Well, we have our samurai LARPers, I guess the Japanese have theirs ...

This just came in over the transom from Zuckerberg and friends ...

https://www.facebook.com/japanarmoredbattleleague

There is a related web site ...

http://www.castletintagel.com/english/

NBK ... you should be all over this ...

Actually, I got over it the first time I saw it, which was a Renaissance Fair in 1984 or so. Thirty years on, I guess some folks never got over it....

NBK wrote:Actually, I got over it the first time I saw it, which was a Renaissance Fair in 1984 or so.  Thirty years on, I guess some folks never got over it....  

In Japan in 1984?

Sure, the SCA has been around for a while and they are sometimes kinda creepy and serious. I just find it funny ... we got our guys in the US who want to dress up like samurai and play ninja in a Japan that never was ... in Japan there are people that want to dress and play Sir Lancelot in a Camelot that never was. And that they are taking the trouble to try to sell to me via Facebook.

Then there are your steampunk buddies and Bartitsu ...

No, it was a Renaissance Fair in northern CA someplace in the early 1980's, I forget. I do remember guys in tights and homemade armor, prancing and clanking around. At least there is a cultural link for most western cultures to Renaissance era Europe. There is a preservation angle that I can appreciate.

You bring up a good point - I try to imagine the opposites of such oddball changes.

When I see the self proclaimed 'soke' of some made-up martial art, I imagine some Japanese guy in Saitama proclaiming himself a 'Kentucky colonel', wearing a waistcoat, a long bow tie and sporting a handlebar moustache. It just doesn't work, does it?

NBK wrote:When I see the self proclaimed 'soke' of some made-up martial art, I imagine some Japanese guy in Saitama proclaiming himself a 'Kentucky colonel', wearing a waistcoat, a long bow tie and sporting a handlebar moustache.    It just doesn't work, does it?  

カーネルサンダースの呪い ...?