title: Boudica

text: Boudica was once thought to have been buried between platforms 9 and 10 in King's Cross station in London. There is no evidence for this and it is probably a post-World War II invention. At Colchester Town Hall, a life-sized statue of Boudica stands on the south facade, sculpted by L J Watts in 1902; another depiction of her is in a stained glass window by Clayton and Bell in the council chamber.


title: Boudica

text: Boudica was adopted by the suffragettes as one of the symbols of the campaign for women's suffrage. In 1908, a "Boadicea Banner" was carried in several National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies marches. She appears as character in "A Pageant of Great Women" written by Cicely Hamilton, which opened at the Scala Theatre, London, in November 1909 before a national tour, and she was described in a 1909 pamphlet as "the eternal feminine... the guardian of the hearth, the avenger of its wrongs upon the defacer and the despoiler".


title: Boudica

text: A "vocal minority" has claimed Boudica as a Celtic Welsh heroine. A statue of Boudica in the Marble Hall at Cardiff City Hall was among those unveiled by David Lloyd George in 1916, though the choice had gained little support in a public vote. It shows her with her daughters and without warrior trappings.


title: Boudica

text: Permanent exhibitions describing the Boudican Revolt are at the Museum of London, Colchester Castle Museum and the Verulamium Museum. A long distance footpath called Boudica's Way passes through countryside between Norwich and Diss in Norfolk.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: "Princess Mononoke" is set in the late Muromachi period of Japan (approximately 1336 to 1573 CE), but it includes fantasy elements. The story follows a young Emishi prince named Ashitaka, and his involvement in a struggle between the gods ("kami") of a forest and the humans who consume its resources. The term , or , is not a name, but a Japanese word for supernatural, shape-shifting beings that possess people and cause suffering, disease, or death.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: The film was released in Japan on July 12, 1997 by Toho, and in the United States on October 29, 1999. It was a critical and commercial blockbuster, becoming the highest-grossing film in Japan of 1997, and also held Japan's box office record for domestic films until 2001's "Spirited Away", another Miyazaki film. It was dubbed into English with a script by Neil Gaiman and initially distributed in North America by Miramax, where it sold well on DVD and video, despite a poor box office performance. The film greatly increased Ghibli's popularity and influence outside Japan.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: In Muromachi Japan, an Emishi village is attacked by a hideous demon. The last Emishi prince, Ashitaka, kills it before it reaches the village, but it manages to grasp his arm and curse him before its death. The curse grants him superhuman strength, but it also causes him pain and will eventually kill him. The villagers discover that the demon was a boar god (boar "kami"), corrupted by an iron ball lodged in his body. The village's wise woman tells Ashitaka that he may find a cure in the western lands that the demon came from, and that he cannot return to his homeland.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: Heading west, Ashitaka meets Jigo, an opportunistic monk who tells Ashitaka he may find help from the Great Forest Spirit, a deer-like animal god by day and a giant Night Walker by night. Nearby, men on a cliffside herd oxen to their home of Iron Town, led by Lady Eboshi, and repel an attack by a wolf pack led by the wolf goddess Moro, whom Eboshi wounds with a gun shot. Riding one of the wolves is San, a human girl. Down below, Ashitaka encounters San and the wolves, who rebuff his greeting. He then manages to rescue two of the men fallen from the cliff and transports them back through the forest, where he briefly glimpses the Great Forest Spirit.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: Ashitaka and the survivors arrive at Iron Town, where he is greeted with fascination. Iron Town is a refuge for outcasts and lepers employed to process iron and create firearms, such as hand cannons and matchlock muskets. Ashitaka learns that the town was built by clearcutting forests to mine the iron, leading to conflicts with Asano, a local daimyō, and a giant boar god named Nago. Eboshi admits that she shot Nago, incidentally turning him into the demon that attacked Ashitaka's village. She also reveals that San, dubbed "Princess Mononoke", was raised by the wolves and hates humankind.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: San infiltrates Iron Town to kill Eboshi. Ashitaka intervenes and quickly subdues Eboshi and San while they are locked in combat. Amidst the hysteria he is shot by a villager, but the curse gives him strength to carry San out of the village. San awakens and prepares to kill the weakened Ashitaka, but hesitates when he tells her that she is beautiful. She decides to trust him after the Forest Spirit heals his bullet wound that night. The next day, a boar clan led by the blind god Okkoto plans to attack Iron Town to save the forest. Eboshi sets out to kill the Forest Spirit with Jigo; Eboshi intends to give the god's head to the Emperor (who believes it will grant him immortality) in return for protection from Lord Asano, while Jigo desires the large reward being offered.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: Ashitaka recovers and finds Iron Town besieged by Asano's samurai. The boar clan has been annihilated in battle, and Okkoto is badly wounded. Jigo's men trick Okkoto into leading them to the Forest Spirit. San tries to stop Okkoto but is swept up as his pain corrupts him into a demon. As everyone clashes at the pool of the Forest Spirit, Ashitaka saves San while the Forest Spirit euthanizes Moro and Okkoto. As it begins to transform into the Night Walker Eboshi decapitates it. Jigo steals the head, while the Forest Spirit's body bleeds ooze that spreads over the land and kills anything it touches. The forest and kodama begin to die; Moro's head briefly comes alive and bites off Eboshi's right arm, but she survives. Enraged, San attempts to kill Eboshi again, but is stopped by Ashitaka, who consoles her and encourages her not to give up.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: After Iron Town is evacuated, Ashitaka and San pursue Jigo and retrieve the head, returning it to the Forest Spirit. The Spirit dies but its form washes over the land, healing it and lifting Ashitaka's curse. Ashitaka stays to help rebuild Iron Town, but promises San he will visit her in the forest. Eboshi vows to build a better town. The forest begins to regrow as a single Kodama emerges from the brush.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: The cast also includes: Akira Nagoya as the ; Kimihiro Reizei as a ; Tetsu Watanabe as a ; Makoto Sato as , a wild boar turned into a demon who curses Ashitaka when he attacks the Emishi village, voiced by John DiMaggio in the English version; and Sumi Shimamoto as , Kohroku's wife, a former prostitute, and the leader of Eboshi's women, voiced by Jada Pinkett Smith in the English version.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: In the late 1970s, Miyazaki drew sketches of a film about a princess living in the woods with a beast. Miyazaki began writing the film's plotline and drew the initial storyboards for the film in August 1994. He had difficulties adapting his early ideas and visualisations, because elements had already been used in "My Neighbor Totoro" and because of societal changes since the creation of the original sketches and image boards. This writer's block prompted him to accept a request for the creation of the "On Your Mark" promotional music video for the Chage and Aska song of the same title. According to Toshio Suzuki, the diversion allowed Miyazaki to return for a fresh start on the creation of "Princess Mononoke". In April 1995, supervising animator Masashi Ando devised the character designs from Miyazaki's storyboard. In May 1995, Miyazaki drew the initial storyboards. That same month, Miyazaki and Ando went to the ancient forests of Yakushima, of Kyushu, an inspiration for the landscape of "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind", and the mountains of Shirakami-Sanchi in northern Honshu for location scouting along with a group of art directors, background artists and digital animators for three days. Animation production commenced in July 1995. Miyazaki personally oversaw each of the 144,000 cels in the film, and is estimated to have retouched parts of 80,000 of them. The final storyboards of the film's ending were finished only months before the Japanese premiere date.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: Inspired by John Ford, an Irish-American director best known for his Westerns, Miyazaki created Irontown as a "tight-knit frontier town" and populated it with "characters from outcast groups and oppressed minorities who rarely, if ever, appear in Japanese films." He made the characters "yearning, ambitious and tough." Miyazaki did not want to create an accurate history of Medieval Japan, and wanted to "portray the very beginnings of the seemingly insoluble conflict between the natural world and modern industrial civilization." The landscapes appearing in the film were inspired by Yakushima. Despite being set during the Muromachi period, the actual time period of "Princess Mononoke" depicts a "symbolic neverwhen clash of three proto-Japanese races (the Jomon, Yamato and Emishi)."


