Editing Kensei (section)

====Otokodate====
[[File:Otokodate.jpg|thumb|300px|left]]
The merchant class as well as the middle-management. Otokodate are made up of any with enough power to rise up, as well as the ambition or outrage to make it worth betraying their superiors. All of their clans are newly formed, and very few if any are of actual nobility as Hymukai perceive it. 

Otokodate are very diverse and fall into a range of roles; some Daimyo of Otokodate clans believe themselves to be the new Buke, surrounding themselves with Ronin (masterless, usually mercenary, warriors from a samurai background) and wearing expensive and ornate suits of O-Yoroi while intimidating those around them and looking for any excuse to show their power. Some are more humble like the Sohei and subscribe to the code of the Kykotsu which presents a more humane approach towards honor than Bushido, representing the craftsmen and undesirables of society as they attempt to forge a new caste that is free of the use and abuse they have suffered in the past. Still others are prideful and arrogant like the Kuge, believing control of the cash box and the act of finding the holy relics of the Tenno to be all they require to claim rulership of the land. 

Regardless of their disposition and goals, the Otokodate have access to the strengths of the other clans. Their warriors wield far stronger firearms than the other castes have access to, are far more willing to employ large groups of assassins, and will even use corruption to bribe members of their foe's armies. They have their own samurai as well, and will even arm peasantry and train them in ways usually limited to those of noble blood or wealth which gives the Otokodate a far more diverse fighting force. Otokodate have even been willing to allow foreign settlements, even convert to the strange faiths, just to earn more advantage in their trade negotiations.

The Otokodate find enemies primarily in the Buke class, with whom they have the biggest grudge and whom they want to replace by destroying their clans and recruiting their Ronin. Kuge are simply a more distant version of the Buke, and are little different in dealings; their social position is from another era and their way of life is already giving its death rattle. The Sohei and Otokodate have little real reason to come into conflict, since both represent an oppressed lower class although the spiritual weakness of the Otokodate doesn't earn them any favor in the priesthoods eyes, while the expectation that wealth and status be thrown away to serve distant spirits who may not even exist is laughable to the Otokodate; in the Otokodate future the Sohei will end as a caste just like the Kuge. Little thought is given to the Kuroi-te beyond simply destroying them as an afterthought, and the Otokodate don't believe in the Hattori. 

The core inspiration for the Otokodate caste in Kensei is actually not real life; Otokodate was the name for unemployed Samurai who bullied the lower classes throughout the 1700's until they were suppressed in the 1800's. The populace of Japan was enamored with stories about them being defeated and as a result the term Otokodate mostly refers to a genre of fiction, the closest western equivalent being a combination of Robin Hood and mafia movies, although in tone they are so close to cowboy cinema that many famous Otokodate movies (Seven Samurai for example) were remade shot for shot as cowboy movies (Seven Samurai becoming the Magnificent Seven). 
Otokodate stories, be they movies (particularly the famed Kurosawa movies of the 50's-80's and the exploitation "pinku" movies of the 1970's) or play (Kabuki theater) are based on the beginning of the end for the Samurai in the Edo period. This was when the lifestyle of the Samurai became unlivable and many were rendered into a bizarre state of poverty while still having substantial powers within society. The merchant class rose to power, and Samurai with no other means were forced to swear loyalty to non-noble non-Samurai to make ends meet...or rob anyone below them in status and privilege (so non-Samurai) that nobody would bother with the effort of defending (so people who paid little in taxes, primarily the middle class in smaller towns and villages). Most Samurai cinema is about this era, when thugs roamed the streets and abused the commonfolk until brave heroes supposedly stepped in to die heroic deaths on behalf of those with no other defense. These brave (almost always fictional or greatly exaggerated) heroes were called Otokodate (a term which in real life basically meant "thug" and referred to both hero and villain), fighting the starved oppressors of society as an equally suffering although vastly more noble remainder of the glorious past. 
The real life Otokodate "heroes" were actually the predecessors to the Yakuza, running protection rackets in cities while subverting the law and seeing that troublesome Samurai find themselves in duels they can't win if not simply disappearing. By the end of the Edo period the ruling class had established strict control of their territories so a Samurai who robbed a shopkeeper would soon be hauled in by lawmen, similar to cowboy sheriffs dealing with an outlaw. As a result the Otokodate were replaced by "Isami", who were more like smalltime gangs that roamed around looking for fun and to show off their masculinity in fights or competition but not actually kill anyone which would immediately bring authorities down on them; compare modern biker gangs to 1800's bandits. Females sometimes feature in Otokodate and Isami stories as equal warriors among groups of men and were called Onna Dates, although it is debated how many real Onna Dates actually existed. 
The Otokodate army presented in Kensei is not exclusively the Otokodate of cinema however, it combines several small movements and groups together both from other genres of faux-historical cinema as well as real life history. The martial characters of the Otokodate army are shown wearing Kawari Kabuto (AKA "strange helmets") which appeared during the Momoyama period at the tail end of the Sengoku era and were known for simple and cheap but still effective construction beneath elaborate decoration. The Assassins wear Ronin gasas, woven hats that cover the face but have slits to see through; whether real Ronin actually wore Ronin gasas often is debatable, but many Samurai movies use them to denote an outlaw eager to hide their face or a, well, assassin. Ozutsu were used from the 1500's through the end of the Sengoku era, oftentimes on ships and in sieges. Teppo Ronin are specifically former Samurai who now answer to their societal inferiors among the merchants as mercenaries which strangely follows closer to the real life fate of many poor Samurai. 
The fate of the real life Otokodate depends on your perspective of the faction; if you view them as the wealthy middle class merchants and later industrialists that changed Japan from Samurai to Napoleonic to Mitsubishi bombers to car and VCR producers, then the Otokodate merged with the Kuge to "rule" modern Japan (and possibly [[Shadowrun|the global economy of the future]]). If you prefer to think of them as brave heroes standing up for the little guy, look to modern social services and good Samaritans alongside Japanese UN workers. Otherwise, the Yakuza are doing fine as always.