From our other sites
The story
5ch reacted to a Yahoo News article spotlighting Sima Shi — the man who inherited power from his father Sima Yi and is remembered as a “Three Kingdoms figure whose story we wish had continued, only to vanish from history.” The thread quickly veered away from Sima Shi himself, drifting into discussions of Xu Shu (who left Liu Bei’s service), Liu Shan (there’s a theory he was actually a wise ruler who merely played the fool), and how the popularity of Cao Cao and Lü Bu differs between China and Japan. Opinions were especially divided over whether it’s true that “China is apparently stunned by how much Japanese fans love Lü Bu.”
Not Cao Cao, not Zhuge Liang… Who is the #1 “Three Kingdoms figure we wish we’d seen more of”?
9/29 (Tue) 7:21
The reason a historical figure captivates us isn’t always tied to great achievements. Sometimes it’s the “unfinished” figures — the ones who make us wonder “what might they have accomplished if they’d lived just a little longer?” — who leave the deepest impression. In the Three Kingdoms era, Sima Shi is one such figure. He inherited power from his father Sima Yi and came within a hair’s breadth of bringing the realm under Sima family rule, only to die along the way. Where does this “wish we’d seen more” feeling — one also evoked by Japan’s own Oda Nobunaga — come from? The author of “Learning World History Through Maps: A Deep-Read Approach” unpacks the little-known appeal of Sima Shi.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
Honestly, when people say "Three Kingdoms," I think they mostly mean up through the Battle of Red Cliffs.
I'd say up through the fall of Shu. After that the outcome's already obvious, so it's just momentum.
That's a staggering food crisis — probably one of the worst in Chinese history. I recall reading that around that time there was a volcanic eruption in New Zealand that blanketed the globe in ash.
The Wu conquest had generals like Wang Jun, who was 74 — practically nothing but old men. Really makes you think they were desperately short on talent.
Huang Zhong, read as "Pikachu."
Make it triplets — three sisters.
Calm down, lol.
Your daughter will definitely turn rebellious. She'll either run away from home and start going by a hostess-bar stage name, or legally change her name on her own and never let you see your grandkids.
Well, he cared deeply about his mother.
Xu Shu was a brilliant figure, but he left Liu Bei's side almost immediately — basically a stepping stone to make Zhuge Liang shine even brighter.
The NHK puppet show (a TV puppet-drama adaptation) really butchered the history on that one.
Zhao Yun, of all people, was at the very bottom of Shu's rank hierarchy.
Liu Bei recruited a lot of civil officials that Wei had cast out.
Well, Liu Bang was an emperor, so… but setting that aside, I think you mean Liu Feng.
And if Guan Yu hadn't gotten cocky and gotten himself killed, Zhang Fei wouldn't have died either.
Man, I wish I could've seen how that would've played out.
Lü Bu betrays everyone eventually, so either way his days were numbered.
Honestly, Zhang Fei should've lost his head the moment he started drinking.
I loved it. Got hooked reading Mitsuteru Yokoyama's "Sangokushi" manga off those grimy, oil-stained volumes they had lying around at the local Chinese restaurant. Same with "Fishing Sanpei" (a classic fishing manga).
If Three Kingdoms isn't your thing, try Water Margin or the Records of the Grand Historian. If those don't work for you either, I'd guess Chinese history or ensemble-cast stories just aren't your style.
That Cao Cao is great, right? And sure it's a cliché, but Zhang Fei being a lovable idiot really works.
Liu Shan's getting reevaluated these days. I'm not too well-versed myself, so I'll accept pushback on this.
Oda Nobukatsu, Imagawa Ujizane, and Liu Shan — the "Three Idiots" trio — are way underrated.
I mean, it's not like he turned into a tyrant, lined his own pockets, and ran the country into the ground with oppressive rule.
It's the other way around. Cao Cao is popular in China, while in Japan it's Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang who are popular.
Even less popular in China than Cao Cao is Lü Bu — apparently they're surprised at how many Japanese fans love him.
That reevaluation is a real thing, sure, but there's no defending how he cozied up to that corrupt eunuch.
I won't deny he played his cards well, but that doesn't make him a wise ruler, lol.
He left state affairs to Zhuge Liang, then Jiang Wan, then Fei Yi, then Chen Zhi in turn. Once the talent pool ran dry and Wei invaded, he surrendered on Qiao Zhou's advice, then spent his remaining years taking it easy on Xi Zheng's counsel.
Probably because Gao Shun went out so honorably. Plus having a cool nickname like the "Camp-Breaker Battalion" for his troops helps a lot too.
Re: #254
As one of Lü Bu's subordinates, Gao Shun was more capable than Zhang Liao — if he'd lived, he probably would've risen even higher, to Grand General.
Background and Points of Debate
Assessments of Three Kingdoms figures are said to differ sharply between the official history (Chen Shou’s “Records of the Three Kingdoms”) and the novel “Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” which treats Shu Han as the legitimate dynasty and casts Cao Cao in a somewhat villainous light. Cao Cao’s popularity in Japan is often traced to Eiji Yoshikawa’s novel and Koei’s (now Koei Tecmo’s) video games, and this gap in portrayal appears to be behind the thread’s divided reactions to the claim that “Cao Cao isn’t popular in China.” A similar gap exists for Liu Shan, between the foolish figure depicted in the Romance and the reevaluation emerging from recent historical research — the thread’s discussion of Liu Shan follows this same line. Lü Bu’s popularity may likewise be shaped by the differences between the official history, the Romance, and how he’s been received in Japan specifically.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+ board) thread “[Three Kingdoms] Not Cao Cao, not Zhuge Liang… Who is the #1 “figure we wished we’d seen more of”?“
Leave a Reply