Original subtitles

Musashi fought a duel on Ganryujima against Sasaki Kojiro.

It made him famous, but he never spoke about it.

The life of Miyamoto Musashi that everyone knows and talks about...

He was an unbeatable swordsman with a trained mind.

A seeker of truth.

But these are falsehoods created after his death.

Falsehoods about the wild days of his youth.

Falsehoods about his mastery of Zen.

Falsehoods about his enthusiasm for art.

And falsehoods about the swordsmen whom he fought.

Musashi traveled to the capital at the age of twenty-one,

met the greatest fighters,

fought several duels,

and always emerged victorious.

After that, he traveled throughout the country,

challenging fighters everywhere he went,

and continued dueling until he was past sixty.

He never lost during that entire time.

Everyone knows his name from history,

yet his life remains largely unknown.

This is not unusual,

and Miyamoto Musashi's life is one such case.

Shinmen Musashi no Kami Fujiwara no Genshin, also known as Miyamoto Musashi,

appears in countless historical works, which proves his existence.

On the other hand, he has always been surrounded by various falsehoods.

It may be a sign of how complex an impression he has made on the minds of the Japanese.

The purpose of my research, and the main topic of this film,

is to eliminate these falsehoods and to reveal the true image of Miyamoto Musashi.

He had the strongest mind and the best combat skills.

He admired religion but never believed in it.

On the other hand, he was a cold-hearted fighter who did not hesitate to kill a child in order to achieve victory.

What is the key to explaining these contradictions?

We cannot understand them without discussing the Battle of Sekigahara.

This battle will decide the next ruler of Japan.

Will the knowledgeable General Tokugawa Ieyasu of the East rule after Hideyoshi?

Or will it be Mitsunari of the West?

It is a huge, earth-shattering battle.

In this fierce war, Ieyasu emerges victorious,

and places the capital of his shogunate in Edo.

Musashi is seventeen years old at that time.

He is stationed at the front of Ishida Mitsunari's army.

He fights against Tokugawa Ieyasu's main force, led by Fukushima Masanori.

He hopes to achieve great recognition on the battlefield.

He is trying to become a warlord on horseback.

There is a man by Musashi's side.

He and Musashi have fled Miyamoto Village and have promised to rise to power together.

He is Hikoya, Musashi's childhood friend.

Black smoke rises from every direction.

It is dark even during the day.

People and horses are in pain.

Blood flows everywhere.

Rifles, arrows, and swords all combine to spill blood.

Enemies and allies clash everywhere, turning many people, including his friend, into corpses.

The battle is over, and the rain has stopped.

He looks at the piles of corpses that had been his army.

What is going through Musashi's mind at this moment?

Musashi stated that he fought in six battles, including the Battle of Sekigahara.

Even after he established his reputation as a great swordsman, he insisted on fighting battles.

But in all those cases, Musashi was treated as a lowly soldier.

Even though he was a peerless fighter,

on the battlefield he could do little more than mill around as a common soldier.

Throughout his life, his heart was held prisoner by his mixed feelings of love and hatred towards generals on horseback.

More accurately, he was obsessed with horses.

Incredibly, his fetish for horses led directly to his two-sword fighting style.

Note: A bushi is a soldier from a traditional warrior family.

What did it mean to be a bushi at that time in Japan?

Before we delve into that topic, we need to look at the knights of the West.

As you may know, like the bushi we will discuss later,

horses were the key to their existence.

An elite force of nobles who performed no labor,

the cavalry came into existence

during the Achaemenid Empire in Persia.

The cavalry underwent a significant transformation

during the agricultural empire of the Sassanids.

Two revolutionary inventions allowed anyone to ride a horse:

the saddle and stirrups.

In close-quarter combat, stirrups performed a vital function:

they prevented cavalry riders from falling.

At the same time, they were essential to using various weapons while on horseback,

especially accurate aiming of the bow-and-arrow.

This is my assistant, Miss Iori.

Later, during the time of the Crusades,

three items were added to knightly equipment and later became symbols for them.

These were armor, horses, and crests.

What did this mean?

It meant that knights rarely died in combat.

During the Crusades, many knights were captured.

Later, they were ransomed and returned home alive.

The crest signified that the owner had the financial means to pay a ransom.

In contrast, foot-soldiers without armor would be killed if they were captured.

