Difference beween Samurai and other warriers

[mutaro]

Hi, I am writing about Samurai for my paper right now. I wonder what other guys consider about Samurai in Japan. Also, how do you differ Samurai from other contries warriers? If you have any ideas, please let me know.
Thank you

[Mandylion]

That is a big topic!

- maybe you should start by telling us what you think first, then we can add our own thoughts when it is clear what you are interested in comparing. :-)

[nurizeko]

Indeed it is a big topic and i could help but i'de end up writing my own essay on it. :relief:

[TuskCracker]

I just went to Barnes & Nobles. Several books, in the low-cost book area, on Samurai.

[Silverbackman]

The Samurais are a lot like the feudal knight of medieval Europe and the feudal troops of ancient China. You have to be a bit more specific though.

[yidaki]

Samurai, bushido, zen, tea ceremonies, origami.
It's rather complicated, and paradoxal.
At the beginning they were this proud warrior class, ready to slash you down for looking at them.
Over hundreds of years of peace, they were the ones who brought forth the techniques of bonsai cutting and japanese gardening, the very things alot of people consider japanese.

In zen buddhism, there's alot of examples of 'proper behaviour' when referring to samurai.
One thing is about how focused you should be on the task at hand.
When you sit, sit, when you walk, walk, but never stumble.
A good samurai should be able to complete a last swing of his blade even if his own head is severed, that's the kind of decisiveness one should always have.
It's part of the bushido, which is heavily based on zen buddhism.

[pipokun]

It is a good start to choose the era, before/after the Edo.
Before the Edo, Europeans described samurai was taken as disloyal people...

[irishlight42]

Samurai, bushido, zen, tea ceremonies, origami.
It's rather complicated, and paradoxal.


Umm.... origami?

[Ost Prussia]

There is basically two type of the Japanese WARRIORS...First being Ashikagu(peasant soldier) and the Samurai. Usualy the Samurai did not use
Mukets, but their highred Ashikagu could. their were three unifiers of Japan .Oda Nobunaga used the Portugese Musket in a whole new way of warfare. After that Two more would struggle for power in Japan
The second being Toyotomi Hidiyoshi and the third Isyasu Togugawa.

[Shizu Seraph]

Discussing samurai is indeed a huge, complicated, and frustrating to boot. Why? Cause once you dig deeper, you'll find out a WHOLE shitload of misconceptions saturating society. Forget what you see in anime/manga; you've yet to see the REAL samurai.

As the others have said: be more specific What aspect of the samurai do you want to know? Is it the etymology? Is it the history? Is it the culture? Is it their social status? Is it the arms and armor? Is it "bushido"? Tell us...

And BTW, Ost Prussia, it's ashigaru. Not ashikagu. I supposed you confused it with Ashikaga, didn't you?

[warakawa]

the samurais were well respected in the old japanese society. they had better looking armour.

[Da Monstar]

us Norse was cooler. No warrior is cooler than the vikings. What other kind of warriors made use of the so-called "Berskergang" (too add to that, trust me, you do fight better drunk :box: but I havent tried out the mushrooms yet probably never will)

anyway for your project. Try go to www.wikipedia.org and choose the english(got most stuff on it) search for samurai.
I had a school project about "The Blitz" I just copy+pasted thw whole darn thing from the wikipedia and got around 3 pages of great info.. though my teacher saw through it :(

[GroglovesJapan]

Hi there,
Buddhism wasnt the only religion found in Japan. Shintoism is the native religion of Japan and thats still what many Samurai still believed in.
I did a talk a couple of years ago about the difference in weapons and armour between Japanese and the typical european of the same period. European armour had to keep changing with new weapons and styles of fighting, yet the Japanese armour had no need to change (altough at some point the lacing and metallurgy[spelling?] was altered and that in turn made it lighter and easier to move about in) but of course Japan was pretty closed off throughout history.
I myself prefer Japanese armour to anything else.