I’ve always enjoyed Japanese culture and media and lately I’ve been watching the anime Vinland Saga on Amazon Prime. It’s a fictional story rooted in some real events of the Viking Age and the Danish invasion of England. Although it definitely has a strong anime flavor with some over the top action, it also has a surprising degree of historical accuracy in many respects (not that the bar there is very high). I was still surprised to see an accurately depicted Roman antoninianus tossed around during episode 10. Without going into too much detail, the coin appears while two characters discuss mortality and aging amidst the backdrop of Roman ruins in England. For the anime it looks like they applied a filter but I was pretty sure that it was a photograph of an actual coin, so I dug a little deeper to try and identify it. I went and checked the manga (Japanese comic) that the series is based on and sure enough, a photograph of the coin was pasted directly over the character’s hand without any filter! The reverse isn’t shown, but the obverse appears to be a relatively uncommon left facing bust of Postumus with the legend POSTVMVS AVG, similar to this one. Pretty neat!
Would they, by chance, be quoting from the Anglo-Saxon poem “The Ruin”? https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-ruin/
Such a strange choice of coin. However, if they’re in England then no better coin to represent than ole Posty
I was a full-time otaku in my student years... Cosplaying and all... Good times! I haven't been able to follow up on new series in the last few years due to grown-up life, but in this lockdown I did watch the whole first series of Demon Slayer on Netflix. Normally I am not into that genre, but Lisa is one of my favourite singers so I kinda started it because of the intro song, but I liked it enough to finish the whole season! I am sure that there are some anime inspired from Greek-Roman history and mythology, but I cannot think of any titles at the moment. But while thinking hard, I remembered a classic early 80s french-japanese series that I loved watching as a child. I am pretty sure that the following clip will bring many fond memories to some of you
I’d never seen this one before, but the sentiment is similar although the dialogue isn’t the same. Well, I know what I’m doing this weekend.