title: Princess Mononoke

text: "Princess Mononoke" was produced with an estimated budget of ¥2.35 billion (approximately US$23.5 million). It was mostly hand-drawn, but incorporates some use of computer animation in approximately ten percent of the film. The computer animated parts are designed to blend in and support the traditional cel animation, and are mainly used in images consisting of a mixture of computer generated graphics and traditional drawing. A further 10 minutes uses inked-and-painted, a technique used in all subsequent Studio Ghibli films. Most of the film is colored with traditional paint, based on the color schemes designed by Miyazaki and Michiyo Yasuda. However, producers agreed on the installation of computers to successfully complete the film prior to the Japanese premiere date. Telecom Animation Film Company and Oh! Production helped animate the film. Toei Animation and DR Movie helped with the painting process.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: Two titles were originally considered for the film. One, ultimately chosen, has been translated into English as "Princess Mononoke". The other title can be translated into English as , and it contains an uncommon kanji 𦻙 that represents "a legend passed down from ear to ear without being recorded in official history", according to Miyazaki. In a Tokyo Broadcasting System program, televised on November 26, 2013, Toshio Suzuki mentioned that Miyazaki had preferred "The Legend of Ashitaka" as the title while Suzuki himself favoured "Princess Mononoke", though the former title was eventually reused for the first song on the soundtrack. The English dub contains minor additional voice overs to explain nuances of Japanese culture to western audiences.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: A central theme of "Princess Mononoke" is the environment. The film centers on the adventure of Ashitaka as he journeys to the west to undo a fatal curse inflicted upon him by Nago, a boar turned into a demon by Eboshi. Michelle J. Smith and Elizabeth Parsons said that the film "makes heroes of outsiders in all identity politics categories and blurs the stereotypes that usually define such characters". In the case of the deer god's destruction of the forest and Tataraba, Smith and Parsons said that the "supernatural forces of destruction are unleashed by humans greedily consuming natural resources". They also characterized Eboshi as a businesswoman who has a desire to make money at the expense of the forest, and also cite Eboshi's intention to destroy the forest to mine the mountain "embodies environmentalist evil". Deirdre M. Pike writes that Princess Mononoke is simultaneously part of nature and part of the problem. Mononoke represents the connection between the environment and humans, but also demonstrates that there is an imbalance in power between the two.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: Two other themes found in the plot of "Princess Mononoke" are sexuality and disability. Speaking at the International Symposium on Leprosy / Hansen's Disease History in Tokyo, Miyazaki explained that he was inspired to portray people living with leprosy, "said to be an incurable disease caused by bad karma", after visiting the Tama Zenshoen Sanatorium near his home in Tokyo. Lady Eboshi is driven by her compassion for the disabled, and believes that blood from the Great Forest Spirit could allow her to "cure [her] poor lepers". Michelle Jarman, Assistant Professor of Disability Studies at the University of Wyoming, and Eunjung Kim, Assistant Professor of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, said the disabled and gendered sexual bodies were partially used as a transition from the feudal era to a hegemony that "embraces modern social systems, such as industrialization, gendered division of labor, institutionalization of people with diseases, and militarization of men and women." They likened Lady Eboshi to a monarch. Kim and Jarman suggested that Eboshi's disregard of ancient laws and curses towards sex workers and lepers was enlightenment reasoning and her exploitation of disabled people furthered her modernist viewpoints. Kim and Jarman conclude that Lady Eboshi's supposed benevolence in incorporating lepers and sex workers into her society leverages the social stigma attached to marginalized groups, pointing out that the hierarchical structures within Irontown still support the stigmatization of lepers and sex workers.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: An additional theme is the morally ambiguous conflict between humankind's growth and development and Nature's need for preservation. According to the "Chicago Sun-Times"s Roger Ebert, "It is not a simplistic tale of good and evil, but the story of how humans, forest animals and nature gods all fight for their share of the new emerging order." Billy Crudup, who provided the English voice for Ashitaka, said "The movie was such an entirely different experience; it had a whole new sensibility I had never seen in animation. It also had something profound to say: that there has to be a give and take between man and nature. One of the things that really impressed me is that Miyazaki shows life in all its multi-faceted complexity, without the traditional perfect heroes and wicked villains. Even Lady Eboshi, who Ashitaka respects, is not so much evil as short-sighted." Minnie Driver, the English voice actress for Lady Eboshi, commented similarly: "It's one of the most remarkable things about the film: Miyazaki gives a complete argument for both sides of the battle between technological achievement and our spiritual roots in the forest. He shows that good and evil, violence and peace exist in us all. It's all about how you harmonize it all." Anime historian Susan Napier said there is no clear good vs. evil conflict in "Princess Mononoke", unlike other films popular with children. Based on the multiple point of views the film adopts, San and Lady Eboshi can simultaneously be viewed as heroic or villainous. San defends the forest and viewers empathize with her. But she also attacks innocent people, complicating how we evaluate her. Opposed to San, Eboshi tries to destroy the forest and could be considered a villain. But everything she does is out of a desire to protect her village and see it prosper. San and Lady Eboshi survive until film's end, defying the usual convention of good triumphing over evil with the antagonist defeated. Napier concluded that the resolution of the conflict is left ambiguous, implying that Lady Eboshi and San will be able to come to some sort of compromise. The ambiguity suggests that there are no true villains or heroes.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: Dan Jolin of "Empire" said that a potential theme could be that of lost innocence. Miyazaki attributes this to his experience of making his previous film, "Porco Rosso", and the wars in the former Yugoslavia, which he cites as an example of mankind never learning, making it difficult for him to go back to making a film such as "Kiki's Delivery Service", where he has been quoted as saying "It felt like children were being born to this world without being blessed. How could we pretend to them that we're happy?"


title: Princess Mononoke

text: Duality is central to Eboshi's characterization. Benjamin Thevenin, Assistant Professor of Theater and Media Arts at Brigham Young University, said Eboshi does not fully understand the harm she does to the spirits. Her focus is on creating a safe home for her people. She holds no malicious intent toward nature and its spirits until they begin attacking her people. Once nature attacks, she gathers her soldiers to protect the inhabitants of her town, a place where all are welcome. Irontown is a haven for former sex workers and lepers. She brings them to Irontown and gives them jobs, hospitality, and a kindness that they have never experienced before. The same treatment goes for all Irontown's inhabitants, not just the sickly and the scorned. Lady Eboshi treats everyone equally, no matter the race, sex, or history of the individual, creating a caring community. While Eboshi hates San and the forest spirits, she keeps a garden in her town. Her care for the garden implies that her intention is not to ravage nature to no end, but rather to help her own people. Thevenin concluded that although Eboshi can be seen as the film's villain, she is also a hero to the citizens of Irontown and to humankind in general.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: Another theme in this film is between individualism and societal conformity. According to University of Bristol professors Christos Ellinas, Neil Allan and Anders Johansson, this struggle can be seen between San, a strong individualistic force, and Eboshi, the leader of a great society. San has fully committed to living with the wolves in the forest and to renouncing her association with the human race. Eboshi has vowed to sustain her society of Irontown by any means including destroying the environment. The people of Irontown have a cohesive ideology and agree with Eboshi to protect Irontown at the cost of the environment's destruction. This conformity can be found within their society, because “even though there is an envisioned culture at which an organization abides to [sic], achieving coherence at lower aggregation levels (e.g. individuals) is increasingly challenging due to its emergent nature”.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: "Princess Mononoke" was released theatrically in Japan on July 12, 1997. The film was extremely successful in Japan and with both anime fans and arthouse moviegoers in English-speaking countries. Since Walt Disney Studios had made a distribution deal with Tokuma Shoten for Studio Ghibli's films in 1996, it was the first film from Studio Ghibli along with "Kiki's Delivery Service" and "Castle in the Sky" to have been dubbed into English by Disney; in this case, subsidiary Miramax Films was assigned to release the movie in America on October 29, 1999. In response to demands from Miramax chairman Harvey Weinstein to edit the film, one of Miyazaki's producers sent Weinstein a samurai sword with the message: "No cuts." Promotion manager, Steve Alpert, revealed that Weinstein had wanted to trim the film down from 135 minutes to 90 minutes "despite having promised not to do so." When Alpert informed him that Miyazaki would not agree to these demands, Weinstein flew into one of his infamous rages and threatened Alpert that he would "never work in this...industry again". Weinstein hired Neil Gaiman to write the English script, and he chose to simplify some of the Japanese terminology for this dub, with words like "Jibarashi" becoming "Mercenary" and "Shishigami" becoming "Forest Spirit". According to him at one of the American screenings of the dub, the release was somewhat delayed because the original recordings deviated from the English script as written. Despite Gaiman's independent fame as an author, his role as scriptwriter for the dub was not heavily promoted: Studio Ghibli requested that Miramax remove some executives' names from the poster for the film, but the executives (Harvey Weinstein, Bob Weinstein, and Scott Martin) decided that Gaiman's name was contractually expendable.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: On April 29, 2000, the English-dub version of "Princess Mononoke" was released theatrically in Japan along with the documentary "Mononoke hime in U.S.A." The documentary was directed by Toshikazu Sato and featured Miyazaki visiting the Walt Disney Studios and various film festivals. The film had a limited theatrical re-release in the United States during July 2018, and again during April 2022 for the 25th anniversary of its original Japanese release.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: "Princess Mononoke" was the highest-grossing Japanese film of 1997, earning ¥11.3 billion in distribution rental earnings. It became the highest-grossing film in Japan, beating the record set by "E.T." in 1982, but was surpassed several months later by "Titanic". The film earned total domestic gross receipts of .


title: Princess Mononoke

text: It was the top-grossing anime film in the United States in January 2001, but the film did not fare as well financially in the country when released in October 1999. It grossed $2,298,191 for the first eight weeks. It showed more strength internationally, where it earned a total of $11 million outside Japan, bringing its worldwide total to $159,375,308 at the time. On December 6, 2016, GKIDS announced that it will screen the film in US cinemas on January 5 and January 9, 2017, to celebrate its 20th anniversary, bundled with the "On Your Mark" short. The film's limited US re-release in 2018 grossed $1,423,877 over five days, bringing its US total to $3,799,185 and worldwide total to $160,799,185. , the film has grossed .


title: Princess Mononoke

text: For its 25th anniversary, Princess Mononoke was screened in 35mm at New York City's Japan Society on July 22, 2022.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: In Japan, the film was released on VHS by Buena Vista Home Entertainment on June 26, 1998. A LaserDisc edition was also released by Tokuma Japan Communications on the same day. The film was released on DVD by Buena Vista Home Entertainment on November 21, 2001, with bonus extras added, including the international versions of the film as well as the storyboards. By 2007, "Princess Mononoke" sold 4.4million DVD units in Japan. At an average retail price of , this is equivalent to approximately () in Japanese sales revenue as of 2007.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: In July 2000, Buena Vista Home Entertainment via Miramax Home Entertainment announced plans to release the film on VHS and DVD in North America on August 29. Initially, the DVD version of "Princess Mononoke" wasn't going to include the Japanese-language track at the request of Buena Vista's Japan division. Because the film hadn't been released on DVD in Japan yet, there were concerns that "a foreign-released DVD containing the Japanese language track will allow for the importation of such a DVD to Japan, which could seriously hurt the local sales of a future release of the [film]". The fansite Nausicaa.net organized an email campaign for fans to include the Japanese language track, while DVD Talk began an online petition to retain the Japanese language track. The DVD release of "Princess Mononoke" was delayed as a result. Miramax Home Entertainment released the DVD on December 19, 2000 with the original Japanese audio, the English dubbed audio and extras including a trailer and a documentary with interviews from the English dub voice actors. The film was released on Blu-ray disc in Japan on December 4, 2013.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released "Princess Mononoke" on Blu-ray Disc on November 18, 2014. In its first week, it sold 21,860 units; by November 23, 2014, it had grossed $502,332. It was later included in Disney's "The Collected Works of Hayao Miyazaki" Blu-ray set, released on November 17, 2015. GKIDS re-issued the film on Blu-ray and DVD on October 17, 2017. , the film has grossed $9,232,906 from Blu-ray sales in the United States. In total, "Mononoke"s video releases in Japan and the United States grossed an estimated in physical sales.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: In the United Kingdom, the film's Studio Ghibli anniversary release appeared several times on the annual lists of best-selling foreign language film on home video, ranking number six in 2015 (below five other Studio Ghibli anime films), number ten in 2016, number five in 2018 (below four other Japanese films), and number three in 2019 (below "Spirited Away" and "My Neighbor Totoro").


title: Princess Mononoke

text: The film was aired on Nippon TV (NTV) in Japan, on 22 January 1999. It became NTV's most-watched film up until then with a 35.1% audience rating, surpassing the 28.4% record previously set by "Tsuribaka Nisshi 4" in 1994. In turn, "Princess Mononoke" was later surpassed by "Spirited Away", when it aired in 2003.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: As of August 2022, on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 93% of 114 critic reviews are positive for "Princess Mononoke", with an average rating of 8/10. The website's consensus reads, "With its epic story and breathtaking visuals, "Princess Mononoke" is a landmark in the world of animation." According to Metacritic, which assigned an average score of 76 out of 100 based on 29 reviews, the film received "generally favorable reviews".


title: Princess Mononoke

text: "The Daily Yomiuri"s Aaron Gerow called the film a "powerful compilation of Miyazaki's world, a cumulative statement of his moral and filmic concerns." Leonard Klady of "Variety" said that "Princess Mononoke" "is not only more sharply drawn, it has an extremely complex and adult script" and the film "has the soul of a romantic epic, and its lush tones, elegant score by Joe Hisaishi and full-blooded characterizations give it the sweep of cinema's most grand canvases". Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" called "Princess Mononoke" "a great achievement and a wonderful experience, and one of the best films of the year. […] You won't find many Hollywood love stories (animated or otherwise) so philosophical." Ty Burr of "Entertainment Weekly" called the film "a windswept pinnacle of its art" and that it "has the effect of making the average Disney film look like just another toy story". Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" said that the film "brings a very different sensibility to animation, a medium [Miyazaki] views as completely suitable for straight dramatic narrative and serious themes." In his review, Dave Smith from "Gamers' Republic" called it "one of the greatest animated films ever created, and easily one of the best films of 1999."


title: Princess Mononoke

text: Roger Ebert placed "Princess Mononoke" sixth on his top ten movies of 1999. In 2001, the Japanese magazine "Animage" ranked "Princess Mononoke" 47th in their list of "100 Best Anime Productions of All Time". It ranked 488th on "Empire"s list of the 500 greatest films. Time Out ranked the film 26th on 50 greatest animated films. It also ranked 26 on "Total Film"'s list of 50 greatest animated films.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: James Cameron cited "Princess Mononoke" as an influence on his 2009 film "Avatar". He acknowledged that it shares themes with "Princess Mononoke", including its clash between cultures and civilizations, and cited "Princess Mononoke" as an influence on the ecosystem of Pandora.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: "Princess Mononoke" is the first animated feature film to win the Japan Academy Prize for Best Picture. For the 70th Academy Awards ceremony, "Princess Mononoke" was the Japanese submission to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not successfully nominated. Hayao Miyazaki was also nominated for an Annie Award for his work on the film.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: The film score of "Princess Mononoke" was composed and performed by Joe Hisaishi, the soundtrack composer for nearly all of Miyazaki's productions, and Miyazaki wrote the lyrics of the two vocal tracks, "The Tatara Women Work Song" and its title song. The music was performed by Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Hiroshi Kumagai. The soundtrack was released in Japan by Tokuma Japan Communications on July 2, 1997, and the North American version was released by Milan Records on October 12, 1999.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: The titular theme song was performed by counter-tenor Yoshikazu Mera. For the English adaptation, Sasha Lazard sang the song.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: During the movie Hisaishi makes use of a few known classical pieces and quotes them, such as Dmitri Shostakovich's 5th symphony.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: As with other Studio Ghibli films, additional albums featuring soundtrack themes in alternative versions have been released. The image album features early versions of the themes, recorded at the beginning of the film production process, and used as source of inspiration for the various artists involved. The symphonic suite features longer compositions, each encompassing several of the movie themes, performed by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Mario Klemens.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: In 2012, it was announced that Studio Ghibli and British theatre company Whole Hog Theatre would be bringing "Princess Mononoke" to the stage. It is the first stage adaptation of a Studio Ghibli work. The contact between Whole Hog Theatre and Studio Ghibli was facilitated by Nick Park of Aardman Animations after he sent footage of Whole Hog performances to Studio Ghibli's Toshio Suzuki. The play features large puppets made out of recycled and reclaimed materials.


title: Princess Mononoke

text: The first performances were scheduled for London's New Diorama Theatre and sold out in 72 hours, a year in advance. In March 2013, it was announced that the show would transfer to Japan after its first run of shows in London. A second series of performances followed in London after the return from Tokyo. The second run of London performances sold out in four and half hours. The play received positive reviews and was one of Lyn Gardner's theatre picks in "The Guardian". On April 27, 2013, the play was presented at Nico Nico Douga's Cho Party and was streamed online in Japan.


title: Djimon Hounsou

text: Djimon Gaston Hounsou (; ; born April 24, 1964) is a Beninese-American actor and model. He began his career appearing in music videos. He made his film debut in "Without You I'm Nothing" (1990) and earned widespread recognition for his role as Cinqué in the Steven Spielberg film "Amistad" (1997). He gained further recognition for his roles in "Gladiator" (2000), "In America" (2003), and "Blood Diamond" (2006), receiving Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nominations for both the latter films. He also played an antagonist in "Furious 7" (2015). He has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. He plays an important role as well in the French film "Forces spéciales" (2011).


title: Djimon Hounsou

text: In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he portrays Korath the Pursuer in "Guardians of the Galaxy" (2014), "Captain Marvel" (2019) and the second episode of "What If...?" (2021). In the DC Extended Universe, he appears as the Fisherman King in "Aquaman" (2018), and as the wizard Shazam in "Shazam!" (2019), "Black Adam" (2022) and in the upcoming "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" (2023). He plays Papa Midnite in another DC movie, "Constantine" (2005).


title: Djimon Hounsou

text: Hounsou was born in Cotonou, Benin, to Albertine and Pierre Hounsou. He emigrated to Lyon in France at the age of 12 with his brother, Edmond. Soon after arriving there, he dropped out of school and was homeless for a time. A chance meeting with a photographer led to an introduction to fashion designer Thierry Mugler, who encouraged Hounsou to pursue a modeling career. In 1987, he became a model and established a career in Paris. He moved to the United States in 1990.


title: Djimon Hounsou

text: Between 1989 and 1991, Hounsou appeared in the music videos for "Straight Up" by Paula Abdul, "Love Will Never Do (Without You)" by Janet Jackson, and Madonna's "Express Yourself". He also appears in En Vogue's music video for "Hold On".


title: Djimon Hounsou

text: Hounsou's film debut was in the 1990 Sandra Bernhard film "Without You I'm Nothing". He had television parts on "Beverly Hills, 90210" and "ER" and a guest starring role on "Alias". He had a larger role in the science fiction film "Stargate".


title: Djimon Hounsou

text: Hounsou received wide critical acclaim and a Golden Globe Award nomination for his role as Cinqué in the 1997 Steven Spielberg film "Amistad," and gained further notice as Juba in the 2000 film "Gladiator". In 2004, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for "In America", making him the fourth African male to be nominated for an Oscar. In 2005 he played a mercenary in the movie "The Island" alongside Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. In 2006 he won the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in "Blood Diamond," and received Broadcast Film Critics Association, Screen Actors Guild Award and Academy Award nominations for this performance.


title: Djimon Hounsou

text: Hounsou had a supporting role in the 2009 science-fiction film "Push", as Agent Henry Carver. In 2011, he starred as a French commando in the French film "Forces spéciales".


title: Djimon Hounsou

text: Director Tim Story told IGN that if he were to do a third "Fantastic Four" film, he would like to have Hounsou as Black Panther. In November 2008, it was announced that Hounsou would provide the voice of Black Panther in the television series of the same name. He had signed on to play Abdiel in the film version of John Milton's "Paradise Lost" with Benjamin Walker and Bradley Cooper, but the film was scrapped in early February 2012.


title: Djimon Hounsou

text: In 2013, he appeared in the comedy film "Baggage Claim" alongside Paula Patton. He also voiced Drago Blodfist in "How to Train Your Dragon 2" and portrayed Korath the Pursuer in the Marvel Studios film "Guardians of the Galaxy", both in 2014. He played villains in two 2015 films, "Seventh Son" and "Furious 7", the seventh installment of "The Fast and the Furious" film series, the latter where he played the role of Mose Jakande, a Nigerian-French mercenary.


title: Djimon Hounsou

text: On 17 February 2016, it was reported that Hounsou would join the second season of the television series "Wayward Pines". Also in 2016, he played Chief Mbonga in "The Legend of Tarzan".


