Pulp Zen Warriors

Largely unloved and unknown, The Loveless fused 50s and 80s retro cool. Sportster Debbie provided the look for Rei Nishimura in Zen Ambulance. Rei weren’t no samurai by blood and packed a Midnight Special instead of a katana sword but I reckon she pretty much had the same bad-arsed attitude. Sure knew how to use that Special.

Female samurai. Despite popular misconceptions, onna-bugeisha took up katanas and naginata glaives to fight to the death in bloody encounters across medieval Japan.

Rei lowered her gun, turned around and Luther followed her as she walked back to their room. 

     “You just shoot the Demon of Death, Rei?” he said, unable to contain the excitement in his voice. “You kill him stone dead?”

     “Like I told you,” she said, “big guns ain’t always better.”

Go, Rei!

http://thevintagent.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-loveless-way-beyond-torn-up.html

http://www.kusuyama.jp/blog/the-powerful-onna-bugeisha-female-samurai-warrior/

Zen musings

The morning glory blooms but an hour
And yet it differs not at heart
From the giant pine that lives for a thousand years.'
Matsunaga Teitiku

'Veil upon veil will lift, but there must be
Veil upon veil behind.'
Sir Edwin Arnold

Brasov Nikkatsu #1

I’m sitting on a bench waiting for the Bank of Transilvania to open. I notice a waitress leave the Cafe Dodo – slots, darts, pool and flipper – carrying a tray of coffees to the punters in Republicii. I watch her intently as she goes back and forth. She has olive skin, long black hair in a ponytail. Her face is aquiline in shape like an anime-tiger girl. She wears bright red tights that accentuate muscular but not excessive calf muscles. In fact, a gymnast about to walk onto the mat to do her routine. She is purposeful with her head held high, back straight and feet pointing slightly outwards. 

She is a waitress in real-life here.

But in another world – a retro Nikkatsu Zen Ambulance world - she’d make one helluva character.