Nakama Britannica

When people think of Japanese stereotypes, samurais and ninjas must be the most disseminated ones in pop culture. Ninjas were spies and assassins, warriors said to possess the powers of ninjutsu, the ninja techniques, and the image of the ninja dressed all in black is a powerful one.

Samurais in their full armour are also a very powerful image. But for aesthetic reasons, they usually appear in their kimonos in anime and manga.

There are no famous ninjas worth talking about, after all a known ninja is a ninja who blew his cover. But the same can’t be said for samurais. Many of them survived in history and legend and I dare say it’s impossible to like anime without meeting a character inspired by a samurai or even a romanticized version of one.

I’m going to talk a little bit about three samurais that not only existed, but whose legend were so great that they live on the imagination of many Japanese to this day.

Let’s start with a name that may sound familiar to any Final Fantasy fan – Date Masamune. Masamune was not a sword or even a sword smith, as some people believe, mainly influenced by the Final Fantasy franchise. He was a feudal lord of the Tohoku region, whose name would strike fear on the hearts of his enemies. As he waged war against many rival clans, the Hatakeyama family invited his father for dinner to request him to put an end to his son war campaign. After his father refuses to comply, the Hatakeyama decided to kidnap him to force Masamune into submission.

Masamune then chased his father kidnappers and once they closed in, the father gave the order to Masamune’s men to kill all the kidnappers, without regards for his own safety. They did as they were told and Masamune’s father got killed in the incident. Masamune not only continued his war, but also chased, tortured and killed the families of his father’s kidnappers.

This little story only shows Masamune’s ruthlessness, but he was also known as patron of Christianity in feudal Japan. His greatest achievement was supporting the construction of the Datemaru, an European-styled ship who were sent on a diplomatic / exploration mission and is considered to be the first round the world trip from a Japanese ship.

Little is known about our next samurai, Jubei Yagyu. In 1616, he became a sword instructor for the shogun and then, nothing is heard of him until 1631, when Jubei is dismissed from duty without any explanation. Which caused many to speculate that he actually asked to leave on a journey to perfect his skills. Jubei disappeared for twelve years, only to re-appear in a demonstration in front of the shogun and been re-instated shortly after. This 12 years gap in history is what caused many writers, mangaká and movie directors’ imagination to wander. For some unknown reason, Jubei is commonly portrayed as someone who helped the weak and oppressed. Whether this is accurate or have any historical supporting fact is unknown.

Many claim that if not for his disappearance, he would have vanished into history already. If this is true or not, it’s hard to tell. What I can tell is that Jubei inspired several characters I’ve enjoyed myself, such as Onimusha’s, Ninja Scroll or Jubei-chan’s. Another legend around Jubei is the eye patch. Portraits from his time, shows him as having both eyes, but for some reason, the image of Jubei in the public is that of one-eyed samurai who wears an eye patch, like a pirate. The eye patch can be seems in series such as Jubei-chan or Shura no Toki.

The last Samurai, I’m talking about here is the one who is regarded as the greatest Samurai ever, Miyamoto Musashi. He is famed for three things – writing The Book of Five Rings, creating the niten-ryu style and fighting over 60 duels.

The book of the five rings is a book on strategy, tactics and philosophy that Musashi wrote when he was 61 years old. Even now, this book is still studied and you could easily get it even from Amazon. This could be an interesting read if you’re into this type of books.

The Niten-Ryu style is also another amazing feat. Niten-ryu is a sword style that uses two swords. Although, at first, using two swords doesn’t seems like a big deal and considering that it looks really stylish on screen, that isn’t the most pragmatic thing to do, as one person holding a sword two-handed is more likely to overpower the one using only one hand.

But the feat that granted Musashi the title of greatest samurai of all times is the fact that he fought and won over 60 duels in a time where most duels ended up in either death or mutilation. He also fought a few wars in his time, he was on the loser’s side on the Battle of Sekigahara, but on the war between Toyotomi and Tokugawa, he was on the wining side. How Musashi came into Tokugawa’s good grace is unknown, but some says he fought Tokugawa and when Tokugawa sensed his imminent defeat, he recruited him.

Musashi appearances in games, manga and anime are simply too many to even cite on this post. From Rocket team female part of the duo in Pokemon (known in English as Jessie) to the aforementioned Shura no Toki. There are also 36 live action movies about him, where a trilogy starring Toshiro Mifune is the best known movies. My favourite Musashi appearance has got to be in Takehiko Inoue’s Vagabond manga, which is simply the most realistic depiction in a manga about that era.

There are many other famous samurais in history such as Yukimura Sanada (Samurai Deeper Kyo), Hajime Saito (Samurai X), Hatori Hanzo (Gintama), Sasaki Kojiro (Fate/Stay), Tokugawa Ieyasu (Saber Marionette J) and a list that could go on and on, but those three represent some interesting historical figures that inspired many mangakás and writers that in return created amazing stories with them.