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The Japanese sources are a bit ambiguous but they point to Yasuke being a retainer for Odo Nobunaga (basically a court hanger-on). Given that he doesn’t seem to have had any combat training prior to his association with Nobunaga and the fact that he was only with Nobunaga for like 8 months means he was probably never in the field kicking ass anyway.
Then in 2019, historian and college professor Thomas Lockley wrote a book about Yasuke. Lockley, who is fluent in Japanese and teaches at a college in Japan, was able to get ahold of a lot of the original Japanese sources for his book. Lockley revealed that the original portrayal of Yasuke was inaccurate and that he really was a man at arms and a very notable Samurai of the era. This lead to a historical reevaluation of Yaskue in the west and made Lockley somewhat famous. Ubisoft hired Lockley as a historical advisor for their game, and for publicity.
Except it turns out that Lockley’s book was mostly bullshit. He had written two versions of the book, one in Japanese and one in English. The Japanese edition mostly adhered to the version of the Yasuke narrative in my first paragraph, the one that is actually supported by the historical record. The English version throws that all out, intentionally misrepresents the sources, and presents basically a made up narrative. Lockley was relying on the language barrier to ensure that no one would ever check his homework. Which they didn’t, until the controversy over the game blew everything wide open. Lockley is now under investigation by Japanese academics for what is basically academic fraud, he deleted all his socials, the Japanese parliament has even gotten involved, and Ubisoft has a hot mess on its hands.
I find it quite funny how some westerners are super insistent on Yasuke being samurai. Because to my knowledge, even if someone successfully argues that he was, the position ought to be treated similarly to how Nils Olav is the baron of Bouvet Island, or how Incitatus was really a priest and a consul -- for all intents and purposes he had the position of an exotic pet gifted to Oda.
If it was handled better I think Yasuke would have been actually a reasonable fit (the odious woke erasure of Japanese history and appropriation of culture aside) -- he is a historical character of which we know very little, as such the game can practically make him do anything behind the scenes and it still wouldn't contradict written history since there's basically nothing to contradict!
(But of course they didn't handle it better, and it was as stupid as it sounded at first.)
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Thanks, that gives me a fair bit of the missing context, though I'm still no closer to understanding (among other things) the title!
For those curious, the Japanese abbreviation of Assassin's Creed, アサクリ (asakuri) can be parsed as asa ("morning") + kuri ("chestnut"). "Morning Chestnut Problem" is presumably a cheeky way to refer the problematic aspects of Assassin's Creed: Shadows, viewed from a Japanese perspective.
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