[Nathan Robinson]

Today's update:


The Evolution of Japanese Armour
An article by Boris Bedrosov


The Paper Armoury: Japanese Swords
An article by Sean Flynt

As always, you can see our Complete History of Updates listed right from our home page.

[Chad Arnow]

This update is a momentous one. Firstly, we welcome two new authors: Boris Bedrosov and Gabriel Lebec (the Paper Armoury article was compiled and edited by Sean, but the text is Gabriel's). Thanks, Boris and Gabriel!

Secondly, this broadens the scope of our published works. We have been accused (many times) of a European bias in our publications, a statement I always disagree with. Until this point, no one had bothered to submit anything for publication. My hope is that this will broaden the knowledge of our core readers, generate some ongoing discussion about things we don't often talk about, brings in some posters with diverse interests, and perhaps lead to more articles on non-European topics.

Thirdly, this is the first update of the non-biweekly era. It helps shows that we're still here and still bringing you exciting content, despite a few weeks of quiet. We have plenty of articles and reviews in the works, which we'll bring to you as the groups are ready.

Fourth, our thanks go to Jean Thibodeau for his illustrations in Boris's article. I imagine it was a lot of work, and turned out great. Thanks, Jean!

[Glen A Cleeton]

Might I add monumental and remarkable? Wait a minute, I'm still dizzy. A really well done set and kudos to all invovled. Although not at all a primary focus of interest to me, I could not stop reading, except when I got to the footnotes. A good chuckle from #3.

The paper Armoury list will greatly help those looking to fill that shelf. I read some of these titles mentioned time and again, they must be worth good study. Personable and articulate reviews that gave me a better overview than the brief mentions as reference I often see.

Cheers

GC

[Matthew K. Shea]

I'll be honest and say I was a bit disappointed to see that (1) there are only two articles, and (2) they are outside my main area of interest. That changed when I opened the "Evolution of Japanese Armour" article. My jaw dropped when I glanced at the scrollbar and saw how tiny it is. I haven't fully read through it yet, but it's absolutely amazing. Here's another vote of "Excellent" from me. Congrats on yet another amazing update.

[Gabriel Lebec]

Oh hey, look at that! I admit to being a little surprised but pleased when I saw this update (makes me wish I'd finished another piece I'm 95% done with). I'd seen Boris's epic before, but Jean's illustrations are no less monumental. I don't know if there is any other online English-language reference on Japanese armour with nearly this level of detail, which if I'm right makes myArmoury a definitive online source in at least one non-European subject. So congrats to that team, and thanks to Chad and Glen for their comments re: the Paper Armoury article.

To many more,
-Gabriel L.

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Pamela Muir]

My sincere compliments to Boris, Gabriel and Jean. Fantastic job!!

[Sean Flynt]

I just want to emphasize that although my name is on all the Paper Armoury articles as the series editor and compiler, this installment is Gabriel's work. I did only some minor editing and arranging.

[Jean Thibodeau]

Yes, Gabriel found some great books there. ( I have a few of these myself but I see some I didn't know anything about ).

The book descriptions and reviews are very informative.

[Geoff Wood]

Thanks to all involved, particularly Boris and Jean, for the article on Japanese armour. I shall watch Kurosawa epics with renewed interest. I have a small question. In the section on Modern Armour, third paragraph, reference is made to the modern armour weight being taken on the thighs rather than, as with the Classical Armours, the shoulders. Having tried mail, I can understand wanting to take the weight off the shoulders, but why didn't they take it on the hips, rather than the thighs, as the latter seems likely to result in a restriction of leg movement?
Regards
Geoff

[Chad Arnow]

Everybody,
Thanks for the input. If it's not too much trouble, could the people who voted "Fair" please tell us (publicly or privately) how we can do better? We understand that the subject matter won't appeal to everyone, but I'm suprised that our substantial effort in this preparing this group would be termed only fair.

Thanks!

P.S. These polls ask you to rate our efforts, not how much the update speaks to you, since we know not every update group is appealing to every reader.

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Other than the problem with hips and thighs, there's a constant confusion between the s's, the j's, and the z's in the Japanese words. Correcting them would go a great deal towards improving the accuracy and readability of the article.

[Nathan Robinson]

[Chad Arnow]

[Boris Bedrosov]

Dear friends!
Thank you very much for the encouraging words. Actually, this is my fourth or fifth article ever and being non-professional writer, I really need some constructive critisism here.

