Just was wondering if anyone maybe knew what style of sword fighting Tsugumo was using, it looked a little unorthodox, and if you'll notice, it seemed somehow to give the master swordsman he was fighting towards the end the willies.
Great, interesting film by the way...
His style was devloped in the Southern part of Japan. Yagu-ryu style.
shareTo add to the explanation given by others, I too noticed that he intentionally did this very over the top, theatrical style of fighting, pausing and posturing that apparently really unnerved the opposing samurai.
As trained fighters, they were used to fighting someone similarly trained, but this guy acted like he was either fearless, invincible or crazy, either one would scare the crap out of a trained sword fighter.
All the experienced sword fighters say that it's nothing to fight a fellow professional, but either an amateur or a crazy person, that's terrifying, because NONE of their actions can be anticipated.
I also noticed that in the standard tradition, the opposing samurai always threw themselves back whenever the protagonist made a swing at them with his blade. Given the sharpness of the katana, your survivability counted more on your ability to dodge a swing than to hit your target. No one (even now) had/has armor that can stop a real samurai sword from slicing you with a solid blow.
Dr. Kila Marr was right. Kill the Crystalline Entity.share