title: Djimon Hounsou

text: In July 2018, Hounsou joined the DC Extended Universe, voicing the Fisherman King Ricou in "Aquaman" (with the character motion-captured by Andrew Crawford), and replacing Ron Cephas Jones as the Wizard Shazam in "Shazam!" (2019). Also in 2019, he reprised his role as Korath in the Marvel Studios film "Captain Marvel" and the animated series "What If...?". He will reprise his role as the wizard Shazam in "Shazam! Fury of the Gods".


title: Djimon Hounsou

text: In November 2022, it was announced that Honsou had joined the cast of the "Gran Turismo" film, with Geri Halliwell playing his wife in the feature length film.


title: Djimon Hounsou

text: On 24 February 2007, it was announced that Hounsou would be the new Calvin Klein underwear model. At the time, he was represented by Los Angeles modeling agent Omar Albertto.


title: Djimon Hounsou

text: In 2010, Hounsou was featured as the narrator in ESPN's series of "32 Teams, 1 Dream" commercials for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. He spoke at the Summit on Climate Change at the United Nations on 22 September 2009. On 1 December 2009, he told French media that developed countries "need to be held accountable" for their contribution to climate change.


title: Djimon Hounsou

text: In 2007, Hounsou began dating model Kimora Lee Simmons. In 2009, Simmons gave birth to their son, Kenzo Lee Hounsou. Hounsou and Simmons visited Hounsou's family in his native Benin in the summer of 2008, where the two participated in a traditional commitment ceremony. They were adorned in traditional clothing and used the ceremony, in the presence of Hounsou's family, to confirm that they were "dedicated to each other 100%", although they emphasized the ceremony was not a wedding. In the début of Kimora Lee Simmons' show "", he was billed as her husband. Hounsou and Simmons, who were never legally married in the United States, announced their separation in November 2012.


title: Genocide

text: Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin suffix ("act of killing").


title: Genocide

text: In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly.


title: Genocide

text: The Political Instability Task Force estimated that 43 genocides occurred between 1956 and 2016, resulting in about 50 million deaths. The UNHCR estimated that a further 50 million had been displaced by such episodes of violence up to 2008. Genocide, especially large-scale genocide, is widely considered to signify the epitome of human evil. As a label, it is contentious because it is moralizing, and has been used as a type of moral category since the late 1990s.


title: Genocide

text: Before the term "genocide" was coined, there were various ways of describing such events. Some languages already had words for such killings, including German (, ) and Polish (, ). In 1941, when describing the "methodical, merciless butchery" of "scores of thousands" of Russians by Nazi troops during the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Winston Churchill spoke of "a crime without a name". In 1944, Raphael Lemkin coined the term "genocide" as a hybrid combination of the Ancient Greek word () 'race, people' with the Latin , 'to kill'; his book "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe" (1944) describes the implementation of Nazi policies in occupied Europe and mentions earlier mass killings.


title: Genocide

text: After reading about the 1921 assassination of Talat Pasha, the main architect of the Armenian genocide, by Armenian Soghomon Tehlirian, Lemkin asked his professor why there was no law under which Talat could be charged. He later explained that "as a lawyer, I thought that a crime should not be punished by the victims, but should be punished by a court."


title: Genocide

text: The preamble to the 1948 Genocide Convention (CPPCG) notes that instances of genocide have taken place throughout history; it was not until Lemkin coined the term and the prosecution of perpetrators of the Holocaust at the Nuremberg Trials that the United Nations defined the crime of genocide under international law in the Genocide Convention. It was several years before the term was widely adopted by the international community. When the Nuremberg trials revealed the inadequacy of phrases like "Germanization", "crimes against humanity" and "mass murder", scholars of international law reached agreement that Lemkin's work provided a conceptual framework for Nazi crimes. A 1946 headline in "The New York Times" announced that "Genocide Is the New Name for the Crime Fastened on the Nazi Leaders"; the word was used in indictments at the Nuremberg trials, held from 1945, but solely as a descriptive term, not yet as a formal legal term. The so-called Polish Genocide Trials of Arthur Greiser and Amon Leopold Goth in 1946 were the first trials in which judgments included the term.


title: Genocide

text: The Genocide Convention establishes five prohibited acts that, when committed with the requisite intent, amount to genocide. Although massacre-style killings are the most commonly identified and punished as genocide, the range of violence that is contemplated by the law is significantly broader.


title: Genocide

text: While mass killing is not necessary for genocide to have been committed, it has been present in almost all recognized genocides. A near-uniform pattern has emerged throughout history in which men and adolescent boys are singled out for murder in the early stages, such as in the genocide of the Yazidis by Daesh, the Ottoman Turks' attack on the Armenians, and the Burmese security forces' attacks on the Rohingya. Men and boys are typically subject to "fast" killings, such as by gunshot. Women and girls are more likely to die slower deaths by slashing, burning, or as a result of sexual violence. The jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), among others, shows that both the initial executions and those that quickly follow other acts of extreme violence, such as rape and torture, are recognized as falling under the first prohibited act.


title: Genocide

text: A less settled discussion is whether deaths that are further removed from the initial acts of violence can be addressed under this provision of the Genocide Convention. Legal scholars have posited, for example, that deaths resulting from other genocidal acts including causing serious bodily or mental harm or the successful deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction should be considered genocidal killings.


title: Genocide

text: This second prohibited act can encompass a wide range of non-fatal genocidal acts. The ICTR and International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) have held that rape and sexual violence may constitute the second prohibited act of genocide by causing both physical and mental harm. In its landmark Akayesu decision, the ICTR held that rapes and sexual violence resulted in "physical and psychological destruction". Sexual violence is a hallmark of genocidal violence, with most genocidal campaigns explicitly or implicitly sanctioning it. It is estimated that 250,000 to 500,000 women were raped in the three months of the Rwandan genocide, many of whom were subjected to multiple rapes or gang rape. In Darfur, a systemic campaign of rape and often sexual mutilation was carried out and in Burma public mass rapes and gang rapes were inflicted on the Rohingya by Burmese security forces. Sexual slavery was documented in the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Turks and Daesh's genocide of the Yazidi.


title: Genocide

text: Torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, when committed with the requisite intent, are also genocide by causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. The ICTY found that both experiencing a failed execution and watching the murder of one's family members may constitute torture. The Syrian Commission of Inquiry (COI) also found that enslavement, removal of one's children into indoctrination or sexual slavery, and acts of physical and sexual violence rise to the level of torture, as well. While it was subject to some debate, the ICTY and, later, the Syrian COI held that under some circumstances deportation and forcible transfer may also cause serious bodily or mental harm.


title: Genocide

text: The third prohibited act is distinguished from the genocidal act of killing because the deaths are not immediate (or may not even come to pass), but rather create circumstances that do not support prolonged life. Due to the longer period of time before the actual destruction would be achieved, the ICTR held that courts must consider the duration of time the conditions are imposed as an element of the act. The drafters incorporated the act to account for the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps and to ensure that similar conditions never be imposed again. However, it could also apply to the Armenian death marches, the siege of Mount Sinjar by Daesh, the deprivation of water and forcible deportation against ethnic groups in Darfur, and the destruction and razing of communities in Burma.


title: Genocide

text: The ICTR provided guidance into what constitutes a violation of the third act. In Akayesu, it identified "subjecting a group of people to a subsistence diet, systematic expulsion from homes and the reduction of essential medical services below minimum requirement" as rising to genocide. In Kayishema and Ruzindana, it extended the list to include: "lack of proper housing, clothing, hygiene and medical care or excessive work or physical exertion" among the conditions. It further noted that, in addition to deprivation of necessary resources, rape could also fit within this prohibited act.


title: Genocide

text: The fourth prohibited act is aimed at preventing the protected group from regenerating through reproduction. It encompasses acts with the single intent of affecting reproduction and intimate relationships, such as involuntary sterilization, forced abortion, the prohibition of marriage, and long-term separation of men and women intended to prevent procreation. Rape has been found to violate the fourth prohibited act on two bases: where the rape was committed with the intent to impregnate a woman and thereby force her to carry a child of another group (in societies where group identity is determined by patrilineal identity) and where the person raped subsequently refuses to procreate as a result of the trauma. Accordingly, it can take into account both physical and mental measures imposed by the perpetrators.


title: Genocide

text: The final prohibited act is the only prohibited act that does not lead to physical or biological destruction, but rather to destruction of the group as a cultural and social unit. It occurs when children of the protected group are transferred to the perpetrator group. Boys are typically taken into the group by changing their names to those common of the perpetrator group, converting their religion, and using them for labor or as soldiers. Girls who are transferred are not generally converted to the perpetrator group, but instead treated as chattel, as played out in both the Yazidi and Armenian genocides.


title: Genocide

text: Before genocide was made a crime against national law, it was considered a sovereign right. When Lemkin asked about a way to punish the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide, a law professor told him: "Consider the case of a farmer who owns a flock of chickens. He kills them and this is his business. If you interfere, you are trespassing." As late as 1959, many world leaders still "believed states had a right to commit genocide against people within their borders", according to political scientist Douglas Irvin-Erickson.


title: Genocide

text: After the Holocaust, which had been perpetrated by Nazi Germany prior to and during World War II, Lemkin successfully campaigned for the universal acceptance of international laws defining and forbidding genocides. In 1946, the first session of the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution that affirmed genocide was a crime under international law and enumerated examples of such events (but did not provide a full legal definition of the crime). In 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide" (CPPCG) which defined the crime of genocide for the first time.


title: Genocide

text: The "CPPCG" was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 9 December 1948 and came into effect on 12 January 1951 (Resolution 260 (III)). It contains an internationally recognized definition of genocide which has been incorporated into the national criminal legislation of many countries and was also adopted by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC). Article II of the Convention defines genocide as:


title: Genocide

text: Incitement to genocide is recognized as a separate crime under international law and an inchoate crime which does not require genocide to have taken place to be prosecutable.


