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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 64.39.156.254 (talk) at 19:18, 16 December 2016 (→Link to one of the most famous animes featuring samurai should be listed: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Template:Vital article

military nobility

I know that this is a niggle but would suggest replacing this with something like 'dominant warrior class'. My issue is that these words have connotations in English that are misleading.

'Military' suggests national armed forces because that is the situation today. The samurai of the Shogunate were a social class. They opposed the very concept of an army and finally lost their power in a civil war against the Japanese army.

'Nobility' suggests titles and powers derived from land ownership. It is true that in the warring states period the people we now call Samurai were armed land owners who fought for Lords. This is analogous to a European knight. But under the Shogunate they defined themselves in contrast to the nobility. They could not own land or inherit powers in their own right. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.150.177.249 (talk) 09:34, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sexuality

I find it completely ignorant that there is no section in the article that deals with Samurai sexuality, particularly that of their homosexuality. If there used to be a section on the matter (as the below section on this discussion page points out) and it was removed...then this article is being subject to biased view points and bigotry and that is completely unacceptable. There is much information on samurai sexuality, and for it not to reflect on the Wikipedia article is completely pathetic and misleading. Something has to be done about this. - Hpfan1 (talk) 11:19, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    • The information you mention was removed because it was poorly referenced and poorly written and seemed to be an attempt to add personal views and or opinions to the article. If there is much information on the subject why not add this information in the correct manner, with valid references. It has been pointed out that there is an article on the subject which could be linked to from the article also but no one has even done that.[[1]] Samuraiantiqueworld (talk) 17:15, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that there should be a part because if I go one here and see women are lowers I want to know if they could escape arranged marriage and be a samurai Sapphire wolf (talk) 00:59, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Homosexuality

If I recall correctly there used to be an article specifically about shudō, but it seems it was removed and shudō made to point to this page. However, the current article has no mention whatsoever shudō/wakashudō/nanshoku.

I’ve moved the redirect to Homosexuality_in_Japan#Ancient_Japan, but in my opinion the Samurai article should at least mention this institution (given its importance in samurai culture).

leoboiko (talk) 22:44, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of Afro-Samurai

The user Canterbury Tail removed Afro-Samurai's inclusion to the article.

Why is that? If I'm not mistaken, the character is a samurai; and the show is definitely notable.

(I'm looking for a good reason, otherwise there may be an edit war on the rise).

--Joel Lindley (talk) 00:28, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My mistake, I didn't pay enough attention and thought it was a vandalism edit and was over quick on the rollback. Sorry about that. Canterbury Tail talk 00:50, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Heh, heh...No problem dude. In the future, I'll try to log in when I make additions.--Joel Lindley (talk) 00:56, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The image Image:Uybook11.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

  • That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
  • That this article is linked to from the image description page.

The following images also have this problem:

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --03:33, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

LOL...seems someone is trying to f*** up this page. Somehow all the thumbs have turned into porn actress pics.213.89.69.60 (talk) 14:15, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bannana?

The article talks about Ieyasu's victory at "bannana". Is this correct? I can't find any reference to it on the web or on the Ieyasu Wikipedia page. If it's vandalism, though, it's been around for a while. I don't really have time to chase it down properly, but I'm sure some of the experts here can check it out quickly! --Slashme (talk) 18:15, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Zen Differentiated from Buddhism?

In the Philosophy section (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai#Philosophy) "Zen" and "Buddhism" are spoken of as being two separate things. However, Zen is most certainly a branch of Mahayana Buddhism. Why is this differentiation made? I am aware of other forms of Buddhism in Japan that have held prominent places, such as Shingon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingon), but at the very least it needs to be made clear if the author is referring to two separate branches of Buddhism, and even then I would be interested to hear why there are two referred to at all, rather than just Zen (or just Buddhism in general, although I think Zen is probably more appropriate in this context). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.60.202.86 (talk) 02:53, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. This distinction needs to be removed as Zen is definitely a sub-branch of Buddhism. [1] Znwl (talk) 13:45, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen

Negroid samurai

Negroid Samurai is not described though Western samurai is described. Negroid that the Christian had brought became Samurai. It is existing very famous Negroid Samurai(yasuke) in Japan. He had Takeda clan annihilated with Oda Nobunaga. If the description of Negroid samurai is added, I think that I am glad.(219.160.54.67 (talk) 05:50, 29 October 2009 (UTC))[reply]

There is no evidence that Yasuke was ever made samurai.

