Samurai Blues

Samurai culture: endlessly romanticized, the subject of countless historical dramas... Japan's men's soccer team 'Samurai Blue' and baseball team 'Samurai Japan'. However, you didn't want them as neighbors、not if you were a peasant farmer. Watch 七人の, from 1.29.00: the great Mifune Toshio, as Kikuchiyo, delivers an impassioned speech decrying the oppression of peasants by lawless samurai parasites.

Samurai

Loyal. Self-sacrificing. Brave. Why not Cool as well? Samurai Japan, Samurai Blue, the men's national baseball and football teams, respectively. Romanticized in countless manga, anime, songs and period dramas on NHK. During the Edo period, 2 million out of a population of 30 mil. Insufferably arrogant. Parasitic. That's probably what the rest of Edo thought, for social inferiors were required to support them financially and, adding insult to injury, to prostrate themselves (dogeza, it's called) and grovel in their presence (though this custom was relaxed somewhat in Edo itself). Inhumane, cruel, bloodthirsty. The term tsujigiri (辻斬) refers to practice of testing one's blade randomly on passing strangers (drive by be-headings, perhaps). Social inferiors,of course. And then, there's inuoumono (犬追物). Samurai on horseback, in a circle, armed with bow and arrow. A dog is released. The circling riders let fly, vying to outshine their fellows in accuracy and grace. Charles Dunn, University of London Reader in things Japanese, has written an informative text about Edo called Everday Life in Traditional Japan Except he doesn't know or omits this detail of everyday samurai life. Not so Shirato Sanpei, the author of Kamuiden. Shirato devotes a section of his hit manga to the practice.

The Watanabe House

The Watanabe House, located in Sekikawa Village, is a splendid example of an Edo period samurai dwelling, or yashiki. The Watanabe clan were retainers of the Murakami daimyos, whose powerful influence during the Tokugawa Shogunate was widespread throughout Niigata. The main tourist attraction in Sekikawa, the house and its outbuildings are in an excellent state of repair. A wing of the structure is inhabited by descendants of the former samurai warriors.