I don't disagree with skepticism but this channel has good credentials. Also if you research a little on samurai you find head hunting has a strong foundation of truth, including my ancestors from the Tokugawa
Hello everyone. My Name is Antony Cummins and I am the author of this video. I hope that you enjoyed it and that the information is new, or that it confirmed your research. The documents we used where: Heika Jodan and Ippei Yoko (multiple transcriptions all of which can be found in Japan). They were written by Natori Masazumi who was writing in c.1670. His goal was to preserve the war skills of his grandfather's generation, veterans of the wars. Please leave your comments for me here and try to keep this message at the top. I will periodically return to answer what i can.
Hello Antony Cummins and Top Tenz I am fascinated by the Japanese Warrior culture of the time and how they were the Nobility and head of society of their time ( kind of like the knights of Japan) but what I am fascinated about the most is a Samurai under the command of Oda Nobunaga. his name was Yasuke and we was brought to japan by Portuguese Traders..... do you know of any info on this
Hello Anthony. I've bought 5 books of yours and plan to get this book soon. I was curious how difficult it would be to get a signed copy of the book of samurai? If I have to order a copy, ship to you and even pay to have signed, I am willing to do so. Or if you have a copy available that you could sign and sell, will be amazing. Please let me know if either is something you're willing to do. Thank you for your good work.
Do you have his full name and have you found him in Wiki? In short i answer the question "what do samurai do" and do not deal with historical figures so much. But give me his full name and i will try.
There is little known about him or his exact origins but I have found an interesting article on him oddly enough it is posted by the U.S. Marines....but here it is www.mcasiwakuni.marines.mil/News/News-Stories/News-Article-Display/Article/503891/the-legend-of-yasuke/
this channel has already released one inaccurate video on the samurai (the metatron has a video debunking it), and while the facts presented here are backed up by historical documents they are presented in a very misleading and disingenuous manor. the majority of the video focuses on the collection of heads for the verification of killing high ranking enemies, but makes this sound very gruesome and uncommon despite the fact that the collection of bodies and body parts for verification of the death of high ranking officials has been and still is a common occurrence during warfare (remember photos of saddam's sons being published during the previous iraq invasion) which is further amplified by the multiple inflammatory references to the samurai (and thusly ancient japanese culture) as a "head cult". even if the samurai prescribed some fanciful notion such as gaining the strength of one's opponent by collecting their head (which, as far as i'm aware they did not) it would not be that out of place for the time period, especially for a culture that had limited trade and interaction with western culture. it would be bad enough to just present random things you've found on the net as a list of facts, but citing historical sources and then presenting the data in an inaccurate or misleading form is just disgraceful. i'm not being critical of your work, antony, only the way in which it was presented in this video. i chose to post this here just because it's more likely to be seen and only address you to let that be known. i'd love to hear your take on this as a historian, but do not expect it as i wouldn't want to cause you any hassle.
You can always trust the samurai to get a head of the crowd. . . yeah, I went there ^_^ Come on guys, lets make a thread of the most samurai head jokes!
You forgot one thing though : Once they loaded the room with decapitated heads it was the women that were appointed to take care of the heads . Like carefully salting the heads for better preservation and also sleep in the same room with the heads ! it was a sort of 24 hour job for about a week or so !
Oh..... My...... Goodness.... A commenter used "you're"...... Correctly!!! Although the apostrophe was omitted (but that's absolutely excusable). Kudos, well taught other human.
Can you guys do something based on the art of war by sun tzu? Like top 10 lessons from the art of war or something? Thank you! Great job on the video by the way!
Top Nep - "Top ten". The whole book is a "top". One of the greatest books on warfare. There's no taking 'top ten' from it when the whole thing is invaluable if you can understand the contents.
