this post was submitted on 17 May 2024
272 points (90.2% liked)

gamingcirclejerk

3060 readers
94 users here now

omg they made lemmy political

Rules

  1. Gamers will be oppressed
  2. Don't be a dick
  3. No Personal Information
  4. No Self-Promotion
  5. Mark Spoilers

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Nvm that Yasuke was a real person.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 46 points 4 months ago

Fun fact, these are both real people from ancient Japanese history (and pretty famous ones at that), but you can guess which one the "gamers" are upset about.

Some more details because these two are really cool and interesting:

The white guy is a British navigator from a Dutch voyage to find a new route to India to steal control of the spice trade from the Spanish and Portugese, whose ship ended up in Japan after almost being destroyed in a storm. His name was William Adams, but the Japanese couldn't pronounce it and called him Anjin-san instead (literally Mr. Pilot). He was made a samurai and given land for his help in a war of succession, as well as his aid in founding the Dutch/British trading relationship in Japan. He lived out the rest of his life in Japan and his house can still be found today as a historical site.

The black guy, whose history is a lot less clear, was named Yasuke. He was most likely a slave originally from Africa, but there are no real records beyond that he was brought to Japan by the Jesuits, who were the sole foreigners allowed into Japan at the time. He was presented to a famous lord by the name of Oda Nobunaga (one of the most famous people in Japanese history), who was so taken with the man that he took him into his service as a retainer and samurai and gave him the name Yasuke. Yasuke served Nobunaga up to and during the betrayal that led to Nobunaga's death, after which Yasuke disappeared from historical records.