Knights made their foot-soldiers use bows and crossbows,

but they never used these weapons themselves.

These weapons were imprecise and would kill knights and foot-soldiers alike.

Knights were not supposed to kill other knights,

so they used blunt weapons such as maces and flails.

If used against armored knights,

these weapons only inflicted concussions and other non-fatal blows.

But against unarmored soldiers, these weapons were deadly.

So the training regimen of Western knights did not include the horse-mounted archery

or horse-handling of the Japanese bushi,

but focused mostly on strength training to support the weight of their armor,

through repetitive swinging of heavy swords, axes, and clubs.

Because the knights were mounted,

their odds of surviving on the battlefield were high.

It also was a sign of their power and their membership in the nobility.

This is off topic,

but when the modern Olympic Games were established in the late 19th century,

the competitions included fencing,

wrestling, weightlifting, and similar sports,

but did not include any archery events.

This shows that the spirit of knighthood carried over into the athletic pursuits of the Western nobility.

And another side story.

In English public schools,

they attempted to teach gentlemanly behavior, which is the modern version of knighthood.

Ironically, it led to the English army being slaughtered during the trench warfare of World War I.

On the modern battlefield, where high-speed bullets fill the air,

knightly manners proved extremely risky.

The English learned a lesson from that,

and attempted to bring back the immortal image of the knight.

As a result, they created a heavily armored vehicle called the tank.

Now that I've provided a brief history of Western knighthood,

let's shift our focus from West to East.

Cavalry first appeared in China in the state of Zhao.

This resulted in the extinction of chariots,

the main fighting force of the Spring and Autumn Period.

But the Han Empire, despite its financial power,

could not support a large enough force of lightly-armored, horse-mounted archers

to drive out the Xiongnu in the north.

Moreover, the cavalry horses consumed a significant portion of the agricultural harvest,

and the cavalry itself increased the risk of military factionalism.

The central government wanted to keep the cavalry forces close to the capital city,

but that gave the nomads the opportunity to strike first.

The government's solution to this dilemma was the crossbow.

The most appealing aspect of the crossbow was that training costs were negligible.

Unless there is continuous training,

the cavalry's spear-throwing, archery, and horse-handling skills deteriorate rapidly.

Therefore, soldiers using these weapons had to be employed on a full-time basis.

In contrast, crossbowmen could return to their farms when a campaign was over.

Crossbowmen provided optimal cost-effectiveness.

As a result, the Chinese never developed a European-style knightly class requiring special treatment.

The cavalry riders were just mounted soldiers of ordinary rank.

They were lightly armored, unlike the heavily armored European knights,

and used the bow-and-arrow as their main weapon.

This style came over to Japan from China.

It had a tremendous effect on determining the bushi style.

But why did the Chinese crossbow not come over as well?

Actually, during the Yamato period,

the Imperial soldiers used crossbows to fight the forces of Ebisu in the north.

But in Japan's hot and humid climate,

the composite bows, which used gelatin as glue, deteriorated quickly,

and were never able to perform consistently.

Also, battles were usually fought on thickly forested, mountainous land

that was not suitable for battles between large armies.

And thus, Japanese bushi ended up wearing light armor and using bows-and-arrows from horseback.

Because the Japanese caste system divided society into four ranks,

the bushi were placed in the higher social ranks, much like European knights.

The core of Miyamoto Musashi's sword-fighting style was the mounted bushi.

Now that Miss Iori has left, let's take a break before returning to our main point.

I will introduce you to one of Musashi's better-known opponents.

Shishido Nanigashi

His name is Shishido Nanigashi.

Note: Kusarigama means a chain and sickle.

He is a master of the chain-and-sickle.

Note: Wakizashi is a type of short sword.

Musashi draws his wakizashi,

sees that Shishido is taken aback by that move,

and charges his enemy.

The historical existence of Shishido Nanigashi cannot be proven.

But it's truly interesting that people talk about this fighter and his unique weapon,

in order to demonstrate the value of Musashi's two-sword style.

How did this two-sword style, which seems suicidal on the surface, become useful?

A certain literary work makes this point clear.

Yes, I'm talking about The Book of Five Rings.

Miyamoto Musashi said:

"I name my style of fighting Niten Ichiryu.

Note: Niten Ichiryu means "two worlds in one style."

For the first time, I am writing down what I have learned."