title: Genocide

text: The first draft of the convention included political killings; these provisions were removed in a political and diplomatic compromise following objections from many diverse countries, and originally promoted by the World Jewish Congress and Raphael Lemkin's conception, with some scholars popularly emphasizing in literature the role of the Soviet Union, a permanent United Nations Security Council member. The Soviets argued that the convention's definition should follow the etymology of the term, and Joseph Stalin in particular may have feared greater international scrutiny of the country's political killings, such as the Great Purge. Lemkin, who coined "genocide", approached the Soviet delegation as the resolution vote came close to reassure the Soviets that there was no conspiracy against them; none in the Soviet-led bloc opposed the resolution, which passed unanimously in December 1946. Other nations, including the United States, feared that including political groups in the definition would invite international intervention in domestic politics.


title: Genocide

text: By 1951, Lemkin was saying that the Soviet Union was the only state that could be indicted for genocide, his concept of genocide, as outlined in "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe", covering Stalinist deportations as genocide by default, and differing in many ways from the adopted Genocide Convention. From a 21st-century perspective, it was such a broad coverage that it would include any grossly human rights violation as genocide, and that many events deemed by Lemkin genocidal did not amount to genocide. As the Cold War began, this change was the result of Lemkin's turn to anti-communism in an attempt to convince the United States to ratify the Genocide Convention.


title: Genocide

text: Under international law, genocide has two mental ("mens rea") elements: the general mental element and the element of specific intent ("dolus specialis"). The general element refers to whether the prohibited acts were committed with intent, knowledge, recklessness, or negligence. For most serious international crimes, including genocide, the requirement is that the perpetrator act with intent. The Rome Statute defines intent as meaning to engage in the conduct and, in relation to consequences, as meaning to cause that consequence or being "aware that it will occur in the ordinary course of events".


title: Genocide

text: The specific intent element defines the purpose of committing the acts: "to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such". The specific intent is a core factor distinguishing genocide from other international crimes, such as war crimes or crimes against humanity.


title: Genocide

text: In 2007, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) noted in its judgement on "Jorgic v. Germany" case that, in 1992, the majority of legal scholars took the narrow view that "intent to destroy" in the CPPCG meant the intended physical-biological destruction of the protected group, and that this was still the majority opinion. But the ECHR also noted that a minority took a broader view, and did not consider biological-physical destruction to be necessary, as the intent to destroy a national, racial, religious or ethnic group was enough to qualify as genocide.


title: Genocide

text: In the same judgement, the ECHR reviewed the judgements of several international and municipal courts. It noted that the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice had agreed with the narrow interpretation (that biological-physical destruction was necessary for an act to qualify as genocide). The ECHR also noted that at the time of its judgement, apart from courts in Germany (which had taken a broad view), that there had been few cases of genocide under other Convention states' municipal laws, and that "There are no reported cases in which the courts of these States have defined the type of group destruction the perpetrator must have intended in order to be found guilty of genocide."


title: Genocide

text: In the case of "Onesphore Rwabukombe", the German Supreme Court adhered to its previous judgement, and did not follow the narrow interpretation of the ICTY and the ICJ.


title: Genocide

text: The phrase "in whole or in part" has been subject to much discussion by scholars of international humanitarian law. In the Ruhashyankiko report of the United Nations it was once argued that the killing of only a single individual could be genocide if the intent to destroy the wider group was found in the murder, yet official court rulings have since contradicted this. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia found in "Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstic – Trial Chamber I – Judgment – IT-98-33 (2001) ICTY8 (2 August 2001)" that Genocide had been committed. In "Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstic – Appeals Chamber – Judgment – IT-98-33 (2004) ICTY 7 (19 April 2004)" paragraphs 8, 9, 10, and 11 addressed the issue of "in part" and found that "the part must be a substantial part of that group. The aim of the Genocide Convention is to prevent the intentional destruction of entire human groups, and the part targeted must be significant enough to have an impact on the group as a whole." The Appeals Chamber goes into details of other cases and the opinions of respected commentators on the Genocide Convention to explain how they came to this conclusion.


title: Genocide

text: The judges continue in paragraph 12, "The determination of when the targeted part is substantial enough to meet this requirement may involve a number of considerations. The numeric size of the targeted part of the group is the necessary and important starting point, though not in all cases the ending point of the inquiry. The number of individuals targeted should be evaluated not only in absolute terms but also in relation to the overall size of the entire group. In addition to the numeric size of the targeted portion, its prominence within the group can be a useful consideration. If a specific part of the group is emblematic of the overall group or is essential to its survival, that may support a finding that the part qualifies as substantial within the meaning of Article 4 [of the Tribunal's Statute]."


title: Genocide

text: In paragraph 13 the judges raise the issue of the perpetrators' access to the victims: "The historical examples of genocide also suggest that the area of the perpetrators' activity and control, as well as the possible extent of their reach, should be considered. ... The intent to destroy formed by a perpetrator of genocide will always be limited by the opportunity presented to him. While this factor alone will not indicate whether the targeted group is substantial, it can—in combination with other factors—inform the analysis."


title: Genocide

text: The drafters of the CPPCG chose not to include political or social groups among the protected groups. Instead, they opted to focus on "stable" identities, attributes that are historically understood as being born into and unable or unlikely to change over time. This definition conflicts with modern conceptions of race as a social construct rather than innate fact and the practice of changing religion, etc.


title: Genocide

text: International criminal courts have typically applied a mix of objective and subjective markers for determining whether or not a targeted population is a distinct group. Differences in language, physical appearance, religion, and cultural practices are objective criteria that may show that the groups are distinct. However, in circumstances such as the Rwandan genocide, Hutus and Tutsis were often physically indistinguishable.


title: Genocide

text: In such a situation where a definitive answer based on objective markers is not clear, courts have turned to the subjective standard that "if a victim was perceived by a perpetrator as belonging to a protected group, the victim could be considered by the Chamber as a member of the protected group". Stigmatization of the group by the perpetrators through legal measures, such as withholding citizenship, requiring the group to be identified, or isolating them from the whole could show that the perpetrators viewed the victims as a protected group.


title: Genocide

text: The convention came into force as international law on 12 January 1951 after the minimum 20 countries became parties. At that time however, only two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council were parties to the treaty: France and the Republic of China. The Soviet Union ratified in 1954, the United Kingdom in 1970, the People's Republic of China in 1983 (having replaced the Taiwan-based Republic of China on the UNSC in 1971), and the United States in 1988.


title: Genocide

text: William Schabas has suggested that a permanent body as recommended by the Whitaker Report to monitor the implementation of the Genocide Convention, and require states to issue reports on their compliance with the convention (such as were incorporated into the United Nations Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture), would make the convention more effective.


title: Genocide

text: UN Security Council Resolution 1674, adopted by the United Nations Security Council on 28 April 2006, "reaffirms the provisions of paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document regarding the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity". The resolution committed the council to action to protect civilians in armed conflict.


title: Genocide

text: In 2008 the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1820, which noted that "rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide".


title: Genocide

text: Since the Convention came into effect in January 1951 about 80 United Nations member states have passed legislation that incorporates the provisions of CPPCG into their municipal law.


title: Genocide

text: Writing in 1998, Kurt Jonassohn and Karin Björnson stated that the CPPCG was a legal instrument resulting from a diplomatic compromise. As such the wording of the treaty is not intended to be a definition suitable as a research tool, and although it is used for this purpose, as it has international legal credibility that others lack, other genocide definitions have also been proposed. Jonassohn and Björnson go on to say that none of these alternative definitions have gained widespread support for various reasons. Jonassohn and Björnson postulate that the major reason why no single generally accepted genocide definition has emerged is because academics have adjusted their focus to emphasise different periods and have found it expedient to use slightly different definitions. For example, Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn studied all human history, while Leo Kuper and Rudolph Rummel in their more recent works concentrated on the 20th century, and Helen Fein, Barbara Harff, and Ted Gurr have looked at post-World War II events.


title: Genocide

text: The exclusion of social and political groups as targets of genocide in the CPPCG legal definition has been criticized by some historians and sociologists, for example, M. Hassan Kakar in his book "The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979–1982" argues that the international definition of genocide is too restricted, and that it should include political groups or any group so defined by the perpetrator and quotes Chalk and Jonassohn: "Genocide is a form of one-sided mass killing in which a state or other authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership in it are defined by the perpetrator." In turn some states such as Ethiopia, France, and Spain include political groups as legitimate genocide victims in their anti-genocide laws.


title: Genocide

text: Harff and Gurr defined genocide as "the promotion and execution of policies by a state or its agents which result in the deaths of a substantial portion of a group ... [when] the victimized groups are defined primarily in terms of their communal characteristics, i.e., ethnicity, religion or nationality". Harff and Gurr also differentiate between genocides and politicides by the characteristics by which members of a group are identified by the state. In genocides, the victimized groups are defined primarily in terms of their communal characteristics, i.e., ethnicity, religion or nationality. In politicides the victim groups are defined primarily in terms of their hierarchical position or political opposition to the regime and dominant groups. Daniel D. Polsby and Don B. Kates, Jr. state that "we follow Harff's distinction between genocides and 'pogroms', which she describes as 'short-lived outbursts by mobs, which, although often condoned by authorities, rarely persist'. If the violence persists for long enough, however, Harff argues, the distinction between condonation and complicity collapses."


title: Genocide

text: According to Rummel, genocide has three different meanings. The ordinary meaning is murder by the government of people due to their national, ethnic, racial, or religious group membership. The legal meaning of genocide refers to the international treaty, the "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide" (CPPCG). This also includes non-killings that in the end eliminate the group, such as preventing births or forcibly transferring children out of the group to another group. A generalized meaning of genocide is similar to the ordinary meaning but also includes government killings of political opponents or otherwise intentional murder. It is to avoid confusion regarding what meaning is intended that Rummel created the term democide for the third meaning.


title: Genocide

text: Highlighting the potential for state and non-state actors to commit genocide in the 21st century, for example, in failed states or as non-state actors acquiring weapons of mass destruction, Adrian Gallagher defined genocide as 'When a source of collective power (usually a state) intentionally uses its power base to implement a process of destruction in order to destroy a group (as defined by the perpetrator), in whole or in substantial part, dependent upon relative group size'. The definition upholds the centrality of intent, the multidimensional understanding of destroying, broadens the definition of group identity beyond that of the 1948 definition yet argues that a substantial part of a group has to be destroyed before it can be classified as genocide.


title: Genocide

text: Other definitions of genocide would include social groups defined by gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity.


title: Genocide

text: In 2013 some international trans activists introduced the term ‘transcide’ to describe the elevated level of killings of trans people globally. A coalition of NGOs from South America and Europe started the “Stop Trans Genocide” campaign. The term "trancide" follows an earlier term, gendercide. Legal scholars have argued that the definition of genocide should be expanded to cover transgender people, because they are victims of institutional discrimination, persecution, and violence. Brian Kritz argued that existing law should be extended to protect transgender people. Similar arguments have been made regarding extending the legal definition of "crimes against humanity." Aside from legal studies, transgender genocide has been examined by scholars of queer studies, hate studies, and other fields.


title: Genocide

text: All signatories to the CPPCG are required to prevent and punish acts of genocide, both in peace and wartime, though some barriers make this enforcement difficult. In particular, some of the signatories—namely, Bahrain, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, the United States, Vietnam, Yemen, and former Yugoslavia—signed with the proviso that no claim of genocide could be brought against them at the International Court of Justice without their consent. Despite official protests from other signatories (notably Cyprus and Norway) on the ethics and legal standing of these reservations, the immunity from prosecution they grant has been invoked from time to time, as when the United States refused to allow a charge of genocide brought against it by former Yugoslavia following the 1999 Kosovo War.


title: Genocide

text: It is commonly accepted that, at least since World War II, genocide has been illegal under customary international law as a peremptory norm, as well as under conventional international law. Acts of genocide are generally difficult to establish for prosecution because a chain of accountability must be established. International criminal courts and tribunals function primarily because the states involved are incapable or unwilling to prosecute crimes of this magnitude themselves.


title: Genocide

text: The Nazi leaders who were prosecuted shortly after World War II for taking part in the Holocaust, and other mass murders, were charged under existing international laws, such as crimes against humanity, as the crime of "genocide' was not formally defined until the 1948 "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide" (CPPCG). Nevertheless, the recently coined term appeared in the indictment of the Nazi leaders, Count 3, which stated that those charged had "conducted deliberate and systematic genocide—namely, the extermination of racial and national groups—against the civilian populations of certain occupied territories in order to destroy particular races and classes of people, and national, racial or religious groups, particularly Jews, Poles, Gypsies and others."


title: Genocide

text: The term "Bosnian genocide" is used to refer either to the killings committed by Serb forces in Srebrenica in 1995, or to ethnic cleansing that took place elsewhere during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War.


title: Genocide

text: In 2001, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) judged that the 1995 Srebrenica massacre was an act of genocide. On 26 February 2007, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in the "Bosnian Genocide Case" upheld the ICTY's earlier finding that the massacre in Srebrenica and Zepa constituted genocide, but found that the Serbian government had not participated in a wider genocide on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war, as the Bosnian government had claimed.


title: Genocide

text: On 12 July 2007, European Court of Human Rights when dismissing the appeal by Nikola Jorgić against his conviction for genocide by a German court ("Jorgic v. Germany") noted that the German courts wider interpretation of genocide has since been rejected by international courts considering similar cases. The ECHR also noted that in the 21st century "Amongst scholars, the majority have taken the view that ethnic cleansing, in the way in which it was carried out by the Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to expel Muslims and Croats from their homes, did not constitute genocide. However, there are also a considerable number of scholars who have suggested that these acts did amount to genocide, and the ICTY has found in the Momcilo Krajisnik case that the actus reus of genocide was met in Prijedor "With regard to the charge of genocide, the Chamber found that in spite of evidence of acts perpetrated in the municipalities which constituted the actus reus of genocide".


title: Genocide

text: About 30 people have been indicted for participating in genocide or complicity in genocide during the early 1990s in Bosnia. To date, after several plea bargains and some convictions that were successfully challenged on appeal two men, Vujadin Popović and Ljubiša Beara, have been found guilty of committing genocide, Zdravko Tolimir has been found guilty of committing genocide and conspiracy to commit genocide, and two others, Radislav Krstić and Drago Nikolić, have been found guilty of aiding and abetting genocide. Three others have been found guilty of participating in genocides in Bosnia by German courts, one of whom Nikola Jorgić lost an appeal against his conviction in the European Court of Human Rights. A further eight men, former members of the Bosnian Serb security forces were found guilty of genocide by the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (See List of Bosnian genocide prosecutions).


title: Genocide

text: Slobodan Milošević, as the former President of Serbia and of Yugoslavia, was the most senior political figure to stand trial at the ICTY. He died on 11 March 2006 during his trial where he was accused of genocide or complicity in genocide in territories within Bosnia and Herzegovina, so no verdict was returned. In 1995, the ICTY issued a warrant for the arrest of Bosnian Serbs Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić on several charges including genocide. On 21 July 2008, Karadžić was arrested in Belgrade, and later tried in The Hague accused of genocide among other crimes. On 24 March 2016, Karadžić was found guilty of genocide in Srebrenica, war crimes and crimes against humanity, 10 of the 11 charges in total, and sentenced to 40 years' imprisonment. Mladić was arrested on 26 May 2011 in Lazarevo, Serbia, and was tried in The Hague. The verdict, delivered on 22 November 2017 found Mladić guilty of 10 of the 11 charges, including genocide and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.


title: Genocide

text: The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is a court under the auspices of the United Nations for the prosecution of offenses committed in Rwanda during the genocide which occurred there during April 1994, commencing on 6 April. The ICTR was created on 8 November 1994 by the Security Council of the United Nations in order to judge those people responsible for the acts of genocide and other serious violations of the international law performed in the territory of Rwanda, or by Rwandan citizens in nearby states, between 1 January and 31 December 1994.


title: Genocide

text: So far, the ICTR has finished nineteen trials and convicted twenty-seven accused persons. On 14 December 2009, two more men were accused and convicted for their crimes. Another twenty-five persons are still on trial. Twenty-one are awaiting trial in detention, two more added on 14 December 2009. Ten are still at large. The first trial, of Jean-Paul Akayesu, began in 1997. Akayesu was the first person ever to be convicted of the crime of genocide. In October 1998, Akayesu was sentenced to life imprisonment. Jean Kambanda, interim Prime Minister, pleaded guilty.


title: Genocide

text: The Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, Ta Mok and other leaders, organized the mass killing of ideologically suspect groups. The total number of victims is estimated at 1.7 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979, including deaths from slave labour.


title: Genocide

text: On 6 June 2003 the Cambodian government and the United Nations reached an agreement to set up the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) which would focus exclusively on crimes committed by the most senior Khmer Rouge officials during the period of Khmer Rouge rule of 1975–1979. The judges were sworn in early July 2006.


title: Genocide

text: The genocide charges related to killings of Cambodia's Vietnamese and Cham minorities, which is estimated to make up tens of thousand killings and possibly more


title: Genocide

text: The investigating judges were presented with the names of five possible suspects by the prosecution on 18 July 2007.


title: Genocide

text: There has been disagreement between some of the international jurists and the Cambodian government over whether any other people should be tried by the Tribunal.


title: Genocide

text: Since 2002, the International Criminal Court can exercise its jurisdiction if national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute genocide, thus being a "court of last resort," leaving the primary responsibility to exercise jurisdiction over alleged criminals to individual states. Due to the United States concerns over the ICC, the United States prefers to continue to use specially convened international tribunals for such investigations and potential prosecutions.


title: Genocide

text: There has been much debate over categorizing the situation in Darfur as genocide. The ongoing conflict in Darfur, Sudan, which started in 2003, was declared a "genocide" by United States Secretary of State Colin Powell on 9 September 2004 in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Since that time however, no other permanent member of the UN Security Council has done so. In fact, in January 2005, an International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, authorized by UN Security Council Resolution 1564 of 2004, issued a report to the Secretary-General stating that "the Government of Sudan has not pursued a policy of genocide." Nevertheless, the Commission cautioned that "The conclusion that no genocidal policy has been pursued and implemented in Darfur by the Government authorities, directly or through the militias under their control, should not be taken in any way as detracting from the gravity of the crimes perpetrated in that region. International offences such as the crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed in Darfur may be no less serious and heinous than genocide."


title: Genocide

text: In March 2005, the Security Council formally referred the situation in Darfur to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, taking into account the Commission report but without mentioning any specific crimes. Two permanent members of the Security Council, the United States and China, abstained from the vote on the referral resolution. As of his fourth report to the Security Council, the Prosecutor has found "reasonable grounds to believe that the individuals identified [in the UN Security Council Resolution 1593] have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes," but did not find sufficient evidence to prosecute for genocide.


title: Genocide

text: In April 2007, the Judges of the ICC issued arrest warrants against the former Minister of State for the Interior, Ahmad Harun, and a Militia Janjaweed leader, Ali Kushayb, for crimes against humanity and war crimes.


title: Genocide

text: On 14 July 2008, prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC), filed ten charges of war crimes against Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir: three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder. The ICC's prosecutors claimed that al-Bashir "masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part" three tribal groups in Darfur because of their ethnicity.


