were going, I thought you had a theses or term paper.

I guess the best way to start would be reading
Bushido by Tsunetomo Yamamoto.

Another good book about samurai is;
Samurai: An Illustrated History by Mitsuo Kure

Those two books should give you what you need for a three page report. Plus, if you havent read them already, might as well now, right?

[Garland]

I like "Secrets of the Samurai" and "The Fighting Spirit of Japan"...both books are pretty much all inclusive, and with the fiction part, I might want to include an aside about samurai fiction like Eigi Yoshikawa's "Musashi", about you-know who, and later turned into a 3 part-movie starring the O.G. badass of Japanese film, Toshiro Mifune.

Man...that's the thing, I keep wanting to add shit. I guess I'll probably just commit to writing an outline and handing that in, because with the details...I could fill volumes trying to record everything, and spend a year trying to find all the things that are missing in all of the published works on the subjects.

Imagine compiling and organising all of the books on the subject and going back to an original source or original work to try and verify all of your other sources and data....Shit...sounds fun, maybe if I become a Japanese major.

[HtTKar]

Everyone needs a hobby to better their mind. You have a lifetime to learn, might as well write some of it down.