Agreed - Yasuke was never described as being 'samurai', it was a military-noble-social class. Simply picking up a sword in japan at time didn't make you one. I recommend the section is deleted.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.183.63.241 (talk) 13:10, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

vandalism?

"The tanto was a small knife sometimes worn with or instead of the wakizashi in a daishō. The tanto or the wakizashi was used to commit toshiba, a ritualized suicide through disembowelment with wide-screen technology." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.229.149.13 (talk) 17:01, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Decline- Poorly written

This entire section is written in a way that is highly unbecoming to an encyclopedia article. The last sentence includes a word which lacks an English definition or context. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.223.147.20 (talk) 18:30, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What section? Canterbury Tail talk 21:34, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. I tried to read it because it sounds interesting, but many sentences - at least to me - make no sense. I recommend that someone with good English knowledge works over this section. I would recommend to keep it, rather than to delete it and take away this special knowledge from all readers. SvenLittkowski (talk) 11:59, 14 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Bushido - did it exist at the time?

"The samurai followed a set of written rules called the Bushidō." But according to the article about Bushido there wasn't any unified code for all samurai, only the "house codes" some daimyos used. The book "Bushido: The Soul of Japan" by Nitobe Inazō who lived in the USA was published 1899 and the last samurai fought in 1877 during the Satsuma Rebellion. Therefore it's impossible that "Bushido" was the set of written rules for samurai. That part of the article is inaccurate.Kuky88 (talk) 09:28, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Granted, however the term has come to encapsulate the various codes the samurai did follow. I have reworded the sentence to more accurately represent the facts. I now think the Bushido page needs work... Colincbn (talk) 15:55, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]


The article claims that Bushido remained unchanged for many centuries though in other parts claims that the social roles samurai had changed dramatically. Either this is unclear and seemingly contradictory, or the claim (which seems rather idealized) that Bushido was unchanged until 1899 needs a good citation. 13 May 2013 10:50 Eastern Standard (USA) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:30A:C052:B2E0:221:FF:FEE7:503E (talk) 14:50, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see a contradiction. Bushido is a philosophy. The social roles of the samurai could (and did) change, but the philosophy that they lived by remained the same. Boneyard90 (talk) 14:53, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Japan can see the future?

How is it something that happened in 663 influenced their actions in 646 ? Or was this more of the usual vandalism from the mainlanders (such as the dog reference on this very talk page)? "Following the Battle of Hakusukinoe against Tang China and Silla in 663 AD that led to Japanese retreat, Japan underwent widespread reform. One of the most important was that of the Taika Reform, issued by Prince Naka no Ōe (Emperor Tenji) in 646 AD." 66.235.15.112 (talk) 07:36, 7 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Chonmage

I searched through the samurai article in hopes of finding out more about the shaved pates and top-knots that I see in Kurosawa's jidaigeki films. But I had to resort to a few Google searches before I found chonmage. Although that article lacks references, it more or less answered some of my questions. Should this hairstyle be mentioned in the Samurai article? – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 19:19, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Way of Death and Desparateness

From Samurai#Modernization: "By this time, the Way of Death and Desperateness had been eclipsed by a rude awakening in 1853, when Commodore Matthew Perry's massive steamships from the U.S. Navy first imposed broader commerce on the once-dominant national policy of isolationism." I can't find a single mention of this phrase on Google when I eliminate verbatim copies of this article. Check for yourself. Is this vandalism? Or maybe a verbatim translation from Japanese that's not in wide use? In either case it needs a source. I'm removing it until someone can find one. (The prose needs revising anyhow.) — GypsyJiver (drop me a line) 12:45, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Im sorry but these sections need to be removed, they add no knowledge about the SAMURAI!!!! Just a bunch of trivia and useless information with NO REFERENCES!!...how can you have an article about samurai that does not mention their ARMOR? while half the article is about video games etc!!!Samuraiantiqueworld (talk) 16:48, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Samurai

This whole article is a MESS with almost no references and large amounts of trivia and meaningless information that will not help the average person learn about the samurai becides having no way to tell if the facts are true or not....this whole article goes against what wiki is about in my opinion. Why are there practically no references???

References for editors to read!!!

Samuraiantiqueworld (talk) 19:46, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Childish "Reviewers"

The Wiki guideline states that unsourced passages will be deleted but when I do that reviewers go berserk and warn me that my IP will be blocked. This whole article is nothing but a spasm of Japanese nationalistic fantasy.

It is simple. If it is controversial the writer needs to come up with a reputable source. 

