Actually, the biggest problem for me is not the age where Usagi, hmm, impregnated Mariko. I've heard of kids becoming fathers at 9 or 10, so that's not a biological problem.Todd Shogun wrote: This could mean that Usagi was closer to 12/13 when he first went off to train with Katsuichi. Or that he was younger than we thought when he and Mariko had the fateful picnic lunch...like around 14/15 (if we assume he was about 10/11 years old when he joined Katsuichi). Of course, we'd all like to think he was a bit older at that point, but this was over 400 years ago and in a completely different culture than what most of us are accustomed to. So who knows...since we have no "starting age" to work from, the only way to do this is to either have Stan make an executive decision, or work our way backwards as carefully as possible.
In the other hand, I can't imagine a samurai, as skilled as he can be - even with a high lineage, which Usagi has visibly not - entering the service of Lord Mifune at only 14 or 15, and becoming so rapidly a member of his close guard.
It would be interesting to see if there's a historical precedent. I'll focus many of my research on this point.
