Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Samurai Architects?
Having read the book 'The Fountainhead' once before, a couple of years before, I found that I enjoyed it entirely. But, over the course of the couple of years I forgot most of it. Sad, right?

So, I picked up a copy from the School's library just the other day, and as I started reading it again I noticed a parallel between this book made over 50 years ago and a recent anime--Samurai Champloo.

SC, most of us know, is another masterpiece directed by Shinichiro Watanabe-Sensei, featuring an environment like Japan in the Genroku period, only with glaring anachronisms at every turn. One of these anachronisms is Mugen, our 'hero',in a manner of speaking. He's brash, rough, callus, and always loves a good fight. And when he does fight, it's not even in any traditional style--something he apparently calles 'Champuru Kendo'. It's a hodge-podge of several styles that seem to be executed at lightning speet, all strung together in such a way that he looks like he's break dancing.

I've said this to my friends, but not online; Mugen moves like a wild animal.

To offset Mugen we have Jin, our classic, traditional samurai. Well, he's a ronin now, but that's beside the fact. He's calm, polite, and the sort of person who would be classified in the western world as a 'proper gentlman.' When he does fight, he's quick, silent, and deadly--often killing in a single strike.

How different can these two men be?

In a sense, the main characters from The Fountainhead are like this. Roark is like Mugen, and Keating is like Jin--but this is in architectural style, not fighting.

Roark is a young man will a brilliant vision of architecture as it should be. His designs borrow from no one, and they seem like they can exist nowhere on earth. The only way to describe his style would be 'modernist', but it's doubtful that he would like that.

Keating, on the other hand, sees architecture in a different light. His designs borrow off of centuries of hard work, forming a wholly classical feel to his drawings. To quote Roark, these designs are '...Copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood." Nothing original, or necessary, in them at all.

Both of these titles seem to have an ongoing theme; modern styles versus the traditional. The only question everyone asks to this: Which one will win?

I do reccommend the book of you want a good read, as I reccomment Samurai Champloo to anyone who wants awsome fight scenes and classic japanese culture blended with a hip-hop feel that it unique to the current era.
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