It was early October in 1643.

He climbed Mt. Iwatono in the Higo region of Kyuushu.

He worshiped the sky,

bowed to Guanyin,

and faced the Buddha statue.

In The Book of Five Rings, Miyamoto Musashi wrote about his fighting style.

But until the Edo period, it was known as The Five Books of Fighting Style, or Teachings on Fighting Styles.

It only became known as The Book of Five Rings after the Meiji period.

And later, a certain newspaper writer used the word gorin to mean the Olympic games.

That made the word more widely known.

What's more,

The Book of Five Rings was only a draft,

so the modern rumor that Musashi died right after finishing it is baseless.

The original manuscript for The Book of Five Rings has never been found.

What we read today are merely copies,

and there are numerous versions.

The number of copies floating around or hidden somewhere in the country is simply uncountable.

This has led to diametrically opposite interpretations of some of the topics that Musashi wrote about.

But let us read through these books with our focus on the core values of Musashi the fighter.

"If you can win against a lone enemy in any way you want,

you can win against anyone in the world.

'Winning' means the same thing,

whether you face one person or ten million people.

How a general leads an army to victory is based on his personal fighting style.

This is the same principle as constructing a large Buddha statue from a small model.

A one-on-one duel and an army-on-army battle are the same thing."

Now, Musashi wrote this book because he had no intention of remaining an insignificant fighter.

He mentions the same thing in various places throughout the book, not to make his style sound more authoritative,

but because a battle between armies was his ultimate dream.

His life's ambition was to be recognized as a great figure like a warlord because of his prowess on the battlefield.

I must emphasize here that his ambition to be promoted was not based on greed for money.

In fact, Musashi turned down numerous offers to command squadrons of 500 soldiers.

His dream was to lead 3,000 soldiers, or more.

Of course, some view this ambition as arrogance or ignorance of his station.

But in fact, that is the smallest formation that can be effective on a battlefield.

Near the end of his life, before he became an officer under the Hosokawa clan,

he wrote a letter stating that he did not care about the quality of his housing,

but that he must have enough horses, including the spares needed for a war.

And when he accepted the position of an officer,

he did not specify the size of his army,

and preferred to be treated as a guest.

But he received permission to participate in eagle hunting, which was normally reserved for the family elders.

This also illustrates Musashi's thought patterns.

He was willing to sacrifice his rank and lifestyle in order to go eagle hunting on horseback.

Musashi was probably unable to pass up the opportunity of training himself in horseback riding,

as preparation for a future war.

His uncompromising beliefs also affected his fighting style.

He was always thinking about riding a horse.

Obviously, the core of his sword fighting style would be directed to combat on horseback.

In another section, Musashi also wrote the following:

"Hold the great sword as if you are lifting your thumb and index finger from the grip.

The middle finger should neither be tight nor loose.

The ring finger and little finger should grip the sword tightly.

Your grip must not be too loose.

You must always hold the sword in readiness to cut your enemy."

What he wrote has been taught in dojos since the Edo period.

But such a style won't work if a fighter grips the great sword with both hands.

It only becomes a lethal level advantage if a fighter holds the sword with one hand,

as happens when fighting on horseback.

If a fighter cannot control the movement of his blade with the utmost precision,

he might cut the head of his own horse, leading to a fall.

Furthermore, if he drops his sword during a chaotic fight on horseback because his arm is tired,

he loses any means of protecting himself against attacks from the side.

Because Musashi dreamed of fighting on horseback ever since he was a boy,

he must have trained himself to fight with either hand,

switching to his left hand when his right hand tired.

Of course, as a boy, he didn't have the means to own a horse,

so he could only have trained in his imagination, simulating everything in his head.

Because of that, he ended up with a fighting style intended for use with a walking horse,

and that was the origin of his two-sword fighting style.

"Use your feet like you are walking normally.

Don't use just one foot.

When you move forward, step back, or defend, always move your feet alternately.

Never, ever make your move with only one foot."

Musashi suggested not using traditional galloping steps,

but to use a slow walking style instead.

We can interpret that as his simulation of a ridden horse moving forward.

"Remember that the middle guard position is the greatest of all in sword fighting."

He wrote those words,

yet he liked holding the great sword behind him with one hand.