There is a VERY good book called, Bushido:The Soul of Japan. The hidden message in the story is that, even though a samurai may be hired as a bodyguard for a prince, they will always keep their loyalty to their families service and/or loyalty to their kings they pledged to. The tyrant brother who has one of three of these hired bodyguards (Retainer) orders him to kill his brother to hold the throne. The other two retainers are hired by one of the other three prince brothers, one of them being promised the throne. The hidden message comes in to play when the triplet retainers realize one of the princes was the lord of their father, so through their fathers honor, they sacrifice themselves due to shame brought about their house unknowingly, all but one who was pledged to the tyrant prince (the triplet retainer, still living uses his sins to bring honor back to the exiled prince). Ending with the tyrant prince demanding the head of the child who was born from this prince (He was thought to be assassinated, but wasn't. Also he was exiled by his tyrant brother). The retainer knowing that the Tyrant wanted the head of the royal bloodline, decided to deceive the tyrant by giving him his own sons head (His son looked almost identical to the princes). There is a lot more context to it but the main lesson is, The way of the bushido was based on honor. A man following bushido would sacrifice his life, or his families life, just to keep that honor. The retainers son and wife both knew in order to keep this honor, they had to give them their sons head. This was how ALL samurai were taught, the boy even knowing his death was assured gave it to protect the honor that his father (The retainer) lost. The samurai would sacrifice everything to keep that honor, and it was something us americans could not understand, how the philosophy could possible be effective. To sum it up, the way of Bushido is completely based on loyalty, even if it means killing their entire family to murder a king they do not hold loyalty to, even if they are hired to protect them. Quite an amazing story/play.
Charles Maxwell it's virtually a work of fiction. It became the standard to which people were supposed to aspire, but had very little to do with historical reality previous to that point. The guy who wrote it was no historian and did so in America and it wasn't even translated and published in Japan until 15 years later. It was used as a tool for the kind of nationalism that helped bring about WW2 and that's why it has become regarded as historical truth but the fact is there was no such concept as bushido in that form until the book was written. It's the equivalent of a westerner writing about King Arthur's round table and chivalric code then saying that it was how knights actually behaved in history and that modern generals should be the same.
Yes I understand it's as I stated, a story. The story was concocted from the way of Bushido, and even though the actual title may have been as queer and as real to some as Patriotism is in North America, it was a real following. Sacrificing ones self is the least a follower of Bushido can perform to restore some honor. The belief that not only sacrificing your body, but your heart and soul is the most prestigious thing a follower could do, and would not only clear their name from dishonor, but the entire family name. (Heart and Soul could very well refer to your lover and children) Now I'm not saying other cultures didn't follow this way, but for an advanced civilization at the time to still follow this way of belief was very astounding to American soldiers since just signing up to go to war, to us Americans, was considered an honorable thing to do (Well I should say, to SOME Americans. Soldiers going to and coming from war during those times did not get the same respect they do now). Now even, for the population of Japan to go from the idealistic of Bushido, to one of the most advanced countries (More so in technology than culture of arts), is impressive to say the least. The same could be said about the Vietnamese and now possibly Islamic or Muslims. I won't say they're exactly the same as Bushido followers but the idea could be comparable in many factors.
first: only the first crusade was actually successful second: one of them raided Constantinople instead of going for the holy land third: the crusades advanced European architecture by exposing them to other forms of architecture four: c'mon man what makes you think they would do the topic justice and not cherry pick out of context scraps of information (like this list) to fill the video?
Actually, the first crusade saw the raiding of Constantinople as well! Basically the only successful crusade was the first one, and some of the smaller Crusades throughout Europe like the Albigensian Crusade. Also the fourth Crusade, also witnessed the complete take over of Constantinople and forced the Byzantine empire out of the city and gave a lot of control to Venice!
Yuck. It is amazing how we as humans seem to have an overwhelming need to devalue the worth of other human beings, especially in issues such as war. If an opponent was valued enough to fight, seems like their bodies would be valued after death.
The katana was really a secondary melee weapon, hardly used. The yari (spears) and naginata were the melee weapons of choice, and as said before the bow was even more prominent. Much later it became somewhat of a status symbol for Samurai when their warring days were over and firearms were common. My hypothesis: The katana's status is mostly from Western fascination with Samurai and because in medieval Europe swords were used much more. We probably combined the two and took to the Samurai sword as the symbol of Samurai warfare.
The "taking or defeding of heads" is somehow similar to the epic "taking or defending armor" by ancien greek heroes as described in the Iliad by Homer.
the samurai in 9:00 looks so fearsome. awesome photo. but the last one should be named samurai did not fight fairly in *WAR* it's stupid to do so fair fights are for duals
first off let me say this is not a negative comment. this video was much better than your previous samurai videos. the only thing that I question is, how do you become a "samurai expert"
Antony Cummins is a anthropologist that studies samurai and with help translates and publishes old documents. He, along with Steven Turnbull are some of the best when in comes to studying the samurai culture.
I have a friend that is a historian, writer and performer. His name is Gideon Hodge. He was famous recently for running into a burning building to save his novel. lol You should message him, I bet he'd love something like this!
Video was OK, but I feel like the list focused a little too much on the aspect of decapitated heads, and not on OTHER aspects of samurai warfare. Some diversity between the numbers would have been appreciated.
The Book of Samurai is truly excellent in a way that many other translated samurai toms are not! Well worth a read with some very useful comments and ideas throughout. Do check it out.
CharlieSwabb I saw a documentary about a guy that had to fake death to survive and was scalped while doing so, and still kept up the act. Much respect.
Noot only them. Look at wat the Celts did back in those days. Especially those of Ireland did a good job at headhunting. They sometimes even scooped out the brains instead of entire heads.
One thing: chop off a head is not an easy task - it can be more tiring than combat if you are not skill. Able to collect one or two head without tiring yourself (during war), this action itself already tell other how skilled you are. This is why the invention of ''Guillotine' is considered as one of the best invention. It allowed execution to perform in most humane way - without the victim suffering, and without the executioner suffering. Seriously, imagine you have to chop someone head off but you failed to do so after you land 5 hit on their neck - victim is not dying, he is mourning in pain, but his head just won't come off, you feel panic, and the crowed start angry at you because they think you are toying with the victim.
I think it was only a Muramasa that had to taste blood if drawn... Legends say that using one filled the wielder with a powerful bloodlust, that might even cause him to shed his own blood to satiate the blade.
Yeah, pure clickbait title. Just random info put into a 'top ten' list. Even the headcollecting and skinning isn't so much horrifying as it is just plain macabre since it is done for a practical reason.
Horrifying is collecting heads to stuff them as trophies, horrifying is skinning people alive. Cutting a corpses head off in order to provide proof of the deed is merly maccabre. Further skinning a patch of that head because you don't want to lugg around the head all the way is just further disgusting and maccabre, not horrifying.
Alexis Perron what alchi101 is trying to say that if we were all samurai, it is the norm of that time since there were no cctvs or gps present to prove that you were able to kill a warrior of such position therefore it was acceptable back then. I believe it was also mentioned in the video that the heads were also returned as respect to the enemy, something we dont see necessary today. If you think the samurai and their genocide crusade were horrifying, what do you think about nuclear warheads that could be activated with just a few nuclear codes and a single command from a certain "commander in chief/prime minister/president/sulta/monarch"? But of course you havent thought about that simply because it is the norm at present.
So rather than 10 facts, you've listed multiple instances referring to the same basic concept...While Headhunting is a singular and interesting / horrifying fact yes, but then splitting that down into partial details to pad your list is kind of lazy.
As an addendum to #1, the Samurai were known for dipping their arrow heads in horse dung, so enemies who got non-fatally shot by arrows could still die of...shit, I forgot the disease.
