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the toy soldier loves braiding hair. the second someone stays still for more than a minute it is there braiding their hair. it doesn’t care about the length of the hair either it will still try it’s best to braid it. also it has been found on multiple occasions braiding the hair of corpses because they were being nice and still

This was so very cute!

Until the last sentence! 💞

Why do you all do this :)))

#the mechanisms #toy soldier #shitty mechs hc #er?#haircannons

Slowly turning American

#hello from the gut #er?

Otani Yoshitsugu: Everyone's Favourite Leper

The title speaks for itself

Absolutely did just nab one of the screen shots off the SW4 website because the likelihood of me being bothered to resize the image from Wikipedia which took three tries with Kobayakawa are zero to none

Otani Yoshitsugu, sadly, is someone I can only really tell you stories about. It truly is a shame because by what we do know he sounds like an admiral man – then again, how can we be sure we know it? The man is so obscure and he becomes more mysterious by the stories told about him that we are no longer sure of his birthdate and some even put forward the idea that he wasn’t even alive at Sekigahara.

In terms of his fictional portrayals I actually quite like him. Look, I really need to reread Shogun, I can barely remember any of it. I will reread it…at some point. Otherwise, he’s actually one of the few Sengoku Basara characters I like – I don’t like him as a person but I enjoy the weird dynamic he has of managing to be a lunatic and act as a stable pillar for Mitsunari, who has frankly lost his mind. He’s also really fun to play.

In Samurai Warriors he’s definitely up there with the most interesting characters – though I wouldn’t say the very best. His friendship with Takatora adds a great dynamic to his mysterious character and I can guarantee to you they have made me cry many times especially at Sekigahara. No really, I was lying on the Sofa crying. None of that was okay. He was a good add for SW4 – he still added something to Mitsunari’s slightly bland character from 3 (he’s still a bit bland…but I’ll talk about that in his post) but I’m a little miffed by the fact they didn’t add in his indecisiveness over serving Ieyasu. Although, that may have ruined the Otani/Todo plot.

As I said, we don’t really know very much about Otani Yoshitsugu. We don’t even know when he was born, originally it was believed he was a couple of years older than Mitsunari and that seems to be the age most people go with but its been thrown into question lately and we’re not sure if he was actually much older – or even a bit younger. Out of the two I’d bet on him being older, which I’ll explain in a moment.

His family were suspected to be retianers of the Otomo family, who were a clan down in Kyushu. While it seems a little odd for a man from Kyushu to suddenly appear in the ranks of Hideyoshi it did happen – supposedly at the recommendation of Ishida Mitsunari – and Yoshitsugu fought at Shizugatake, attacking Takigawa Kazumasa. After Shizugatake he was given lands in Echizen province.

He worked on the logistics – so supplies – for Hideyoshi during the Kyushu campaign and over as a beauracrat in Korea along with Ishida Mitsunari and Mashita Nagamori. Considering they were working the same job it’s here that Yoshitsugu and Mitsunari formed this legendary friendship and potential love affair. I say potential, it seems to come largely from Edo stories but I mean…it could have happened? I don’t know. I mean there’s debate over whether the two were even friends and, as far as I’m concerned, it’s starting to actually point to that they weren’t – considering the two years between Hideyoshi’s death and Sekigahara.

His life in the 1590s outside of Korea is a little obscure which can we put to something that we definitely know about Yoshitsugu – his leprosy. It’s not known how he contracted it (I don’t want to know) but it would be in a window of 5-20 years before this as Leprosy has minimal affects for that kind of time period. Either he contracted it on the Kyushu or earlier than that…yeah, I don’t want to know how either way it’s disgusting.

In 1599 he besieged the castle of Oumori when the Onodera clan rebelled and by this point he was suffering from leprosy that was in its advanced stages. This meant he would be unable to walk, he probably had poor eyesight if he had not already gone blind and may well have been almost completely paralysed. He wasn’t living a good life put it that way.

While initially on the fence about who to serve and leaning more towards Ieyasu, Mitsunari somehow managed to persuade him to serve the Western army. Honestly, with the state he was in by then…it probably wouldn’t have mattered, poor guy. While initially taking troops to assist in the subjugation of Aizu he never got there and instead took them to Sawayama, Mitsunari’s home, before they marched to Sekigahara.

Otani would die there. Unable to move, he commanded his troops from a palanquin and seemed doubtful from the very beginning, asking his retainer Gosuke if all was lost again and again until he got an answer of yes. Yoshitsugu was killed on Mount Matsuo by his own will, ordering Gosuke to cut off his head and take it away with him. On the mountain a grave was erected for him, Gosuke, who was also killed at Sekigahara, and Yoshitsugu’s son who also committed suicide. The graves were built by Todo Takatora, it was his army who defeated Yoshitsugu’s in the end.

A note on Otani’s age however and why I suspect he was probably older than Mitsunari. His daughter, known as Chikurin-in, was married to Sanada Yukimura - who was born in 1567. While Chikurin is given a birthdate of either 1579 or 1580 (I promptly gagged, it may have been political but this was a 27 year old marrying a 14/15 year old; thankfully they didn’t have any children until she was in her 20s) that would still make Yoshitsugu either 19 or 20 years old when she was born if he was the same age as Mitsunari and I just have my doubts he could be any younger than that…I don’t know, we’ll see.

Yoshitsugu is a beloved figure and it’s easy to see why. He faced great challenges in his life that he carried on with, despite his ever-worsening condition. I really do wish I could tell you more about him…but I can’t. We don’t really know anything about him. The two things he is best known for are his friendship and his leprosy and the rest of the man seems lost to History. While I’ll be posting the stories about him from time to time, there really is nothing more I can say about the man. Perhaps one day we’ll discover letters or artefacts or documents that will tell us just a touch more about the man.