This means that the style was intended for a full-speed gallop attack, in which the attacker passed on the enemy's left;

or for mounted close-quarter combat in which the fighter feints with his left hand,

but then uses the sword in his right hand to cut or thrust.

Furthermore...

"The great sword is most effective if the fighter extends his arm fully and then swings with great power."

Musashi wrote that exercises such as holding a sword with just one hand

made his reach longer than gripping it with both hands.

Also, a swordsman who grips with both hands must draw his sword back for each swing.

But Musashi...

"Swing from below when the enemy makes his move."

That is also in his writings.

Aiming for the enemy's hand was something every swordsman practiced.

But this style was meant to be used in fully-armored combat.

Another important point:

When a swordsman is on horseback, his blows are more likely to reach their target

when made from a lower position, augmented by the motion of the horse.

Assuming that Musashi practiced this from the time he was young,

it must have been easy for him to slash from low to high,

when everyone else was using both hands to swing from high to low.

Also, by wielding swords in both hands,

he could attack twice as fast as any enemy,

making him virtually unbeatable by other swordsmen.

Musashi's insatiable spirit of inquiry also led to the development of armored components such as sword guards,

and horse-related items such as saddles and stirrups.

He did not do this just for his enjoyment,

but as part of his research and development to prepare for any large battles that might happen.

He also said

that any weapon should be chosen based on context of the current situation.

Of course, he was extremely particular about his swords.

After the Keicho era, when large battles were no longer frequent,

swords lost their usefulness,

yet swordsmen still liked to carry them as status symbols.

But Musashi did not see the sword as his ultimate weapon.

Musashi liked to use bokken, or wooden swords,

and that is the weapon most associated with him,

because he made so many improvements to it.

A bokken was mostly straight, so it had a longer reach despite its lightness.

Also, it was easy to make bokken that resisted breakage.

One report states that the bokken he used to fight Sasaki Kojiro had two-inch nails along the entire length of the blade.

It's worth noting that such a design is very similar to a mace, which European knights often employed.

Another point Musashi emphasized was to always think like the enemy.

Musashi made himself a flexible warrior.

He could switch weapons quickly to fit the situation.

He never stuck just to bokken, his weapon of choice.

Heian Yoshioka Kenpo

The most powerful school of swordsmen is the Yoshioka Dojo.

Musashi fought Seijuro, the heir of the family, at Rakugai Rendaino.

Musashi's bokken defeated Seijuro, who died from his wounds.

Now Seijuro's younger brother, Denshichiro, seeking revenge, waits to fight Musashi at Rakugai.

It's past the appointed time, but Musashi has not shown up.

Denshichiro suppresses the rage inside of him and waits quietly for his foe.

I was getting tired of waiting, Musashi!

Musashi doesn't even flinch.

He looks down quietly at the group.

I challenge you!

Note: An odachi is a type of Japanese long sword.

Denshichiro draws his odachi.

Musashi still stands mysteriously motionless.

Note: A kodachi is a type of Japanese short sword.

Musashi slips under Denshichiro's swing, draws his kodachi, and attacks.

Denshichiro!

The clansmen search for Musashi, but he is nowhere to be found.

He has disappeared into thin air.

Kyoto was said to be especially cold that day.

Denshichiro's handling of his sword must have been slowed by the long wait in the snow.

But Musashi attacked quickly with his kodachi, slipping under Denshichiro's arms to earn his victory.

This was a very unusual move. Most swordsmen of the time used the same specific weapon on all occasions.

Also, Musashi's effort to become a great man went far beyond the study of swordsmanship.

He used his philosophy of swordsmanship in many areas of cultural activity,

so he said that he did not need a teacher in any field.

There is no way that an ordinary swordsman could lead an army, rule the citizens, and run the government.

Musashi researched a wide variety of topics using ordinary common sense.

Calligraphy, paintings, sculpture, poetry, the tea ceremony, go, Japanese chess...

Musashi put extraordinary effort into subjects that were largely ignored by other swordsmen of his time,

and he proved himself an expert in all of them.

We must have the same attitude when we deal with society: always proceed wholeheartedly.

We should also pay attention to the simple writing style used in The Book of Five Rings.

Abstract writing in any language tends to become ambiguous over time.

In Japanese culture, frequent use of vaguely worded images was considered more effective than rhetoric.

This trend was further reinforced by Zen, which promoted the idea of not depending on words and letters.

