7 minutes ago, starrius said:

One thing I took from this as well was as no more things are really going to be done at court till the champion is selected. Depending on time scale this really does slow down the prospect of mantis becoming a major clan which a lot of people have been Hoping for

I'm not sure many people even care about Mantis becoming a great clan (at least as their main priority). I think more interest is in them being a playable faction, regardless of the official status of their clan.

And I really don't think this fiction does anything to set back that possibility for great clan status anyway. We already knew that the Emerald Championship was coming up and would likely be resolved before Mantis becoming a great clan.

I'm hoping that till they are a major clan they are splash cards. I'm not looking forward to the idea of minor clans being a focus of a deck, mantis will definitely get their major clan status but it' a case of how long it takes

13 hours ago, Manchu said:

@shosuko Thank your for the opportunity to clarify my points. Imagine if someone asked Toshimoko, remember when you almost murdered your brother? He would not because it was never in his heart to do so. Yet, Yoshi remembers Toshimoko almost drowning him.

On this point I can only speak from personal experience but to say that he wouldn't remember it as almost murdered his brother may be a little misleading, he may very easily remember it as the time I got so angry with my brother that I shoved him into the pond and he almost drowned (yes something similar happened to me when I was a kid and my older sister was showing off to friends and family and actually broke my arm by shoving me off a deck) but the core memory will still be there, the time I almost killed my brother. Now as to how much Yoshi is playing up the memory in his own mind that is a different question and could very easily go to a persecution complex which furthers the he is a git theory.

10 hours ago, shineyorkboy said:

I like how we have a case of life imitating art since so many are quick to label Yoshi a villain just like the characters are quick to label Satsume as one.

Only two people are really labeling Satsume as a villain, Toshimoko and Hotaru who blames him for driving his wife (their Sister and mother respectively) to commit suicide. Given the love they likely held for her its not actually that unreasonable a stance for them to take.

If you want to call Kakita Yoshi a villain - or even a psychopath (FFS) - you need a better basis than he doesn't remember what he and Toshimoko fought about that one time.

For him, the memory is connected to his judgement that Toshimoko is too passionate. The clearest implication here is that Yoshi can see flaws in others far more readily than flaws in himself. At the same time, @shineyorkboy is correct to point out that it's Yoshi who has to remind Toshimoko of Doji Satsume's virtues because Toshimoko only sees the late Emerald Champion's flaws.

About Satsume, if you don't believe Yoshi (or even Kuwanan) then look no further than Shizue: "He had been a gruff and distant father figure, as so many parents were, but he had never been unkind to her. Others in the Doji family had whispered disapprovingly of her twisted leg, but he had only mentioned it once to her. 'Your lameness will make people underestimate you,' he had said. 'Make sure they are wrong.'"

I think Yoshi is there to represent the late Satsume’s side. Not only he admires him, he has a clear emphasis in everything being proper and perfect, like that outburst he almost has because someone was in his way (to me he seemed more upset about it being a breach of etiquette than it being disrespectful) or when he evaluates the court attendants and feels satisfaction when everything goes according to norm. We even get him condemning a relative for not living up to certain standards, like Satsume did with his daughter.

He is nicely set as an antagonist, in and out of clan. For the other clans he serves the “annoying, unhelpful, arrogant bureaucrat” role. To the Crane he opposes Hotaru and Toshimoko, maybe alongside Kuwanan. However, he doesn’t seem outright villainous, and one could see some merit to his position about always being up to what is asked of you.

He does seem overly arrogant though, both in his meeting with Taka and in this fiction. We have the emphasis on the whole “everyone has a flaw” thing, but we don’t hear anything about what he believes his flaws to be. Does he think he doesn’t have one, does he think he does have it but hasn't identified it yet or does he avoid even thinking about it less someone discover it? His interaction with Kachiko is also weird, he hasn’t found any vulnerability, and believes she has just outmanoeuvred him, but doesn’t make any comment on her skill and believes he will eventually defeat her. Why is he so certain? Doesn’t he consider it possible she will beat him instead? Does he have actual reason to be so confident or is he simply that arrogant?

All in all, he seems an interesting character with different implications in the plot.

He is clearly a person who strives to have no flaws.

Doji Satsume apparently was the same way. He was so virtuous that he became the Emerald Champion. And yet his exacting standards alienated his daughter Hotaru and drove his wife to suicide. Kakita Toshimoko believes Satsume's demanding personality was therefore a flaw. Kakita Yoshi disagrees because a lord is justified to set the highest standards for his vassals so that they constantly improve.

So which one is correct? Was Satsume a dictator lacking humanity - or was he the paragon of bushido? In fact, he was both. Perfect duty is ultimately not compatible with sentimentality. To Yoshimoko and Hotaru, Satsume's flaw was abandoning the latter for the former. To Yoshi and Kunawan, that is the definition of nobility.

Kakita Yoshi probably suffers from this same kind of flaw; flaws that would appear to be virtues from the perspective of someone who wants to be a perfect samurai.