I feel it important to point out that during Imperial and Hidden Emperor it was possible to have 4 different version of Toturi in your provinces and that by buying the lowest XP version you could overlay them into Super Toturi.
All 3 copies of Toturi does in the LCG is let him stay around for 2 more rounds.

Kakita Yoshi is a fantastic Crane villain: A superficial work of art that’s hollow on the inside and devoid of meaning.
Just as Matsu Tsuko is the embodiment of Lion aggression and Kachiko the paragon of Scorpion manipulation, Yoshi is the personification of the Crane’s smug superiority. At the very least, if Kuwanan & Hotaru are able to make peace, we can throw Yoshi under the bus as the instigator of the Civil War. 

After Kyuden Kakita fell, but before the word had arrived at the capital that it had.
I think that's a big part of it. Tsuko feels she won and therefore Toshi Ranbo should be theirs. Winning the battle and losing the treaty is sadly a Matsu speciality (I'm not saying Lion clan generally, but Matsu specifically).
Indeed. Though she is still dealing with some serious self-deception or at least lack of self-awareness. Akodo Toturi didn't hesistate at Toshi Ranbo; he launched the flanking attack at the point it would do the most damage. And Akodo Arasou then took advantage of the disruption not to further bloody the broken garrison but to launch a headlong charge at the gate and get shot for his trouble because, not to put too fine a point on it, he was dumb.
I'm not saying he wasn't a more caring, inspiring leader, but his brother appears to be the better tactician.
And Toturi 'hiding his eyes' - given that it was Ujiaka who advocated him trying to take the championate, and he and Tsuko have been at best creatively misinterpreting his orders and at worst outright ignoring them, that's a rather hypocritical complaint. As is claiming Toturi gave away Toshi Ranbo rather than it being an Imperial edict.
Concerns that Akodo's spirit might have been impacted in his journey on by the time taken to take him for the final rites when she deliberately redirected the cortege to the battlefield to indulge her need for vengeance feels similar. No, Toturi didn't specifically say "take the fastest, most direct route" because he would have assumed Tsuko would. Because, you know, "remains of her beloved betrothed", and all that.
I'm still not convinced Doji Kunawan's actions should be considered acceptable; if he considers his sister to have betrayed the clan, going and challenging her about it is certainly justifiable but pre-emptively declaring himself champion in her stead feels (to me) a step too far, even with Kakita Yoshi's backing (under the circumstances, especially so, since Yoshi's about to have a lot more to worry about!). But I can see the logic for essentially bringing some sort of charges, and if he feels he has to claim the mantle of champion in order to pursue them....
I suppose I can understand the logic even if I disagree with it; rokugani social structure doesn't allow for anything resembling 'impeachment' by one's social inferiors, after all; the only social superior he could take said charges to is the Emperor...and in practice that means Kachiko and Shoju so it would feel pointless to him.
 
Matsu Tsuko appears, by comparison, to have gone off on "I want to hurt the Crane and I'm not being allowed to so I'm in charge now".
She has no claim to the Akodo ruler's bloodline (she and Arasou were never even actually married), and - dressed up in formal language though it may be - her justification for taking the championate amounted to "I'm champion now and anyone who say's different gets stabbed right here, right now. Honourably, of course."
she's launched an assault against a family who - whilst Crane - weren't even directly involved in the dispute over Toshi Ranbo. Heck, if she wanted to sieze somewhere, take Shiro Kyotei; it's not covered by the imperial edict, it's in the disputed Kintani valley, the Tsume no Doji are the family who took Toshi Ranbo off the Goseki in the first place, and Kyotei was once a lion castle too (of the Damasu no Akodo).
Siezing that castle would have some argument of being justifiable.
Instead she chose to attack a city of artists and artisans which traditionally doesn't even close its gates.

Shinobi/Ninja are far less strange and a bit more common in this continuity. Pretty much every clan has some members who are of the profession.

My bet is each year will see two Q1 and Q2 source books the size of Shadowlands and CoS and a neutral Q4 setting book similar to EE and PoW. This would give them a stable release pattern until 2022.

The Unicorn novella also has like, the perfect pitch for playing Gaijin characters, it almost felt a little shoehorned. Shono has the realization that Saadiyah al-Mozedu has basically the exact same internal conflict as a samurai, placing her code of beliefs vs her personal desires and trying to find the right path, which in RPG terms is basically "so gaijin characters have ninjo vs giri as well, just what their duty and honor system is like is different than bushido". 

