If you're having trouble with taking straight up physical hits from the emperor...
The emperor's strength is 180 and he hits 8 times per attack. Unadulterated that's quite a bit of damage. Defense will only help a little bit. Focus on evasion instead. By raising defense you'll only lower 8 damage at a time. By raising evasion you'll lower 180 damage at a time! How do you raise evasion? Be the target of physical attacks, cast Blink (should be about level 8 ), and unequip armor and shields. That's right, in order to take less damage, you have to use flimsy armor. The Ninja Gear has no evasion penalty whatsoever. The Genji Armor has an evasion penalty of 79.
Ahhh, the things they don't tell you in the manual...
