Samurai in Popular Culture

Sharp10r

Hey all! I'm writing a paper on Samurai, and I want to write a section contrasting the actual teachings/values with how they are portrayed in popular culture. So- I'm looking for:
Cartoons
Marvel comics (because I have most of them on DVD thanks to GIT Corp.!)
and
Movies

Especially if people know about cartoons on TV now which talk about Samurai (or talk about Ninjas as samurai) so far I know about Ninja Turtles.

Thanks!

World as Myth

well there's samurai jack, though I don't think there's much about that show that's steeped in fact

MagicToaster

Samurai Champloo was an awesome anime series that mixed a lot of hip-hop with meiji era swordsmen. Also, 7nin no Samurai (Seven Samurai) is an old movie, but it's about samurai.

RUNN1NGMAN

Well, you could kind of branch off and discuss Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven, particularly how a Japanese film about ronin in feudal Japan was "Westernized" into a movie about American gunslingers.

THEPAIN73

Super Human Samurai Cyber Squad? That is another example.

Samurai Pizza Cats also.

NotMeguChan

Are you looking at how they're portrayed in popular culture in Japan? America?...

Underdog

There's a fantastic moment in Seven Samurai dealing with the notion of the warriors and the reality of them. Spoiler'd for length:

The band of seven dudes have just shown up to the town and are starting to make preparations when Mifune's character comes barreling into the room, having just come across a cache of sweet samurai gear for everyone to use. He's all happy about it (he's not actually a samurai) but the other 6 know exactly why this town of poor villagers has such equipment; because they have killed samurai who have come through the area.

So the other 6 are all pissy now. They take their time and their lives to come out here and defend these worthless villagers only to find out that the villagers have killed their kind before. In fact, chances are if they had come through here alone, they would've been killed by the very people they were trying to save. One of the samurai (the true badass of the company) even says "I wish I could go out there and kill the whole village right now."

Mifune finally cues in to the situation and he starts going on a rant, seemingly supporting the samurai. He's like "Yeah, these worthless pieces of trash have killed samurai before. And for what? Just because samurai routinely come into villages, demand women to have sex with, take all the crops and leave nothing for anyone to eat and generally act like total shitheads? That's totally acceptable! Stupid villagers don't know their damn place! Who made them this way? You did!"

Then the other 6 dudes go from righteous anger to shame shame shame.

Wiki sums it up quicker but I loved this scene so I wanted to paraphrase it

Improvolone

That one guy (not Hiro, but he fits in here too) was a samurai in feudal Japan in Heroes season 2

SammyF

Well, how about The Last Samurai? There's actually a historical basis for that movie (Saigo Takamori was a real person). And the history of the story gets to the heart of the end of real Samurai culture when the Edo period of the Tokugawa Shogunate gave way to the Meiji restoration, before warrior code was reborn and reinvented in the aftermath of WWI during the run-up to WWII. That's a huge part of where the discrepancy between popular interpretation and historical accuracy comes from.

Neaden

RUNN1NGMAN wrote: »

Well, you could kind of branch off and discuss Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven, particularly how a Japanese film about ronin in feudal Japan was "Westernized" into a movie about American gunslingers.

Yojimbo and Fistful of Dollars is another Samurai/Western pair. The study of how post war samurai movies were influenced by early westerns and then went on to influence Sergio Leone and later western directors is all pretty interesting.

Fantasma

Maybe not what you are looking for, but you can read about their philosophy here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushido

There is also a book written by a samurai called "The way of the Samurai", and another one called "Book of five rings":

http://www.samurai.com/5rings/

Some more links for you consideration:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogun_(novel)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunted_(1995_film)

Sharp10r

Actually Fantasma that's exactly what I'm looking for, but I'll be dealing with translations of the primary sources as far as the philosophy(ies)/religion/and practices of the Samurai.
The 2nd part of the paper will contrast the real philosophies with the portrayal in media. Thanks for the tips! I will definitely use "Heroes," I'd forgotten about that. Kurosawa (sp?) films are great, but a bit older than "pop" culture, now more "cult classics." Thanks for the tips and keep them coming!
It's probably best for me to limit my scope to American media, but Japanese anime that has been published/broadcast in America would also count.
Samurai jack would be good too probably. I'll have to look into that.