Not going to happen due to FFG not owning the Burning Sands. AEG didn't sell that part of the IP when FFG bought L5R.

That adventure makes me suspect that this book was intended to be announced at Gencon during the Inflight but was cut to make time for the Marvel miniatures game.

That adventure makes me suspect that this book was intended to be announced at Gencon during the Inflight but was cut to make time for the Marvel miniatures game.

IIRC they actually haven't mentioned "gaijin pepper" specifically being outlawed yet, even EE's references to the Battle of White Stag conspicuously leave out any mention of it.

As you stated previously, all games are imperfect, and L5R is no exception. When I come across a "crack" I've gone from trying to fix the game and second guessing the designer's, to attempting to see if my perspective and expectations are too narrowly defined by previous editions or other RPGs. I'm much happier now

Kaeda either shortened her own life to save Toturi or traded her unborn child for her husband.

Kaeda either shortened her own life to save Toturi or traded her unborn child for her husband.

The adventure Winter's Embrace introduces a few new factors to this mess.
The biggest is:


 

The adventure Winter's Embrace introduces a few new factors to this mess.
The biggest is:


 

The new rules even cover those problems. Earth Stance doesn't do much when a single successful Crossing Cut will win you the duel if your opponent doesn't draw first blood on their attack.

The adventure Winter's Embrace introduces a few new factors to this mess.
The biggest is:


 

The adventure Winter's Embrace introduces a few new factors to this mess.
The biggest is:


 

The adventure Winter's Embrace introduces a few new factors to this mess.
The biggest is:


 

The adventure Winter's Embrace introduces a few new factors to this mess.
The biggest is:


 

Current Crane and Crab have 7 schools and everyone else has 6. If Crab and Crane are skipped 1 time each all the Great Clans might end up with 11 schools. If instead each clan gets 1 school in the 5 other books with the central clan getting 2 we will end up with 12 schools each for the great clans.
Shiba Artist is a psuedo-Courtier School and Togashi Chronicler is built around the Monk advisor achetype. Unicorn will likely get new courtiers in the future but they will likely not be courtiers focused on the courts.

I'd agree with @UnitOmega here; if they're not the commanders, it's not a mass battle.
The Battle For The Third Watchtower in the Beta is a good example of this; there are three sequential scenes; an intrigue (persuading the commander not to do something honourable but epically stupid), a mass battle (commanding the various cohorts), and a skirmish (facing down a specific 'breach'). The backdrop for each is "there is a battle going on", but that doesn't mean scenes (1) and (3) are mass battle conflict type scenes.
Well....no. As noted, for it to qualify as a mass battle, it means there are a huge number of soldiers on the field - more than you can make a difference to with Martial Arts and a sword or Theology and a fireball. As it stands, Assault, Challenge, Rally and Reinforce are it, and Assault and Reinforce (both of which use Tactics) are the only ones which really move chunks of the army round the battlefield.
There is potential for this. Firstly, the checks for a mass battle may involve skills the PCs don't have, but whilst TN2 Tactics checks implies a competent general, TN1 Command is....pretty easy, let's be honest, even without the Command skill, and a pretty wide selection of schools (and not just Bushi) get access to a rank of Command at character creation.
Challenge lets duellists be duellists (I strongly recommend using one-roll-duels to resolve the fight during the mass battle round, given that it represents an hour or more of the fighting) Remember that cohorts and armies should almost always have some sort of special rule; Rally lets you fend off rising panic against shadowlands monsters and lets shujenga play healer if you give them a 'Mystics' cohort. If you want a particular character archetype to be useful, then maybe follow the rulebooks suggestion of creating a cohort type that uses their particular special skills - Shinobi, for example, who use Skulduggery or Stealth checks instead of Tactics for Assault actions, or at least add bonus successes equal to said skill rank to the check.

Current Crane and Crab have 7 schools and everyone else has 6. If Crab and Crane are skipped 1 time each all the Great Clans might end up with 11 schools. If instead each clan gets 1 school in the 5 other books with the central clan getting 2 we will end up with 12 schools each for the great clans.
Shiba Artist is a psuedo-Courtier School and Togashi Chronicler is built around the Monk advisor achetype. Unicorn will likely get new courtiers in the future but they will likely not be courtiers focused on the courts.