continued the episodes for 19 years but i bought the final episode only.
Purple rose A dark scene on the cobbled street of Edo.Heavy snow falls.Along a cobbled lane a lantern is carried
on a long stick,bobbing up and down,swaying left and right as the wind lashes out,wailing and
screeching.Snow intensifiesto non stop flurry of snow flakes The ground slowly is covered by
a soft layer of snow..A lone traveller in the dark narrates this tale to the plaintive,meditative
tune of shabuhachi.The light becomes dimmer as the lantern disappears into a dark alley
leaving a pool of light on the snow.
He'll make a fascinating heartless Geisha YOSHIMARU who replaces her faulty heart with
a hybrid metallic heart and TOSHI a naive Samurai of Bushido code.(strains of koto in
melancholic tune interspersed with the shamisen)(then joyful,lighthearted on guitar and shamisen)The geisha YOSHIMARU has been treated as of value only for her ability to let male patrons drown their sorrows in wine,song and dance but there is no one who cares to know her pain and sorrow.The samurai is skillful,fiercely loyal to his shogun who uses him ruthlessly to expand his power. Lyrics(Crush them all )The physical pain he suffers he has to swallow and his conscience he suppresses as he eliminates the shogun's enemies ruthlessly and mercilessly.His Heart has to be put in cold storage.( Lyrics: My fate is to hate)(played on bass,drum and taiko)(tune is strong and powerful loud and booming/interspersed with clash of cymbals that reverberates)Both meet,the geisha is used as a bait by the shogun to lure a powerful enemy and bedazzle him with her beauty.,her ability to bring joy to others.(lyrics Like a moth to the flame)But the enemy sees through the deceit and stabs the geisha in the
heart as a warning to the shogun.Rescued by Toshi the samurai,the geisha is taken to the
miracle healer who replaces her heart with a bronze heart.She moves away to another big town
where she becomes the richest and most sought after geisha of the time.
( lyrics Who will buy my heart?)The samurai has a soft spot for her.He secretly protects her
against the unwanted attention of amourous guests.(Lyrics to Kurenai Bitterness endures)But unbeknown to him,she finds out inadvertently that he was
the person who slaughtered her whole family at the order of the shogun and hatches a plan to
cause him lifelong misery.Killing him would be much too easy a revenge.She knew that which
one loves and invest in the most has the power to hurt the most.She would let him self destruct. Slowly and imperceptibly.
She poisons his mind to turn against the shogun who is just using him to perpetuate his hold on
power.
YOSHIMARU rescues the samurai from the ninjas sent out by the shogun to assasinate him in
the middle of a cliff with swords clashing,just as the ninjas were about to throw the poison
powder at the samurai,the geisha who had been hiding behind the pine tree rushes out and
throws herself on him with the powder falling on her face.But when the ninja shot the arrow at
Toshi,it hit the spot on on her metallic heart.The ninjas flee thinking that their task was
completed.
Meanwhile,the geisha has eternal life due to her robotic heart which was replaced but her eyes
are blinded.(lyrics -The heart sees what the eyes can't)The Samurai disillusioned leaves the martial arts world
and becomes her eyes.She still works as a wandering singer at tea houses playing her shamizen.
From town to town,they wander together until accidentally ,she met an old neighbour who
recognised her and the samurai found out that he was responsible indirectly for wiping out her whole family.Remorse and guilt stricken,he vows to take care of her for life.Unbeknown to him,the geisha had planted the neighbour there to manipulate him as she had paid the neighbour with some of her gold jewellery.
The samurai now works as a hired assasin for rich landlords..
Some itinerant healer tells him about the cure"the purple rose"
To restore her sight,he searches for the panacea to darkness,the purple passion rose ,a bush that
blooms only once in ten years in the forest of Hokkaido when the river of Yoki starts to receive
the snow melting from Mt Kuno
He has to cross the river to reach the bank on which the purple passion rose bush grows.
Once plucked,the whole plant withers and dies-only a song from a heartless woman can revive the rose bush.But the sharp thorns to protect the rose
bush is deadly.The plant is sensitive to the slightest motion so the samurai has to use his light
power to fly across the river to pluck the rose but the thorny poisonousleaves immediately clamps up around the rose to protect it from pluckers.Just as the samurai was flying towards the plant,As he is nearing it,he hears the flower's silent scream and decides at the last second to spare it.Then the river suddenly gushes as the snow melts and a strong wind pushes him against the thorny leaves. He grazes his hand against the thorns.The neurotoxins would cause him to lose feeling in both his arms.
up.When he slowly loses his strength,he can only hold things as light as a piece of paper-a sword
is out of the question and so on.The geisha has been secretly pleading with the shogun to give
her the antidote to cure her eyes-
he agrees only if she agrees to be his minor wife
.Now she has power and fame,she dumps the samurai.She needs no longer entertain a lot of
clients .
Disillusioned,the samurai has to give up the way of the sword,the woman he loves and retreats
to live as a hermit at the edge of the forest where the purple passion rose bush blooms.TOSHI
undertakes the transformation to become an android with the metallic arms and weaponized
every part of his body.He becomes the guardian of the purple passion rose bush.
The man is physically strong but emotionally fragile whilst the geisha is physically weak but
emotionally heartless.( lyrics on purple passionrose).(shamisen and shakuhashi)
The purple passion rose is a symbol of Toshi's heart shielded by an armour of thorny leaves.
End scene
Sunset with sky and swirling cloudsveiled in colours of magenta,orange and glowing in
brilliance.In the forefront is the black silhoette of a Japanese curved bridge over a rippling river also bathed in the hues of dusk.on one side is a geisha silhoette holding an umbrella looking across the river.
On the other side at the bank of the river,a rose bush wwith a single flower.The samurai warrio
r robot is seen practising sword strokes against a straw man,moving around and hitting it until
only the frame is left-plaintive sounds of the shamisen mixed with the robust sound of the taiko.(lyrics to Well of silence)
A mechanical para glider swoops down on the river bank.An armoured and masked samurai
jumps out and rushes towards the purple passion rose bush.As he steathily sneaks with back
lowered towards the bush,a sharp whistling sound is heard as his leg trips in a wired trap on the
ground.The tall grasses on both sides of the plantation waves violently and parts as a shadow
whooshes past .In a split second, an armoured warrior suit clad samurai leaps ahead and
the sword of invincibility strikes down on the "plucker".Sparks and clanging of swords and
then sharp circular spinning weapons swooshes out.with a loud roar Toshi's swords descends
swiftly like a gush of wind and the intruder's head rolls on the ground.Toshi takes the
mutilated body and buries it beneath the purple passion rose bush.The next day,the bud
blossoms ,petals unfurled and a sweet intoxicating scent is detected even as far as the shogun's
palace.But Yoshimaru is too enamoured with her cushy life to bother to go again to the bridge
of eternal yearning.(lyrics to The purple rose)
Put in some steam punk elements and wow cool to watch them,better than just visual kei. alone
.
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