Amakusa

Amakusa (天草), which means "Heaven's Grass," is a series of islands belonging to Japan, off the west coast of Kyushu, the southernmost of the four main islands of Japan. The largest island of the Amakusa group is Shimoshima, which is 26.5 miles long and 13.5 miles in extreme width (42.6 km × 21.7 km). It is situated at 32°20'N, 130°E, separated from the rest of Kumamoto Prefecture by the Yatsushiro Sea.

It has no high mountains, but its surface is very hilly—four of the peaks rise to a height of over 1,500 feet (460 m). The population resorts to the terrace system of cultivation to cope with the lack of flat arable land.

Amakusa, along with the neighboring Shimabara Peninsula, became the site of a Christian rebellion in the 17th century. Following the rebellion, those Christians who survived continued to practice their faith in secret, despite persecution.

Amakusa produces a little coal and pottery stone, both being used by the potters of Hirado and Satsuma Province. Many kilns remain on the islands today, and pottery and pottery stone are still exported. Hidenoshin Koyama, who built Thomas Blake Glover's House in Glover Garden, came from this island.

Samurai Shodown (series)

Samurai Shodown (Samurai Spirits in Japan) is the name of a fighting game series by SNK. Despite the name of the series, most of the characters are not samurai in the true sense of the word. In Japan, the name of the series is officially in katakana, but is often written in kanji (侍魂, samurai tamashii), with the second character pronounced supirittsu, “spirits”, to better reflect the game’s setting.

Overview

The stories in the series take place in 18th-century Japan, during the Sakoku or seclusion period of Japan (the first four games run across 1788 and 1789) with great artistic license so that foreign-born characters (including some from places that didn’t exist as such in 1788) and fictional monsters can also be part of the story. The plot of each game is quite different, but they circle a central group of characters and a region in Japan.

Samurai Shodown consequently portrays snippets of the Japanese culture and language internationally with little edits. For instance, unlike most fighting games made in Japan, the characters in the series (including the announcer) generally speak only in Japanese, with dialects ranging from archaic formalities and theatricalism to modern-day slang, something that has been preserved for overseas releases. Win quotes and other cut scenes provide subtitles in several languages, including but not limited to English, Portuguese, and German. Much of the music includes traditional Japanese instruments (predominately the shakuhachi, shamisen, koto and taiko) and later enka. Several characters are loosely based on real people from Japanese history.

Amakusa (disambiguation)

Amakusa is a series of islands belonging to Japan.

Amakusa may also refer to: