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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yabanjin" data-source="post: 5265464" data-attributes="member: 87099">How ancient do you mean? If we're talking pre-Nara-Heian period, few of the things we think of as quintessentially Japanese existed then. I recommend reading about the Sengoku period, also called the "Warring States Period", as that's probably the most interesting period of Japanese history we have good records for. Most Japanese people consider the sengoku period and the Meiji Restoration as the two most interesting eras to make period pieces about.The novel Shogun is set near the end of the Sengoku Period, and it's a semi-true account of an English ship's pilot who aids a fictionalized Tokugawa in uniting Japan under his banner. If you haven't read it, I'd say it's the best place to get your feet wet in Japanese history.Also, if you haven't played the great strategy games by Koei, definitely pick one up. Nobunaga's Ambition (set in the Sengoku period) was released for almost every conceivable game system, although you'll probably want to try the PS2, Wii, DS, or PC versions.Japanese castles are really cool, too. <a href="http://www.manyou-kumamoto.jp/contents.cfm?id=395" target="_blank">Here</a> are some diagrams of <a href="http://www.manyou-kumamoto.jp/contents.cfm?id=251" target="_blank">Kumamoto-Jo</a>  (Kumamoto Castle), which was restored in the 70s. It was widely  believed to be completely impregnable due to its uniquely thick, sloping  stone walls. Kumamoto was also home to the legendary swordmaster <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyamoto_Musashi" target="_blank">Miyamoto Musashi</a> while the castle was being built (around the turn of the 17th century), so it might be an interesting location if you're setting things in the Sengoku Period.If you find an RPG sourcebook that deals with the Sengoku Period well, let me know, because most of the RPG books I've seen on Japanese stuff have been pretty poorly researched and lackluster. I guess the whole Orientalism thing is kind of fun from the outside, but L5R and the like strike me as really silly and full of western stereotypes, not to mention hilariously incorrect kanji. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> There are Japanese RPGs about the Sengoku Period, but I don't think any of them have been translated.</blockquote>

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