title: Genocide

text: On 4 March 2009, the ICC issued a warrant of arrest for Omar Al Bashir, President of Sudan as the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I concluded that his position as head of state does not grant him immunity against prosecution before the ICC. The warrant was for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It did not include the crime of genocide because the majority of the Chamber did not find that the prosecutors had provided enough evidence to include such a charge. Later the decision was changed by the Appeals Panel and after issuing the second decision, charges against Omar al-Bashir include three counts of genocide.


title: Genocide

text: The concept of genocide can be applied to historical events. The preamble of the CPPCG states that "at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great losses on humanity." Revisionist attempts to challenge or affirm claims of genocide are illegal in some countries. Several European countries ban the denial of the Holocaust and the denial of the Armenian genocide, while in Turkey referring to the Armenian genocide, Greek genocide, and "Sayfo", and to the period of mass starvation during the Great Famine of Mount Lebanon affecting Maronites, as genocides may be prosecuted under Article 301.


title: Genocide

text: Historian William Rubinstein argues that the origin of 20th-century genocides can be traced back to the collapse of the elite structure and normal modes of government in parts of Europe following World War I, commenting:


title: Genocide

text: According to Esther Brito, the way in which states commit genocide has evolved in the 21st century and genocidal campaigns have attempted to circumvent international systems designed to prevent, mitigate, and prosecute genocide by adjusting the duration, intensity, and methodology of the genocide. Brito states that modern genocides often happen on a much longer time scale than traditional ones - taking years or decades - and that instead of traditional methods of beatings and executions less directly fatal tactics are used but with the same effect. Brito described the contemporary plights of the Rohingya and Uyghurs as examples of this newer form of genocide. The abuses against West Papuans in Indonesia have also been described as a slow-motion genocide.


title: Genocide

text: Study of the risk factors and prevention of genocide was underway before the 1982 International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide during which multiple papers on the subject were presented. In 1996 Gregory Stanton, the president of Genocide Watch, presented a briefing paper called "The 8 Stages of Genocide" at the United States Department of State. In it he suggested that genocide develops in eight stages that are "predictable but not inexorable".


title: Genocide

text: The Stanton paper was presented to the State Department, shortly after the Rwandan Genocide and much of its analysis are based on why that genocide occurred. The preventative measures suggested, given the briefing paper's original target audience, were those that the United States could implement directly or indirectly by using its influence on other governments.


title: Genocide

text: In April 2012, it was reported that Stanton would soon be officially adding two new stages, Discrimination and Persecution, to his original theory, which would make for a 10-stage theory of genocide.


title: Genocide

text: Other authors have focused on the structural conditions leading up to genocide and the psychological and social processes that create an evolution toward genocide. Ervin Staub showed that economic deterioration and political confusion and disorganization were starting points of increasing discrimination and violence in many instances of genocides and mass killing. They lead to scapegoating a group and ideologies that identified that group as an enemy. A history of devaluation of the group that becomes the victim, past violence against the group that becomes the perpetrator leading to psychological wounds, authoritarian cultures and political systems, and the passivity of internal and external witnesses (bystanders) all contribute to the probability that the violence develops into genocide. Intense conflict between groups that is unresolved, becomes intractable and violent can also lead to genocide. In 2006, Dirk Moses criticised genocide studies due to its "rather poor record of ending genocide".


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: , also known as Shinmen Takezō, Miyamoto Bennosuke or, by his Buddhist name, Niten Dōraku, was a Japanese swordsman, philosopher, strategist, writer and rōnin, who became renowned through stories of his unique double-bladed swordsmanship and undefeated record in his 61 duels (next is 33 by Itō Ittōsai). Musashi, as he was often simply known, is considered a "Kensei", a sword-saint of Japan. He was the founder of the Niten Ichi-ryū, or Nito Ichi-ryū, style of swordsmanship, and in his final years authored and "Dokkōdō" (獨行道, "The Path of Aloneness").


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: Both documents were given to Terao Magonojō, the most important of Musashi's students, seven days before Musashi's death. "The Book of Five Rings" deals primarily with the character of his Niten Ichi-ryū school in a concrete sense, i.e., his own practical martial art and its generic significance; "The Path of Aloneness", on the other hand, deals with the ideas that lie behind it, as well as his life's philosophy in a few short aphoristic sentences.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: The Miyamoto Musashi Budokan training center, located in Ōhara-chō (Mimasaka), Okayama prefecture, Japan was erected to honor his name and legend.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: The details of Miyamoto Musashi's early life are difficult to verify. Musashi himself simply states in "The Book of Five Rings" that he was born in Harima Province. "Niten Ki" (an early biography of Musashi) supports the theory that Musashi was born in 1584: "[He] was born in Banshū, in Tenshō 12 [1584], the Year of the Monkey." The historian Kamiko Tadashi, commenting on Musashi's text, notes: "Munisai was Musashi's father ... he lived in Miyamoto village, in the Yoshino district [of Mimasaka Province]. Musashi was most probably born here."


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: Musashi gives his full name and title in "The Book of Five Rings" as Shinmen Musashi-no-Kami Fujiwara no Harunobu (新免武蔵守藤原玄信). His father, Shinmen Munisai (新免無二斎) was an accomplished martial artist and master of the sword and "jutte" (also "jitte"). Munisai, in turn, was the son of Hirata Shōgen (平田将監), a vassal of Shinmen "Iga no Kami", the lord of Takayama Castle in the Yoshino district of Mimasaka Province. Hirata was relied upon by Lord Shinmen and so was allowed to use the Shinmen name. As for "Musashi", "Musashi no Kami" was a court title, making him the nominal governor of Musashi Province. "Fujiwara" was the lineage from which Musashi claimed descent.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: Musashi's eczema developed in his infancy, and this adversely affected his appearance. Another story claims that he never took a bath because he did not want to be surprised unarmed.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: According to the introduction of "The Book of Five Rings", Musashi states that his first successful duel was at the age of 13, against a samurai named Arima Kihei who fought using the Kashima Shintō-ryū style, founded by Tsukahara Bokuden (b. 1489, d. 1571). The main source of the duel is the "Hyoho senshi denki" ("Anecdotes about the Deceased Master"). Summarized, its account goes as follows:


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: In 1599, Musashi left his village, apparently at the age of 15 (according to the "Tosakushi", "The Registry of the Sakushu Region", although the "Tanji Hokin Hikki" says he was 16 years old in 1599, which agrees time-wise with the age reported in Musashi's first duel). His family possessions such as furniture, weapons, genealogy, and other records were left with his sister and her husband, Hirao Yoemon. He spent his time traveling and engaging in duels.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: In 1611, Musashi began practicing zazen at the Myōshin-ji temple, where he met Nagaoka Sado, vassal to Hosokawa Tadaoki; Tadaoki was a powerful lord who had received the Kumamoto Domain in west-central Kyūshū after the Battle of Sekigahara. Munisai had moved to northern Kyūshū and became Tadaoki's teacher, leading to the possibility that Munisai introduced Musashi to Sasaki Kojirō, another guest of the Hosokawa clan at the time. Somehow, a duel was proposed between the two; in some versions, Nagaoka proposed the duel, in others, Kojirō proposed it out of rivalry or jealously. Tokitsu believes that the duel was politically motivated, as a matter of consolidating Tadaoki's control over his fief.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: The duel was scheduled for April 13, 1612, when Musashi was approximately 30 years old. The departure by boat for the duel was arranged for the Hour of the Dragon in the early morning (approximately 8:00 AM) to the island of Ganryūjima, a small isle between Honshū and Kyūshū. While Hosokawa officials banned spectators, the island was filled with them anyway. Kojirō was known for wielding an oversized "nodachi" (Japanese greatsword) called a "laundry-drying pole" for its length, as well as being titled "three-shaku silver blade" (「三尺の白刃」). Using this sword, Kojirō was said to be known for a swift two-stroke sword technique called tsubame gaeshi, and he bore the nickname "The Demon of the Western Provinces". Kojirō arrived at the appointed time, but was then left to wait for hours; Musashi had overslept. Kojirō sent out servants to retrieve Musashi, who ate a full breakfast, taking his time. In some variants of the tale, Musashi intentionally arrives late as a sign of disrespect. As he sailed over the Kanmon Straits, Musashi carved a crude oversized "bokken" from one of the ship's oars with his knife, making an improvised wooden sword, possibly to help wake himself up. Upon his arrival, an irritated Kojirō chided Musashi's lateness and dramatically threw his scabbard into the sea, as a sign that he would not stop and would fight to the death. Musashi responded with a taunt of his own, saying that Kojirō clearly wasn't confident in himself if he thought he'd never get a chance to use a fine scabbard again.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: The two circled each other, and Kojirō leaped toward Musashi with his trademark overhead strike. Musashi, too, jumped and swung his weapon with a shout, and the two sword strokes met. Musashi's headband fell off, sliced by Kojirō's sword, but somehow, only the headband was cut rather than Musashi's skull. Musashi's strike, meanwhile, had struck true, cleaving Kojirō's skull.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: Six years later, in 1633, Musashi began staying with Hosokawa Tadatoshi, "daimyō" of Kumamoto Castle, who had moved to the Kumamoto fief and Kokura, to train and paint. It was at this time that the Hosokawa lords were also the patrons of Musashi's chief rival, Sasaki Kojirō. While he engaged in very few duels; one would occur in 1634 at the arrangement of Lord Ogasawara, in which Musashi defeated a lance specialist by the name of Takada Matabei. Musashi would officially become the retainer of the Hosokowa lords of Kumamoto in 1640. The "Niten Ki" records "[he] received from Lord Tadatoshi: 17 retainers, a stipend of 300 koku, the rank of "ōkumigashira" 大組頭, and Chiba Castle in Kumamoto as his residence."