TM2 Rampage

Rurouni Kenshin (Japanese period manga + anime ... with ridiculous super powers and stuff later on I think)

Ghost Dog (never saw it, but it's like, an American movie starring Forrest Whitaker as a modern samurai in an urban setting)

cj iwakura

There's a Jim Jarmusch(sp?) film with Forest Whitaker called Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai about a mafia hitman who follows the code of the samurai.

Excellent movie.

Wow, nice timing.

SammyF

The movie version of Rurouni Kenshin is, like, completely different from the series. In that it's really, really good and the series was really, really meh. Pick one or the other, don't try to treat them like they're the same thing or your paper will become unfocused.

Samurai Champloo was better, imho.

Daedalus

I see that Akira Kurosawa's movies have already been suggested, but I think I should suggest them again. Seven Samurai is probably the best foreign-language movie I've ever watched. Maybe the best movie I've ever watched; not quite sure.

Topweasel

Give Afro Samurai a look. the main character is voiced by Samuel L. Jackson.

GoodOmens

The Jedi were essentially samurai, or at least fictionalized versions.

clsCorwin

Ronin Warriors.

Also, Ghost Dog FTW!

Æthelred

*girlfriend hijacking boyfriend's account* there's this:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=B_qwUS8Uqjg

I know you didn't ask for songs but this amuses me because the qualities they are apparently looking for in their samurai are nothing I'd associate with one. I'm specialising in 19th century Japanese history in my degree, and we've often compared samurai to chavs (if you're not familiar with what a chav is, then you're better off really...). There really is a very distorted idea out there of what a samurai was.

Fallingman

I'll bite.

How are samurai like Chavs?

poshniallo

There is an astonishing amount of bullshit talked about samurai that passes as historical fact. Some people use the words bushi and buke to contrast the soldier-types with the nobles who were more administrators. Many samurai were no tougher than a European noble of the same period. That's quite aside from their behaviour towards commoners, which was often despicable.

If nothing else, Miyamoto's Five Rings is a must-read. It's wonderfully matter-of-fact, brutal, and has no time for honour - it's all about 'kill the other guy first' and not about 'defeat your foe honourably'.

As for modern media, there's the Silver Samurai in the X-men, plus the Wolvie/Mariko romance, which has been repeated endlessly, but was less ninja-y at the start.

MKR

The history channel has been running their Samurai documentary. It's amazing how far off my preconceived notions about them were. Very interesting show.

Fantasma

Fallingman wrote: »

I'll bite.

How are samurai like Chavs?

He is probably talking about Yakuza, who had a code on their own too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza

For the most type, samurais are just servants to the emperor, could be a warrior, or just an employee doing tax collection.

Æthelred

Fallingman wrote: »

I'll bite.

How are samurai like Chavs?

Swaggering around, kicking off and murdering people for 'disrespecting' them, and just generally causing trouble. Certainly not the sort of characteristics you'd be searching for in a boyfriend, which is my point. Somehow instead of that aspect of samurai, people now see them as some sort chivalrous fairy tale knight or something.

ViolentChemistry

Æthelred wrote: »

Fallingman wrote: »

I'll bite.

How are samurai like Chavs?

Swaggering around, kicking off and murdering people for 'disrespecting' them, and just generally causing trouble. Certainly not the sort of characteristics you'd be searching for in a boyfriend, which is my point. Somehow instead of that aspect of samurai, people now see them as some sort chivalrous fairy tale knight or something.

It's a lot like how people who know anything about western history respond to the cliche "chivalry is dead" with "I wish".

Gabriel_Pitt

ViolentChemistry wrote: »

Æthelred wrote: »

Fallingman wrote: »

I'll bite.

How are samurai like Chavs?

Swaggering around, kicking off and murdering people for 'disrespecting' them, and just generally causing trouble. Certainly not the sort of characteristics you'd be searching for in a boyfriend, which is my point. Somehow instead of that aspect of samurai, people now see them as some sort chivalrous fairy tale knight or something.

