I’m not able to find it again, so it may be entirely bunk, but I remember reading something about the Japanese during early interactions having a stereotype that Europeans didn’t bathe. Obviously this contact was past the medieval stages, but then that makes me ask “Did hygiene become less popular later?”

So, now I’m curious whether this memory is:

A) Pop culture contamination/made up whole cloth, i. e. an author who believed medieval people didn’t bathe and extrapolated it to the 1500s.

B) True, and hygiene did become less popular with Europeans (seems unlikely).

C) Born of the fact that people who have been at sea for so long are not a good representation of overall hygiene.

D) Born from a another factor unrelated to hygiene, but perceived as such by the Japanese. Maybe differences in sweating or diet or something.

E) Some combination of the above.

Wait until you see the more recent lore that explains that Gamma radiation comes directly from super hell and there’s magic involved. It technically doesn’t make what is in the encyclopedia untrue, but it wildly recontextualizes it.