It also shows early that traveling on foot is hard, that you need food to survive, that cold weather can be murderous, that drinking bad water can be dangerous, and that trying to be smarter than the road you’ll get lost.
Also shows effects of old age and PTSD well.
And it shows age as something very different from mainstream popular culture, where the best part of life happens somewhere in 18-23.
They did, people who opposed firearms were usually of the “nutcase extremist” kind. Nothing like “the mainstream of the traditional society” or something.
Also the funny part about Japanese traditions is that they don’t see Christianity as alien. It was quite popular, albeit prosecuted, in the “authentic” past.