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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SKyOdin" data-source="post: 5267347" data-attributes="member: 57939">I would suggest the Tale of the Heike. It is an account of the Genpei War, the war between the Minamoto (the Genji) and Taira (the Heike) clans for control over Japan in the twelfth century. It is somewhat famous for having passed down the centuries by generations of blind storytellers. The story covers a notable point in history, since the leader of the victorious Minamoto clan, Minamoto no Yoritomo, became the first shogun of Japan.Other than the Genpei war, the other major period I can recommend looking up is the aforementioned Sengoku period, which roughly lasted from the mid 15th century until the beginning of the 17th century. It is only in this general time period that most of the culture that people recognize as Japanese, such as tea ceremonies, began to appear. However, the Sengoku period takes place primarily in the Early Modern period of world history, and the Japanese had plenty of contact with western powers and readily used guns during this era. After the Sengoku period came the Edo period (aka, the Tokugawa shogunate) which was dominated by isolationism, peace, and merchant/middle class dominated culture where sword-wielding samurai played little role. Most of the rest of recognizable Japanese culture evolved during this period, such as Kabuki theatre.As far as resources go, I would actually recommend playing a game such as Samurai Warriors. It is full of over-the-top action and is lacking in terms of historical accuracy, but it will at least familiarize you with some of the major daimyo of the Sengoku period and the depictions of them that have taken off in popular culture. For example, historical Hanzo Hattori was a vassal of Tokugawa Ieyasu who died of natural causes at the age of 55, while Pop-culture Hanzo Hittori was a ninja who died at the hands of rival ninja Fuma Kotaro.I would strongly recommend that you avoid resources like Rokugan. Rokugan is a great example where it seems like someone threw together a bunch of random elements of Japanese culture and various western misinterpretations of Japanese culture together without really understanding anything about Japanese history or culture. As such, people in Rokugan seem to act in ways that make no logical sense. It really bugs me.</blockquote>

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