Kris Martin I'm afraid that's not entirely true. 'Vader' is Dutch for father. The German word for father is 'vater'. Which, I admit, looks the same. But sounds very different. The same with the English pronunciation of 'vader' and the Dutch one. Vader in English sounds like in'vader'. The Dutch put the emphasis more on the 'a' by streching it a little. It's hard to explain without actually pronounciating it for you. I'm afraid you have to take my word for it. My only authority is that I'm a cheese eating, wooden shoe walking, water loving Dutch bastard myself. About the German helmet thing, I don't know, could be. I image George Lucas had many inspirations. Why not WW2 German helmets? Fits the theme. However the Japanese kabuto helmet looks more familiar to the Darth Vader helmet in my most humble of opinions.
keukenkastje05 In the original films George Lucas had kendo and fencing instructors choreograph the duels, but I also believe ww1 & ww2 was part of the inspiration for the war against the galactic empire. I think Darth Vader has inspiration from both, he is like a samurai Stalin in my opinion
Nobody more trustworthy than someone who uses poisons and traps for assassinations. At least the Samurai let you draw your weapon first. A ninja's goal is to kill unseen.
Well as long as ninja were paid they would honor their engagement unlike those samourai who changed side when people give them more land and a better Katana. + Ninja was a job not a class, samourai could be ninja as well as woman or merchants or nobles etc... their goal was simply to use conflict to maximise their profits.
Loved this video always a grate thing to learn more about samurai after watching I jumped right on line and ordered the book of samurai. Hope too see more amazing videos like this keep up the grate work guys
Another point for the vent at the top of the kabuto or helmet was that in earlier times the kabuto didn't have a liner so the samurai wore a stocking cap called an eboshi. The eboshi along with the tuff to tied hair under it would be pulled through the vent to keep the knot predestine and unflattened. An example, albeit small, can be seen on this page. www.iz2.or.jp/english/fukusyoku/wayou/36.htm
Helgi Páll Eiríksson Beside the fact that never anyone claimed that the crusades don't have anything to do with religion and that the crusades 800 years ago where fought to recapture former christian land and holy places which were at first conquered and ravaged by Islam.
The Japanese word for head is "atama". "Kubi" actually means "neck". There's an awesome idiom in japanese that's used the way we would say someone got fired from a job: "kubi ni narimashta"... "he became a neck"... which makes sense, because if they remove your head, all that's left of you is your neck. Interestingly, the Japanese word for "knee" is "ashi-kubi" or "foot/leg neck". The word for foot and leg are the same word in Japanese.
As far as I know, criminals were the preferred test. Specifically those sentenced to death - granted in most medieval societies that would be pretty much all of them.
They did, if they felt like doing so. Because nobody would dare challenge a samurai if he felt like testing his new sword on a peasant unlucky enough to pass by.
More prisoners and corpses. A swords worth was determined by how many bodies it could cut through in a test cut. Seven bodies is thought to be the highest ever recorded.
I hate how this guy screws around with his facts. The "primary aim" of the Samurai on the field of battle was head collecting? The PRIMARY aim? Uh....no....the primary aim was survival, secondary aim was killing the enemy, third aim was loot. After that was accomplished there was time for the glory involved with bringing home a bunch of heads. There would have been no samurai archers or horsemen if their primary objective was head collecting, they would all have been katana men and yari men.
how is number 1 horrifying? If anything that sounds practical to me. What, you want chivalry to be there in war? Please.... All is fair in Love and War.
That´s why the samurai had beards so their heads wouldn´t be confused with female heads. But I wonder what would happen if some Shogun or Emperor would have made the decision to invade the Visayas, the samurai wore heavy armor and layers upon layers of clothing they also wielded curved swords and used long bows but didn´t use shields, the Visayans how ever was wearing light weight armor from water buffalo hide and was merely wearing loinclothes rather then multiple layers of clothing they also used straight swords, shields and short bows. The samurai swords has been deemed useless against shields and further more the samurai went to samurai school at the age of seven but didn´t actually kill anyone until their first battle or duel over honor or some shit like that (and no killing farmers and other commoners doesn´t count) the visayans how ever carried out their first kill at the age of 12 in a rite of passage to be worthy to be called men. The samurai would possibly win in the short run but what about the long run remember that the visayan Rajah Lapu Lapu defeated Ferdinand Magellan with ease.
