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04-29-2011, 02:14 AM | #16001 |
I Ride with Claymore!!!
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Alexandria, Virginia
Posts: 6,821
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Quote:
Yours is probably not an opinion shared by the majority of Joe fans, but I can understand the thinking behind it. It's the whole generalist vs. specialist argument.
There's no question that Snake-Eyes is the best overall/all-around martial artist in the GI Joe universe, but even Hama made it clear that he wasn't the best at every single aspect of the martial arts. IIRC, the Soft Master said that even though SE was a better and more well-rounded ninja and martial artist than Storm-Shadow, SS was far and away better with thrown projectiles (shuriken and throwing knives) and archery. So I don't think it's unreasonable to think that Budo might be better at kenjutsu than Snake-Eyes (not only do I find the idea not unreasonable, I think it makes perfect sense). It's his entire focus, after all. It's sort of the same way that, say, Bazooka is likely a better long-distance shot than Stalker is with a man-portable anti-tank weapon, but that doesn't necessarily say anything one way or another about Bazooka's overall soldier skills compared to Stalker's. If Budo was meant to be that good of a swordsman - SE level or better - that's not a detail that Hama would have ignored or overlooked in the comic. That would have been a story he would have loved to have written.
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Why aren't there more Joes from the Deep South? And would it kill Hasbro to give us a Marine Corps Officer? |
04-29-2011, 02:25 AM | #16002 |
I Ride with Claymore!!!
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Alexandria, Virginia
Posts: 6,821
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Quote:
Oh, I know, just expounding on what I think would be, "in spirit," a way to reconcile Budo's job as a "Samurai Warrior" (as noted on the packaging) with a modern military organization. We do this kind of thing all the time, how is what I posted any different and out of place in the filecard thread as you seem to be alluding to?
Heck, for all we know, when Hama wrote Infantryman, he was referring to the old Vietnam War-era 11D MOS (Armored Reconnaissance Specialist). A lot of people forget that up until relatively recently, the job of "armored reconnaissance" (the role associated with today's Armor branch cavalry scouts) was actually an infantry branch MOS. We know Hama tended to use Vietnam War-era definitions of MOSes and billets. I agree it's not likely, though. I think Hama just tended to use the garden-variety "Infantryman" (MOS 11B) as the catch-all basic MOS for the Joes he wasn't really sure what to make of when he got the pre-production designs, and just went with that for Budo. There are just way too many conceptual leaps to make when trying to justify the existence of someone outfitted as a pre-industrial warrior in a modern military organization, so he probably just went with the default "go-to" MOS. Yeah, I remember the old 11D MOS. My 1SG started as an Infantry Scout at Bragg back in the 80's. However, Cav/Armor/Infantry Scout - whether 11D or 19D - is really more of an Infantry-type job than a Cavalry job... perhaps mech Infantry, but Infantry. Obviously there's no good way to justify a modern samurai in a Special Ops Unit... the uniform might be "off duty" training/hobby or something. It's just hard to imagine that Budo would have been recruited for the Joe Team if he weren't an increadibly proficient Infantryman... and even if he was an 11D, he was certainly an excellent 11B. It just doesn't jive to make Budo an MP... he's an Infantryman and a hand-to-hand specialist. If he likes to dress up and practice with swords while he listens to Rock music and works on his motorcycle, that's his personal time.
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Why aren't there more Joes from the Deep South? And would it kill Hasbro to give us a Marine Corps Officer? |
04-29-2011, 02:37 AM | #16003 |
Forever Ronin
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Fayetteville, NC
Posts: 979
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Lardman, Loose Cannon, Zuludelta, thank you for understanding.
Oliverbox, although I respect your Opinion, (which also happens to be the shared by Most of the other Joe fans out there, because thats what Hasbro wanted,) please keep in mind that this whole Budo 'debate' started with me using the phrase IN MY JOEVERSE... Zuludelta, you Really understood how I felt, and Loose Cannon, you're right, he was Definitely One of the ones I went Ga-Ga for . Oliverbox, definitely no hard feelings . |
04-29-2011, 02:47 AM | #16004 |
I Ride with Claymore!!!
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Alexandria, Virginia
Posts: 6,821
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Quote:
Lardman, Loose Cannon, Zuludelta, thank you for understanding.