About Lafayette's remark about the confusions between the s's, the j's, and the z's, I can only tell that in Bulgaria, the official system of transcribing Japanese in Bulgarian, named Kiridzi (the same is in Russian, too) excludes the sh's and the ch's, which are included in the Romadzi - the system, accepted in Latin-writing countries (UK, USA, France, Germany, exc.). So, when I wrote the article, I was very confused which system to use - should I use Kiridzi, because of my nationality, or should I use Romadzi, because of the English language used by me. So, sorry for that unintentional confusion.

Best regards and good luck!
Boris

[Jean Thibodeau]

I know I learned a lot from working on the drawings for Boris's article and although knowing all the correct names for things might be a good thing I'm personally not very good at remembering names.

But what are " names " compared to understanding the form or function of the things named ? ( The real essentiels )

I must admit I was and am lazy about even trying to memorize all those Japanese terms but I do retain from the work done on the drawing a lot about the way the armour was put together and the article is now here on the site to refresh my memory if and when I need to know the names.

I obviously would like as many people as possible to see and enjoy the article and my drawings but I got a lot of satisfaction just doing the artwork. ( The work being it's own reward. )

As to accuracy of terms in any language other than the original Japanese using a true Japanese accent: The words probably sound very different or are spelled very differently if one reads them in English, French, German, Bulgarian ! Consistency in using one language for translation purposes might be a good thing if possible.

The point of an article like this is that to someone completely unfamiliar with Japanese armour it give a good start based on period and evolution of styles: One can then find that reading the many books available on Japanese armour easier to order in one's mind. I already had MANY MANY books on Japanese armour but this article by Boris really helped in having a clear and concise overview of the whole that used to be more of a confused jumble in my mind before.

Thanks Boris for your work.

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Nathan Robinson]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Here are the promised errata.

The first thing I noticed is "Koziki" in the section on ancient armors where I would have expected "Kojiki," since "shi" is supposed to change into "ji" instead of "zi." Then in the section on keiko, I saw one instance of kusazuri getting reversed into "kuzasuri" but this seems more like a typo than anything else since the rest of the section gets it right.

Next, in the kabuto subsection I tripped up on syokaku, which might be a technically viable way of transliterating the Japanese word but would probably confuse an English-speaking reader as to its pronounciation. It sounds like this should be shokaku but the word isn't really all that familiar to me so I'll go off and see whether it should be chokaku instead. Mostly because "shokaku" reminds me of the Japanese carrier, whose name means "Flying Crane (the bird, that is)" or "Happy Crane," although the shokaku in this case might just be a homophone with different kanji.

The section on do-maru, curiously, has several instances of o-yoroi getting typo-ed into "o-yoro." Maybe this is related to the italicization phase of the editing?

Another word that needs particular attention is "kasa-zirushi." I was on the point of asking a Japanese friend what this could have meant until I realized that it's the thing that would be more conventionally (and less confusingly) Anglicized as kasa-jirushi. It's the issue of "shi" turning into "ji" all over again. Two instances show up in the kabuto subsection of "Classical Armour."

Next: the caption for tatehage [sic!] okegawa ni-mai do has a typo in it. It's clearly an unintentional mistake because the text gets it right as tatehagi.

The Japanese name for the European armors is actually spelled nanban-do, but I think the article does nothing wrong in writing it as namban since it is pronounced as "namban" after all.

Tyotin-kabuto confused me to no end. For one thing, neither "tyo" or "ti" exists in the usual English transliteration of Japanese names. Perhaps somebody could provide me with the hiragana or the kanji for it? I'm also going to ask other Japanese armor buffs too for the least weird transliteration of this thing. For the moment I suspect it's chochin-kabuto or chojin-kabuto.

Ettyu-suneate should be etchu-suneate, perhaps? "Etchu" (a bit hard to translate, but in this context it's probably best translated as "straight) looks like the right word to apply here but I'll check again with other folks because I'm not quite sure.

Yoroi-hitatare (arming suit) got mixed up into yoroi-hatitare several times in the text of "Clothes, Equipment, and Accessories." In the same section, the surcoat/sleeveless jacket is called zimbaori where it should probably be jimbaori (from jin-haori, "battle jacket," written jinbaori and pronounced with "m" instead of "n" just like nanban). There is also another instance of kasa-zirushi [sic!] here as well as one of sode-zirushi, both of which should get the "z" changed into "j."

Last but not least--still in the same section--gumbai-utiwa should probably be gunbai-uchiwa or gumbai-uchiwa, preferably the latter for the sake of consistency with the other transliterations in the article.

Not guaranteed to be 100% right, but hope that helps!