On top of that, the era of isolation limited the Japanese people's exposure to foreign languages,

creating a situation where nobody compared the words in current use with the equivalent words in other languages.

As a result, any one word came to have an unlimited number of associated images.

At the beginning of the Edo era, when Zen philosophy was not widespread,

The Book of Five Rings was one of the rare books on combat styles written in colloquial language.

This book also proved that Japanese was a rational language, even though it was regarded as a highly irrational one.

"I do not use the old words of Buddhism, Confucianism, or Shintoism,

nor the old terms from military records or the tactical methods of the past."

Unlike the other combat masters of his time,

who used foreign words or Zen-centric terminology such as "Satsujintou," "Katsujinken," and "Houfutsu Satsubutsu,"

in his writings Musashi used only his own experiences of what he had seen and heard, and his analysis of those subjects.

He expressed his knowledge in a colloquial style that was completely different from the Zen practitioners.

The latter claimed to be independent of words and letters but indulged in large amounts of wordplay.

People say that Musashi was a Zen master,

but that's another of the baseless falsehoods that surround him.

In fact, because Musashi kept the influence of Zen to a minimum,

the rational approach in The Book of Five Rings would not be surpassed for a long time.

Few of Musashi's contemporaries understood his rational approach.

Unnecessary problems since the Edo period, caused by that lack of understanding, have hurt the country badly.

During the Meiji restoration, when the country was modernized,

there were erroneous shifts in philosophy, including a false cult of "Bushido."

It all sprang from the Russo-Japanese War that started in 1904,

and from a close-quarter battle to capture a fortress in Lushun City from the Russian army.

The Japanese army of the Meiji period had been dazzled by the smokeless powder used in the Franco-Prussian War.

Because of that, they were ready to abandon close-quarter combat as an uncivilized method of fighting.

But in fact, European armies, including the Russians, excelled at close-quarter fighting.

At Lushun, the Japanese forces stayed on top of the hills and relied mostly on the power of powder,

but the Russian soldiers fixed bayonets, charged out of their trenches, and counterattacked.

The officers from bushi families stayed at their posts,

but lower class privates enlisted from civilian families were frightened by the charging Russians

and fled the scene disgracefully, turning their backs on the enemy.

This was because the Meiji era government could not imagine that in the twentieth century,

the Japanese would still be fighting tall white soldiers with spears and swords.

The government believed that katana looked too barbaric to Western civilization and banned them early on.

After the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, they prohibited Imperial Army officers from carrying Japanese swords.

They also abolished all dojo schools, including kendo and judo.

This caused the common people to lose the courage needed on the battlefield.

For these reasons, starting in 1905 the Japanese populace began to have serious phobias about Caucasians and gunfire.

The Japanese government needed to eliminate this nationwide anxiety as quickly as possible.

They researched possibilities for remedial action.

In the end, the slogan they came up with was "Bushido."

"Bushido" became a common Japanese word around the time of the Russo-Japanese War.

This may sound shocking, but Bushido was not a familiar term to ordinary Japanese.

It was used in books,

but it had little currency in the Japanese mind.

Nitobe Inazo wrote Bushido in the United States in 1899, in English.

Only intellectuals in America were familiar with it.

Nitobe's book was translated belatedly,

imported back to Japan, and published in 1908.

This was done at the request of the Japanese government after the Russo-Japanese War.

An authoritative biography of Miyamoto Musashi was written and published in 1911.

This was also a part of the Imperial government's strategy.

This book became the basis of a heroic war myth.

Bushido Seika Miyamoto Musashi was published by the Tachikawa Bunko publishing house as it was just starting up.

This finally made Miyamoto Musashi known to the Japanese population at large.

In the 1930s, this heroic tale became the basis of Yoshikawa Eiji's popular novel Miyamoto Musashi.

This novel was published while the Second Sino-Japanese War was in progress,

and it changed the meaning of "Bushido" from the study of rationalism to the study of spirituality.

Now, let's forget the falsehoods intentionally created by the government of a later era,

go back in history, and look further at the true personality of Miyamoto Musashi.

Musashi believed that the intellectual power of the leader determined the outcome of a war.

That power had to be trained in advance for effective use in future large-scale battles.

He demonstrated this in his third battle against the Yoshioka family,

which was fought in Ichijoji Sagarimatsu.