Oliverbox, although I respect your Opinion, (which also happens to be the shared by Most of the other Joe fans out there, because thats what Hasbro wanted,) please keep in mind that this whole Budo 'debate' started with me using the phrase IN MY JOEVERSE... Zuludelta, you Really understood how I felt, and Loose Cannon, you're right, he was Definitely One of the ones I went Ga-Ga for . Oliverbox, definitely no hard feelings .
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Why aren't there more Joes from the Deep South? And would it kill Hasbro to give us a Marine Corps Officer? |
04-29-2011, 03:17 AM | #16005 |
Forever Ronin
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Fayetteville, NC
Posts: 979
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1. I've got to agree with 'Box, I don't envision Budo as an MP either. I see him riding into battle on a R.A.M. while On-Duty; the sounds of a motorcycle's engine is like music to his ears,
Heavy Metal music. 11 Bravo all the way for him. 2. I believe the armor to be inherited, and NOT what he'd typically wear to engage the enemy. However, against some Red Ninjas, or Night Creepers? It's On! |
04-29-2011, 03:58 AM | #16006 |
EQ-Viper
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 4,343
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Quote:
Obviously there's no good way to justify a modern samurai in a Special Ops Unit... the uniform might be "off duty" training/hobby or something. It's just hard to imagine that Budo would have been recruited for the Joe Team if he weren't an increadibly proficient Infantryman... and even if he was an 11D, he was certainly an excellent 11B.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neuspeaq
I've got to agree with 'Box, I don't envision Budo as an MP either. I see him riding into battle on a R.A.M. while On-Duty
Hama often talked about struggling to come up with reasonable military functions for some of the more garish and outlandish Joe designs Hasbro sent him for filecard writing, and I think Budo was one of the cases where he just said "what the hell" and threw in "Infantry" for the character's MOS because it's the default setting, so to speak, and not because there's anything inherent in the design that lends itself to the infantry designation (the same could probably be said for Quick-Kick). I mean, is Budo being re-imagined as a Cavalry Scout or an MP (let's say he's an SRT guy, so he's an elite CQB/hostage-rescue cop) any harder to swallow than Low-Light being re-designated as a "SWAT sharpshooter" or Sci-Fi being tasked as a "Starfighter Pilot?" |
04-29-2011, 04:13 AM | #16007 |
Forever Ronin
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Fayetteville, NC
Posts: 979
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I see what you mean Zulu, I could also see him having a Secondary Military Specialty (MOS) of 21 Whiskey (21w)... great with his hands .
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04-29-2011, 04:26 AM | #16008 |
EQ-Viper
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 4,343
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BTW, I don't mean to say that Budo "shouldn't" be infantry... just that there aren't really any features in his design and details in his personal history that present any major obstacles to him being redesigned or re-designated as something other than an infantryman.
He's not like, say, Falcon, whose entire design and personal history is built around the concept of him being a Green Beret. Switching Falcon from Special Forces to even something somewhat related, like a 75th Ranger Regiment company commander, betrays the "spirit" of the character in the eyes of many Joe fans, I would think. Budo switching from one combat arms MOS to another, or even to a combat support branch MOS, on the other hand, doesn't really engender the same kind of design contradiction for me. But as is the case with many things in fandom, your mileage may vary, and I'm certainly not saying that anybody's opinion on this is definitively right or wrong. Last edited by zuludelta; 04-29-2011 at 04:32 AM.. |
04-29-2011, 08:38 AM | #16009 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: May 2007
Location: England
Posts: 1,230
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Sorry for this essay, didn't realise I'd written so much!
Quote:
There's no question that Snake-Eyes is the best overall/all-around martial artist in the GI Joe universe, but even Hama made it clear that he wasn't the best at every single aspect of the martial arts. IIRC, the Soft Master said that even though SE was a better and more well-rounded ninja and martial artist than Storm-Shadow, SS was far and away better with thrown projectiles (shuriken and throwing knives) and archery.
