Samurai today

[ELITEOFKINGWARMAN8]

I always been fascinated with the Samurai! I always wanted to be one . Is there any "modern" Samurai still around? Just curious.

[Akrotatos]

Samurai society was abolished after the fall of the Shogunate and the Meiji restoration at the end of the 19th century. You can find descendants of samurai in Japan obviously, but they are not samurai themselves.

[shadyrome]

This is like asking are there any viking left...

[Nikos]

This is like asking are there any viking left...

No it's not. Samurai were a distinct social caste in Japan and had a special place in Japanese culture government and society.Vikings were Scandinavian raiders.

[D.B. Cooper]

It's like asking about modern-day Roman legionaries, except it's even more stupid as the legionaries were never officially abolished.

[the_mango55]

No it's not. Samurai were a distinct social caste in Japan and had a special place in Japanese culture government and society.Vikings were Scandinavian raiders.

Indeed, it's more like asking if Knights still exist.

And indeed, Knights are still around.

[Watchman]

Well, "knight" was first a profession (that is, a heavy cavalryman serving a feudal baron) and later a prestige title (involving onerous and complex ceremonies so expensive even most of the aristocracy couldn't afford getting it) and nowadays is merely a rank of the assorted national and whatever orders of merit...

Militarily the whole insitution of armoured lancer - the whole point of the knight for centuries - had been more or less entirely phased out by the end of the 16th century (brace of pistols replacing the old flagpole as the shock weapon of choice and formations and tactics changing accordingly), although persisted in East-Central Europe due to the character of local warfare.

The old noble families are still around, of course. Where would they have disappeared to ? Some transitioned smoothly enough into the new social elite of big-time capitalists, others went bankrupt, but AFAIK most naturally enough stick to their old family names and keep in touch, at least occasionally, with their "peers" socially and in random ceremonial occasions.

[Akrotatos]

To be fair, Samurais disappeared only a little over a century ago. Cut him some slack

[ELITEOFKINGWARMAN8]

I meant if there was anyone trying to keep up the Samurai spirit you know in one form or another.

[Akrotatos]

People that still teach traditional martial arts still exist but the samurai spirit is extinct and good ridance. Things like honor and seppuku etc sound cool in manga but samurais also abused 90% of Japan's population that had no way of fighting back.

[Azog 150]

I meant if there was anyone trying to keep up the Samurai spirit you know in one form or another.

In and around WW2, that 'Samurai spirit' as you called it is what made their soldiers so damn crazy. The government tried hard throughout the 30's and the war to reinvigorate that Samurai spirit and their fighting values- consequently they spawned a breed of soldiers willing to die for their Emperor and die before defeat and do damn right crazy stuff in the Emperors name. It took an atomic bomb to crush that spirit.

However, even nowadays there has been several cases of people committing Sepuku (Ritual suicide) in the same fashion of the old Samurai's.

[Frédéric Chopin]

I've heard that talking like a samurai has become a fad in Japan. I'm not sure how true this is, but you could do that.

[Lord Consul]

No. You can't bear white arms in Japan without a specific certificate emitted by the local Prefecture. The Bushido is not considered State doctrine any more and since the Meiji Restoration the class system has been abolished.

However, some major bakufu families are still going strong, such as the Tokugawa and Ashikaga clans.

[MaximiIian]

Samurai culture? Not really, no. It died when the administrative feudal system was abolished in the Meiji Revolution.

But since samurai were more of a social class whose membership was determined by birth, it's hard to say that Samurai don't exist period. The descendants of samurai clans still exist and thrive, so yeah I'd say they do exist today. They just lack formal entrenched social status due to the abolition of the provincial feudal system a little over a century ago.

[Aru]

Aside from the all-mighty Samurai spirit and crap, is there any equivalent in Japan of modern European nobility? In a sense that descendants of old nobility are gathered in citizen association(s) or maintain their noble houses (like Habsburgs in Europe)? Or is Japanese royal family the only one?

[antaeus]

the samurai ideal has to some degree been incorporated into ideals about what it means to be modern japanese and their sense of honour. of course this is bastardised and different to the reality, but most peoples are affected by the ideals of their ancestors.. you can say the same about the american founding fathers and their impact on the american psyche.

of course, the military elements of samurai warfare were never exclusive to them alone, and you can learn them now just as you can learn the arts from any past warrior class anywhere... kendo and other martial arts stress elements of bushido or the warrior spirit.. to a degree you can pick up elements of this mentality in japanese society as a whole... as witnessed by things like the refusal to apologise over ww2 actions, or the semi feudal nature of japanese businessmen...


[/generalisations]

edit: you can find parallels to samurai all over the world, it just depends on how strictly you define their characteristics... you could for example look at european religious orders... or the various feudal families of medieval europe etc..