  Baiyaan (talk) 19:05, 5 April 2011 (UTC)baiyaan[reply]
    • Please cut and paste the passages you are referring to here so they can be looked at and discussed.

I am willing to take a look to see if you have a point. If the passage is not referenced and there is a dispute you can tag it as unreferenced and ask for opinions here.Samuraiantiqueworld (talk) 19:29, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ok I think everyone needs to take a deep breath and come at this fresh. In looking at the article's history and Baiyaan's talk page I can see a number of issues. One is that Baiyaan is a new editor who obviously does not have a lot of experience with "Wikiculture". This is an issue a lot of new editors bump-up against and there is a large meta-conversation going on right now about how to deal with it. I am surprised that what is obviously a content dispute has been labeled vandalism by some. This is not in any way vandalism, it is a disagreement over content.
From what I gather Baiyaan's main concern is the wording of a single sentence that to him implies more Japanese influence over Korean politics than the record actually shows. It also seems that without stating the Japanese stance at the time the article becomes less clear as to what was going on. A simple wording change may resolve this. Something like "withdrawal from influencing Korean affairs" or "from attempting to influence" etc. Also Japanese politics certainly has influenced, and been influenced by, Korea since then so a clarification of that may be called for as well. Such as adding "until the Sengoku era" or whatever.
Also to Baiyaan, One thing you will need to do if you really want to edit WP is learn a bit about the behind the scenes culture here. One needs an enormous amount of patience to work here. Some changes that are blatantly obvious to make may take months to implement if someone does not see eye to eye with you on them. Getting upset will just lead to an edit war and most likely banning. The sad thing is in most of these cases if one or both editors simply worked on the talk page and assumed good faith the problems could be avoided. The amount of damage done to WP based on this sentence not changing for a week, a month, or even a year is infinitesimal compared to the damage done by losing an editor who can add good content. Talk about your issues here and work towards consensus and we will most likely all be better for it. And whatever you do avoid making attacking statements about other editors as this will get the ban hammer dropped faster than just about anything else you can do in a content dispute. Focus on content not contributors. Colincbn (talk) 02:08, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I am not going to comment on the content dispute, as it is not really my field, I just watch this page for patrolling purposes. I would just like to make a statement for the record about the vandalism warning on the talk page of Baiyaan that I (among others) posted. Baiyaan deleted the sentence 3 times within a very short period of time the same day without providing any edit summary whatsoever (1, 2, 3). As an experienced vandalfighter I know that unexplained deletions can often be signs of content disputes by novice editors, but 3 times in a row without any edit summary at the time smelled more of vandalism to me, hence the warning. However then Baiyaan started using the edit summary, and I noticed it was a content dispute, so I backtracked and posted a personal comment (that may admittedly have been a bit more bitey than was necessary), providing the editor with hints on how to proceed constructively instead of editwarring. Which at the moment seems to have worked, at least in stopping the edit war, and hopefully the editor will also soon engage in discussion about the disputed sentence on this page. --Saddhiyama (talk) 14:55, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Though I'm a Japanese editor, I undid Baiyaan's edits as a vandal fighter. Her/his edits were undone by other users as unreferenced. S/he left this message on my talk page. The book is not a RS. It's a mirror book of WP articles. See Books LLC. So I wrote it on her/his talk page. But s/he ignored it and removed the content. So I decided it was vandalism. I have no idea who added the phrase but Baiyaan's removal was baseless. Oda Mari (talk) 16:21, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think it might be good to review "What vandalism is not" as well as Template:Vandalism_warning_warning. Also on the Rollback page, and most other semi-automated tools pages, the creators of the tools go to great lengths to instruct users not to accuse other editors of vandalism while using them, unless you are 100% sure. Now I am in no way suggesting that anyone was acting in bad faith. I'm just pointing out that it is better to use any other phrase than "Vandal" when dealing with a stubborn editor. Also in the above case baiyaan gave a reason in his summary the first time he made the edit. A simple check of the history shows that. After being reverted he stopped putting them in. I don't think that counts as "no explanation". For the record I think baiyaan has also made some errors of judgement, personal attacks being the worst. I also agree with Oda Mari's and Saddhiyama's reverts, but calling them vandalism is not how I would have handled it.
Regardless, the editor in question may have moved on. He has so far only contributed on this article and on user talk pages. If he does decide to come back and edit I hope he does it with a cool head. Cheers, Colincbn (talk) 01:41, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Samurai sword classes -- authentic?

