Yup, it's true that Nobunari is a descendant of Nobunaga Oda. However Sarah Brightman didn't sing the complete song from Chihaya's CD. Sarah's "Running" contains a theme from Gustav Holst's The Planets (from the Jupiter movement) and so does Chihaya's "Jupiter". When I heard them playing it during the broadcast in 2009 I thought it was iM@S influence, but now I think it probably wasn't. I wish more figure skaters would choose distinctive music to skate to, though. A lot of them choose music that's been used many times already by other skaters.
On that note, the current head of the Aizu-Matsudaira clan, an old Japanese businessman, is the
grandson of
Matsudaira Katamori, the shogunate lord who opposed Emperor Meiji during the Boshin War.
Can you imagine how crazy his stories must be: "I remember my granpda told me he supported the Tokugawa shogunate against Emperor Meiji at first. My grandpa says Tokugawa Yoshinobu was a pussy. Also they said he farts under the covers, what a jerk. Anyway Emperor Meiji and the SatCho alliance won in the end. Grandpa told me of when the samurai in our province were finally stripped of their hair-knots and swords, what a day that was."
Even more than the Nobunaga figure skater, this man is a piece of living history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsudaira_MorisadaMorisada was approached by the Imperial Household Agency in the late 1980s, with a request to serve as an official at the mourning ceremony for Emperor Hirohito; simultaneously, they expressed a desire to install him as chief priest of Yasukuni Shrine. Morisada declined the Yasukuni appointment, as the shrine was built to enshrine the soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army who died in the Boshin War and exclude those who fought against them, including men of the Aizu, Sendai, Nihonmatsu, and Morioka domains.
You tell them Morisada! That Yasukuni shrine is a farce so long as everyone who stood up to SatCho aggression is excluded!
Including these 19 boys of the White Tiger Corps of Aizu who committed seppuku according to the bushido code! Morisada's grandfather Katamori governing the province wrote a death poem for the young warriors, but they are denied a place in Yasukuni?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byakkotai幾人の 涙は石にそそぐとも その名は世々に 朽じとぞ思う
Ikutari no namida wa ishi ni sosogu tomo sono na wa yoyo ni kuji to zo omou
"No matter how many people wash the stones with their tears, these names will never vanish from the world."