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: In the second month of 1641, Musashi wrote a work called the "Hyoho Sanju Go" ("Thirty-five Instructions on Strategy") for Hosokawa Tadatoshi, this work overlapped and formed the basis for the later "The Book of Five Rings". This was the year that his adopted son, Hirao Yoemon, became Master of Arms for the Owari fief. In 1642, Musashi suffered attacks of neuralgia, foreshadowing his future ill-health. In 1643 he retired to a cave named "Reigandō" as a hermit to write "The Book of Five Rings". He finished it in the second month of 1645. On the twelfth of the fifth month, sensing his impending death, Musashi bequeathed his worldly possessions, after giving his manuscript copy of "The Book of Five Rings" to the younger brother of Terao Magonojo, his closest disciple. He died in Reigandō cave around June 13, 1645 ("Shōhō 2, 19th day of the 5th month"). The "Hyoho senshi denki" described his passing:


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: Miyamoto Musashi died of what is believed to be thoracic cancer. He died peacefully after finishing the text "Dokkōdō" ("The Way of Walking Alone", or "The Way of Self-Reliance"), 21 precepts on self-discipline to guide future generations.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: Writings on Musashi's life rarely mention his relationship with women, and often when they do Musashi is regularly depicted as rejecting sexual advances in favor of focusing on his swordsmanship. Alternative interpretations have taken his lack of interest as an indication of homosexuality. In contrast many legends do feature Musashi in trysts with women, some of these also reflect the view that he would eventually choose to forego physical or emotional investments to attain further insight into his work. This predominant cultural view of Musashi is somewhat contradicted by old texts such as "Dobo goen" (1720) which relay his intimacy with the courtesan Kumoi during his middle age. The "Bushu Denraiki" also details Musashi fathering a daughter by a courtesan. It is uncertain if this courtesan and Kumoi were the same person. A rumor also connected Musashi with the "oiran" .


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: Musashi created and refined a two-sword "kenjutsu" technique called "niten'ichi" (二天一, "two heavens as one") or "nitōichi" (二刀一, "two swords as one") or 'Niten Ichi-ryū' (A Kongen Buddhist Sutra refers to the two heavens as the two guardians of Buddha). In this technique, the swordsman uses "both" a large sword, and a "companion sword" at the same time, such as a katana with a wakizashi.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: The two-handed movements of temple drummers may have inspired him, although it could be that the technique was forged through Musashi's combat experience. "Jutte" techniques were taught to him by his father—the "jutte" was often used in battle paired with a sword; the "jutte" would parry and neutralize the weapon of the enemy while the sword struck or the practitioner grappled with the enemy. Today Musashi's style of swordsmanship is known as Hyōhō Niten Ichi-ryū.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: Musashi was also an expert in throwing weapons. He frequently threw his short sword, and Kenji Tokitsu believes that shuriken methods for the wakizashi were the Niten Ichi Ryu's secret techniques.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: Musashi spent many years studying Buddhism and swordsmanship. He was an accomplished artist, sculptor, and calligrapher. Records also show that he had architectural skills. Also, he seems to have had a rather straightforward approach to combat, with no additional frills or aesthetic considerations. This was probably due to his real-life combat experience; although in his later life, Musashi followed a more artistic approach. He made various Zen brush paintings, calligraphy, and sculpted wood and metal. Even in "The Book of Five Rings" he emphasizes that samurai should understand other professions as well. It should be understood that Musashi's writings were very ambiguous, and translating them into English makes them even more so; that is why so many different translations of "The Book of Five Rings" can be found. To gain further insight into Musashi's principles and personality, one could read his other works, such as "Dokkōdō" and "Hyoho Shiji ni Kajo".


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: The following timeline follows, in chronological order (of which is based on the most accurate and most widely accepted information), the life of Miyamoto Musashi.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: In Musashi's last book, , Musashi seems to take a very philosophical approach to looking at the "craft of war": "There are five ways in which men pass through life: as gentlemen, warriors, farmers, artisans and merchants."


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: Throughout the book, Musashi implies that the way of the Warrior, as well as the meaning of a "true strategist" is that of somebody who has made mastery of many art forms away from that of the sword, such as tea drinking (sadō), laboring, writing, and painting, as Musashi practiced throughout his life. Musashi was hailed as an extraordinary sumi-e artist in the use of ink monochrome as depicted in two such paintings: "Shrike Perched in a Dead Tree" ("Koboku Meigekizu", 枯木鳴鵙図) and "Wild Geese Among Reeds" ("Rozanzu", 魯山図). Going back to the "Book of Five Rings", Musashi talks deeply about the ways of Buddhism.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: He makes particular note of artisans and foremen. When he wrote the book, the majority of houses in Japan were made of wood. In the use of building a house, foremen have to employ strategy based upon the skill and ability of their workers.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: In comparison to warriors and soldiers, Musashi notes the ways in which the artisans thrive through events; the ruin of houses, the splendor of houses, the style of the house, the tradition and name or origins of a house. These too, are similar to the events which are seen to have warriors and soldiers thrive; the rise and fall of prefectures, countries and other such events are what make uses for warriors, as well as the literal comparisons: "The carpenter uses a master plan of the building, and the way of strategy is similar in that there is a plan of campaign".


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: Within the book, Musashi mentions that the use of two swords within strategy is equally beneficial to those who use the skill for individual duels or large engagements. The idea of using two hands for a sword is an idea that Musashi opposes because there is no fluidity in movement with two hands: "If you hold a sword with both hands, it is difficult to wield it freely to left and right, so my method is to carry the sword in one hand." He also disagrees with the idea of using a sword with two hands on a horse and/or riding on unstable terrain, such as muddy swamps, rice fields, or within crowds of people.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: To learn the strategy of Ni-Ten Ichi Ryū, Musashi employs that by training with two long swords, one in each hand, one will be able to overcome the cumbersome nature of using a sword in both hands. Although it is difficult, Musashi agrees that there are times in which the long sword must be used with two hands, but one whose skill is good enough should not need it.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: After using two long swords proficiently enough, mastery of a long sword, and a "companion sword", most likely a wakizashi, will be much increased: "When you become used to wielding the long sword, you will gain the power of the Way and wield the sword well."


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: In short, it could be seen, from the excerpts from "The Book of Five Rings", that real strategy behind Ni-Ten No Ichi Ryu, is that there is no real iron-clad method, path, or type of weaponry specific to the style of Ni-Ten No Ichi Ryu:


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: Even from an early age, Musashi separated his religion from his involvement in swordsmanship. Excerpts such as the one below, from "The Book of Five Rings", demonstrate a philosophy that is thought to have stayed with him throughout his life:


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: However, the belief that Musashi disliked Shinto is inaccurate, as he criticises the Shintō-ryū style of swordsmanship, not Shinto, the religion. In Musashi's "Dokkōdō", his stance on religion is further elucidated: "Respect Buddha and the gods without counting on their help."


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: In his later years, Musashi said in his "The Book of Five Rings": "When I apply the principle of strategy to the ways of different arts and crafts, I no longer have need for a teacher in any domain." He proved this by creating recognized masterpieces of calligraphy and classic ink painting. His paintings are characterized by skilled use of ink washes and an economy of brush stroke. He especially mastered the "broken ink" school of landscapes, applying it to other subjects, such as his "Kobokumeikakuzu" ("Shrike Perched on a Withered Branch"; part of a triptych whose other two members were "Hotei Walking" and "Sparrow on Bamboo"), his "Hotei Watching a Cockfight", and his "Rozanzu" ("Wild Geese Among Reeds"). The Book of Five Rings advocates involvement in calligraphy and other arts as a means of training in the art of war.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: On 20 May 2000, at the initiative of Sensei Tadashi Chihara the Miyamoto Musashi Budokan was inaugurated. It was built in Ōhara-Cho in the province of Mimasaka, the birthplace of the samurai. Inside the building, the life and journey of Miyamoto Musashi are remembered everywhere. Dedicated to martial arts, the Budokan is the source for all of Japan's official traditional saber and kendo schools. Practically, historically and culturally it is a junction for martial disciplines in the heart of traditional Japan dedicated to Musashi.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: The inauguration of the Miyamoto Musashi Budokan perpetuated the twinning established on March 4, 1999 between the inhabitants of Ōhara-Chō (Japanese province of Mimasaka) and the inhabitants of Gleizé. It was formalized in the presence of Sensei Tadashi Chihara, guarantor and tenth in the lineage of Miyamoto Musashi carrying a mandate from the mayor of Ōhara-Chō, and in the presence of the mayor of Gleizé Élisabeth Lamure. This event was extended during the mandate of the new mayor of Ōhara-Chō Fukuda Yoshiaki, by the official invitation from Japan and the consequent visit of the mayor of Gleizé for the inauguration of the Miyamoto Musashi Budokan on 10 May 2000, in the presence of personalities and Japanese authorities.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: Even in Musashi's time there were fictional texts resembling comic books. It is therefore quite difficult to separate fact from fiction when discussing his life. There have been numerous works of fiction made about or featuring Musashi. Eiji Yoshikawa's novelization (originally a 1930s daily newspaper serial) has greatly influenced successive fictional depictions (including the manga "Vagabond" by Takehiko Inoue) and is often mistaken for a factual account of Musashi's life. In 2012, writer Sean Michael Wilson and Japanese artist Chie Kutsuwada published an attempt at a more historically accurate manga entitled "The Book of Five Rings: A Graphic Novel", based on research and translations by William Scott Wilson.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: He also appeared in the manga "Baki-Dou" as a revived clone of himself with his real soul intact as one of the strongest fighters in the series, and used his two-sword style in almost every combat in which he was shown.


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: In the video game "Overwatch" the playable character Genji has a voice line that quotes Musashi: "Mi wo sutetemo myōri wa sutezu" (身を捨てても名利は捨てず), which roughly translates to "You may abandon your body, but you must preserve your honor."


title: Miyamoto Musashi

text: The card game has a card based on him, Isshin, Two Heavens as One, named for his two swords as one technique.