The Book of Five Rings says this:

"Always position yourself in the highest place possible, in order to look down on the enemy."

So, where he should take his stand is very obvious on this occasion too.

He has slain the Yoshioka brothers.

He now faces their uncle, Genzaemon,

and the latter's son Genjiro, also known as Matashichiro.

As he waits for the next day's battle, Miyamoto Musashi looks up at the sky.

He thinks about the battle by himself, with the breeze rushing by above him.

Musashi thinks, "What good does it do to pray to the gods now?

No matter how much I pray, why would the gods listen to my selfish plea?"

From the Chapter of Fire in The Book of Five Rings:

"It is critical to know the enemy's mood, learn his character, find his strengths and weaknesses, and strike first."

Genjiro has not yet come of age.

Some seventy men of the Yoshioka clan protect this young head of the family.

Under the bright light of the torches, they ready their spears and bows.

The Yoshioka force is ready.

The location is Ichijoji Sagarimatsu.

What is Musashi thinking about now?

His regrets from the Battle of Sekigahara must haunt him.

This is a war.

The lord of the Yoshioka Clan is within my reach!

As promised, I, Miyamoto Musashi, am in your presence!

I have slain the lord of the Yoshioka Clan, Yoshioka Genjiro!

The clansmen desperately fight back with spears and swords,

but Musashi doesn't give them a chance.

They call and cry out for him, but he has turned his back

and run off into the mist.

What we can observe in the battle at Ichijoji is Musashi's skill as a strategist.

Apparently, Musashi talked about this battle many times before he died.

However, he hardly ever spoke about the legendary battle against Sasaki Kojiro that made him famous.

Why was that?

It is time to find the answer to that mystery.

With a serious face, Miyamoto Musashi looks at the sea water passing by.

He is traveling to Funashima by boat.

He has a bokken that he has made himself.

Tied around his head is a hand towel that acts as a bandana.

The strongest of the swordmasters...

He is Sasaki Kojiro of the Ganryu Style.

He waits for Musashi with a three-foot longsword.

Why did you arrive late?

Kojiro, you have now lost.

Why do you say that?!

Why else would you throw away the sheath?

No one knows what these fighters are thinking.

No matter how strong a fighter is, one day he will be injured and die.

Kojiro has a smile on his face.

But nobody can see Musashi's face.

Musashi does not pray for Kojiro to rest in peace.

A black kite flies above the staircase connecting heaven and earth.

Either you win or you lose.

All is destiny.

Why was Musashi unwilling to speak about this battle on Funashima, also known as Ganryujima?

It's because Musashi did not regard himself as a skilled swordsman,

but as a general who led an army of skilled swordsmen.

No matter how strong his opponent was,

a one-on-one battle would not prove his skill as a war tactician,

nor would it help him achieve his dream of becoming a recognized leader.

What drove him from beginning to end was his desire for large battles.

If we interpret this argument liberally,

all of his duels were attempts to avenge his losses at the Battle of Sekigahara.

This is the man who was always dreaming of fighting on horseback.

What was he thinking after defeating Kojiro?

On his deathbed, Musashi ordered that he be dressed in armor.

It was a sign that he was ready for battle even in death.

Why was he so adamant about battles?

His attitude appears quite strange to us.

If he had been born several decades earlier,

he could have become a great warlord and fought numerous victorious battles.

Or if he had been born several decades later,

he could have spent his energy becoming a great master of both the fine and martial arts.

Musashi founded and elaborated the Niten Ichiryu school of swordsmanship.

But his methodology fractured repeatedly and eventually died off.

Note: Nitou Ichiryu means "two swords in one style." Niten Ichiryu means "two worlds in one style."

Interestingly, in The Book of Five Rings, Nitou Ichiryu and Niten Ichiryu are used interchangeably.

But in the end, Musashi named his style Niten Ichiryu.

It was because the focus of his style was not the use of two swords.

Rather, if the world was split in two, and another large battle occurred,

his style would be the way to reunite those worlds.

He was born in a rare interregnum between two major shogunates.

He was aware that his style was not a good fit for his time,

yet he was unable to give up on his dream and his style.

That was probably his only irrationality, when he was a rationalist in everything else he did.

Miyamoto Musashi.

The supreme rationalist with an unreachable dream.

This is the ultimate philosophy he forged after his extreme studies.