There is a class in NYC offering samurai sword techniques, but I'm wondering how it is possible for the school to be authentic, seeing how samurai were abolished in the late 1800s. Can anyone provide some insight? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.41.148.7 (talk) 08:00, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

File:Old Japanese military paraphernalia.jpg to appear as POTD soon

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Old Japanese military paraphernalia.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on July 14, 2012. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2012-07-14. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks! —howcheng {chat} 16:50, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Samurai weapons and armor
A hand-tinted glass slide of cold weapons and armor typically used by samurai, members of the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. On the left can be seen pole weapons, with a variety of swords in the middle, and longbows on the right. Flanking the weapons are two suits of armor, with a man using a soroban on the far left.Photo: T. Enami
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Two in one

The article seems to be two articles in one. It appears that at some time in the past, an editor came along and wanting to "improve" it, wrote his or her own sections on history, philosophy, etc. without trying to blend it in with existing text. I am initiating the attempt at blending the information, so it may look even worse than usual for awhile, as I first sort, and then move information. Any editor is welcome to contribute to the effort, as the article may be left unattended for short periods while I attend to real life. Boneyard90 (talk) 10:44, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone fix the western samurai section?

It's got a glaring error in the first paragraph, namely: "His estate was valued at 250 koku (measure of the income of the land in rice equal to about five bushels)."

It should be: "His estate was valued at 250 koku (measure of the income of the land then defined as the amount of rice needed to feed one man for one year)." Or, it should just cut out the explanation and just have the link to Koku, as the link should be sufficient, and the correct definition of a Koku already exists further up in the article.

I'd do it myself, but the article is locked at the moment. 72.64.207.226 (talk) 14:57, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Done, I removed the bushel section completely with just the koku link. The bushel was fine for a later period, but not for the time period mentioned at the time. Canterbury Tail talk 15:07, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"The first foreign samurai" ??

The chapter "The first foreign samurai", which has been recently added by an unregistered user, is totally illegible! The English is so bad that I suspect that the user has translated a Japanese text with Google Translate and is so ignorant in English that he/she didn't see how bad it is. Someone who knows samurai history and the story about the African slave who became a samurai, needs to clean it up. I would if I could, but large parts of the text is absolute gibberish for us outsiders. Thomas Blomberg (talk) 18:53, 13 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to the user who deleted 'first foreign samurai' section.

training of the samurai

I could not find the part where it says how samurais were trained so if it is in there can someone tell me where it is. Well i do think it is in the "education" part. -- Annonymus user (talk) 00:32, 5 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

File:Samurai with sword.jpg to appear as POTD

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Samurai with sword.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on January 17, 2015. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2015-01-17. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:50, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Samurai
A samurai with his sword and armor, photographed by Felice Beato c. 1860. The samurai, records of which date back to the early 10th-century Kokin Wakashū, were the military nobility of medieval and early-modern Japan. As Japan modernized during the Meiji period beginning in the late 1860s, the samurai lost much of their power, and the status was ultimately dissolved. However, samurai values remain common in Japanese society.Photograph: Felice Beato
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From the article: "George Lucas’ Star Wars series incorporated many aspects from the Seven Samurai film. One example, is that in the Japanese film, seven samurai warriors are hired by local farmers to protect their land from being overrun by bandits; In George Lucas’ Star Wars: A New Hope, a similar situation arises."

Eh? The relevant Kurosawa movie is The Hidden Fortress if anything. Would someone with the permission to edit change this? --Oan (talk) 09:26, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Women samurai

Women weren't actually allowed to be samurai. Samurai is a masculine term, which means women couldn't be samurai. Women became Onna-bugeisha instead. Joshwada (talk) 01:38, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Samurai or bushi

Given that samurai in Japan is never, ever used,and bushi is, samurai should redirect to bushi, not vice versa. 

Frank (Urashima Tarō) (talk) 05:39, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Don't know where you get that Samurai is never used in Japan. It's used all over Japan if you travel around. Whole museums with it in the name, districts named the Samurai District etc. Canterbury Tail talk 17:32, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And even if it were true that "samurai" was never used in Japanese (which is not true), this is the English wiki. In English, "bushi" is almost never used. Tsuka (talk) 15:52, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurouni_Kenshin

I think Rurouni Kenshin should be listed as well, especially since it happens during the transition of the samurai dominated era to the western era, with manga, anime, and live action films. It portrays a stylized view not often seen in most material, and similar to the setting in The Last Samurai.

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