In both this issue and in Firefly's recollection in Marvel #126, SE was shown to be so skilled (and compassionate) that he could safely lose a match against another skilled opponent (i.e. SS) to save SS's losing face. Quote:
So I don't think it's unreasonable to think that Budo might be better at kenjutsu than Snake-Eyes (not only do I find the idea not unreasonable, I think it makes perfect sense). It's his entire focus, after all. It's sort of the same way that, say, Bazooka is likely a better long-distance shot than Stalker is with a man-portable anti-tank weapon, but that doesn't necessarily say anything one way or another about Bazooka's overall soldier skills compared to Stalker's.
Secondly I disagree that a samurai would necessarily be more skilled with a sword as that's all he does/did (the assumption in this argument being that SE as a ninja either learned a wider range of skills so had less time with the sword or learned completely different skills and didn't need such good kenjutsu training.) Firstly afaiu the Samurai would have had to have trained with a wide range of techniques and weapons: open handed, spears, sword, etc. as they may have faced one of their opposite number wielding one of these weapons and would need at least some understanding of tactics and use even if it wasn't one of their preferred weapons. Of course even if a samurai's primary weapon were a spear or a bow, they would still carry their swords as a fallback, so it is fair to expect that while they would all have a wide range of training they would still have to be at least reasonably skilled swordsmen (or soon be dead.) So if we assume that as a samurai budo didn't train exclusively with the sword, we can consider what SE as a ninja did or didn't do. The problem here is working out what a ninja actually was, and whether the various historical theories agree or disagree with what was portrayed for SE in the comic. I don't claim to know a great deal about ninja (nor can anyone afaiu), but I would assume that they could either be trained exclusively in ninja-like skills (poisons, bombs, moving quietly) with only just enough time spent on swordwork to be able to effect an escape or to kill their unsuspecting target (i.e. the cheap training way), or they could do very similar training to the Samurai (as it pays to know what your opponent is likely to do), with some extras added in (and probably some things like tea ceremonies, calligraphy and poetry taken out ;) ) My assumption, and that shown in the comic afaict is really the latter case - we see SE and SS practising with a variety of weapons and we don't see much cloak and dagger training. I also seem to remember reading somewhere (wikipedia will do) that one of the greatest alleged ninja was actually a very skilled samurai - Hattori Hanzō, and that his clan were professional ninja, rather than quickly trained lower class spies and assassins (which is afaict the other interpretation of what the ninja/shinobi were.) So basically my argument is that Budo and SE would have had a similar spread of training in the core martial arts (including kenjutsu), and that SE is shown to be a very highly skilled swordsman in the comic book, but that we have no reason to think that Budo is anything other than a perfectly adequate swordsman. Yeah I am fond of SE and SS, but I also like the idea of Budo, just wanted to clarify my thinking (and set the record straight about the throwing dirks, which is what started me to writing all the rest of this ) |
04-29-2011, 08:53 AM | #16010 |
EQ-Viper
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 4,343
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Quote:
Quote:
My assumption, and that shown in the comic afaict is really the latter case - we see SE and SS practising with a variety of weapons and we don't see much cloak and dagger training. I also seem to remember reading somewhere (wikipedia will do) that one of the greatest alleged ninja was actually a very skilled samurai - Hattori Hanzō, and that his clan were professional ninja, rather than quickly trained lower class spies and assassins (which is afaict the other interpretation of what the ninja/shinobi were.)
I do think that Hama's portrayal of ninja as being "samurai-ish" stems from the fact that his own martial arts training is rooted in the gendai budo versions of the classic "samurai arts" (as I'd posted a page or three ago, he stated in a 1998 interview that he grew up training in judo, iaido, and kyudo, which are the "non-militarized" versions of the samurai-era jujutsu, iaijutsu, and kyujutsu), and he was simply following the first rule of writing: Write what you know. Of course, as blackrazor1 and I discussed several pages ago, nobody really knows for sure to what extent the historical ninja trained in certain skills, since all the facts available to us now as far as "authentic" pre-Edo Period ninjutsu is concerned are of dubious veracity. Personally, I think they probably differed very little from the "mainstream" koryu schools of their day (to mix metaphors a bit, there's only so many ways you can skin a cat and Occam's razor probably limited the variegation in sword techniques between the ninja and the samurai). But there's certainly room for all sorts of interpretations as to how SE's "ninja swordsmanship" skills compare with those of somebody trained in "samurai swordsmanship." Last edited by zuludelta; 04-29-2011 at 09:07 AM.. |
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