It's a lot like how people who know anything about western history respond to the cliche "chivalry is dead" with "I wish".

I was about to say, it's a lot like how people think of western knights as some sort of chivalrous fairy tale knight or something.

ViolentChemistry

Gabriel_Pitt wrote: »

ViolentChemistry wrote: »

Æthelred wrote: »

Fallingman wrote: »

I'll bite.

How are samurai like Chavs?

Swaggering around, kicking off and murdering people for 'disrespecting' them, and just generally causing trouble. Certainly not the sort of characteristics you'd be searching for in a boyfriend, which is my point. Somehow instead of that aspect of samurai, people now see them as some sort chivalrous fairy tale knight or something.

It's a lot like how people who know anything about western history respond to the cliche "chivalry is dead" with "I wish".

I was about to say, it's a lot like how people think of western knights as some sort of chivalrous fairy tale knight or something.

Oh knights and samurai were chivalrous alright, it's just that people mistake chivalry for being nice. It's a system designed to enforce a caste system, much like bushido.

acidlacedpenguin

I hear the movie Ronin is (apparently) a modern retelling of the seven samurai, though AFAIK they glossed over the whole samurai thing and only really talked about it in a single monologue.

There's a manga/anime series short-named Shura No Toki which deal with 11/3 (respectively) generations of fictional warriors during the heian and edo periods. Although the main characters are fake, often the side characters and the politics are based in truth.

I never managed to find the manga but the anime was pretty good.

Local H Jay

yojimbo

and then

TMNT2: Secret of the Ooze!

CrystalMethodist

Not my favorite article ever, but you might find it worthwhile to read:

http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0204-FEB_AMERICA?click=main_sr

It's basically about the symbolism of the pirate and the ninja, and why the ninja was popular in the 80's whereas the pirate is popular now. It might at least give you a good starting point for your analysis.

GungHo

poshniallo wrote: »

There is an astonishing amount of bullshit talked about samurai that passes as historical fact. Some people use the words bushi and buke to contrast the soldier-types with the nobles who were more administrators. Many samurai were no tougher than a European noble of the same period. That's quite aside from their behaviour towards commoners, which was often despicable.

If nothing else, Miyamoto's Five Rings is a must-read. It's wonderfully matter-of-fact, brutal, and has no time for honour - it's all about 'kill the other guy first' and not about 'defeat your foe honourably'.

So... just like a European noble of the same period.

Gabriel_Pitt wrote: »

I was about to say, it's a lot like how people think of western knights as some sort of chivalrous fairy tale knight or something.

It's not a "lot like." It's exactly like. The only difference really is romanticizing ritual suicide as opposed to romanticizing martyrdom. Other things, from a focus on sword-phalluses to treating women as if they're stupid and helpless is spot on. For societies that are supposed to be so far apart, it's frankly spooky and probably telling about the human condition when you compare both implementations of feudalism and the differences between the myths from and realities of those periods... along with the parallels between the Greeks/Romans and the Chinese.

poshniallo

GungHo wrote: »

poshniallo wrote: »

There is an astonishing amount of bullshit talked about samurai that passes as historical fact. Some people use the words bushi and buke to contrast the soldier-types with the nobles who were more administrators. Many samurai were no tougher than a European noble of the same period. That's quite aside from their behaviour towards commoners, which was often despicable.

If nothing else, Miyamoto's Five Rings is a must-read. It's wonderfully matter-of-fact, brutal, and has no time for honour - it's all about 'kill the other guy first' and not about 'defeat your foe honourably'.

So... just like a European noble of the same period.

Yes... that was my point too.

I particularly like the Book of Five Rings because it's the samurai of samurai writing his ideas down, and they're brutal and practical. So much of the primary sources for Japanese history are obscured by the self-romanticising, the Emperor worship and the hundreds of years of military dictatorship (call the Shogunate a spade).

But the BO5R is indisputable evidence for how the paragon of samurai really thought.