Squiddy McSquid Well I am aware of that but both of us are also aware of that in times of peace the samurai was sitting on their asses doing nothing because their samurai title didn´t allow them to do anything else then being samurai. While the visayans went raiding as well as fighting off raiders.
Hi sander nielsen. I know ure pinoy, so please stop trying to over glorified your ancestor and claiming that they are t3h most d3adlyzzz warri0rs... pinoy pride..LOL
Wondering if anyone would mention that xD It should be noted I haven't actually watched the video and I know very little on the subject, so I'm not trying to say it's wrong. Honestly... I clicked here 'cos I thought it was the video he corrected and I was wondering how it could be only 5 days old
Hello. I am the author of this video and i have spent my life researching these documents. However, just to be sure i sent the script to Metatron - who admits this is my area - and he found zero fault with it. So there will be zero debunking. My team only deal with primary sources. I hope this helps.
i actually went and watched that other video and the guy only debunked like 3 or 4 facts. the rest of the points were valid but the guy just expanded on the context more. in this video, the guy won't find anything to debunk.
Excellent informative video. Now I want to get the book and read it. Not just historic opinions but backed anthropological study. Great info. Thanks for sharing it Top Tenz.
Entertaining, yes. But, I think this list might have been called “10 Items Lost in Translation.” I would seriously urge those interested in the art or history to dig deeper and with more accurate translations. What Mr. Cummings (I mean Ms. Minami) has translated is very off. But, to his (her) credit, translating modern Japanese into English is very difficult. Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream learned this a few years ago when the top-selling ice cream worldwide did not sell at all in Japan. This top flavor (Chunky Monkey) did not indicate banana ice cream with fudge pieces. It was translated to Chunks of Monkey. That is exactly what you have here. Thank you to Simon and the team for their work! I enjoy it all.
except that he is right, they didnt had much quality metal on japan during the time of samurais, and you talk as if was not the katanas that had that "cult" surrounding them (edit typo)
+oil massage Good quality steel was very rare in Japan. They also has much more primitive forges that were not able to reach the far higher temperatures of medieval Europe. European longswords were not only stronger, but just as sharp.
I love that you have really dramatic, poetic and religious claims: We gather in high places to unite with the spirits of war so that they can unite us across all of japan! Then you have: I'm gonna go up here so my mates can actually see me
It's simple. Women couldn't be there on the battlefront to satisfy sexual urges. Some were also misogynistic as warriors. They had contempt for female frailties and behaviors. This applied to quite a few ancient warrior groups. That's why some guys love tomboys. Girly-girl "feminine" behavior just isn't a turn on for some.
I remember playing the original Shogun Total War as a kid. Hearing about the head collecting custom after a battle isnt really new to me; the nose collecting is though.
josef stalin no, not even historically. But samurai have a corrupt and thuggish image. And they are used in modern japanese political discourse to describe criminals and corrupt politicians.
josef stalin Nope. Just thugs. Sorta like knights in europe. They're reputation is innaccurate. Theres good reasons most people in the world don't live in fiefdoms and pure monarchy's anymore. The reality wasn't as noble as the fantasy.
Heads up.......another cutting edge video from Simon and Friends. At least after the Samurai code declined the sword makers had the kitchen knife industry to fall back on. Seriously, a very interesting if bloody video, thanks.
"He achieved death" - I'm going to have this on my grave stone.
How about : "Whew" ! "Made it" !
I wasn't fired from my last job ... I simply achieved unemployment.
Hilarious hahahaa
samurai got a lot of head back then.
[falls off couch laughing]
get it get it
har har
Joseph Christovich you legend
Mr. Doob Thank you.
should have just called this video "top 10 things samurai did with heads"
Heads are disembodied, bodies are decapitated.
Saying "decapitated head" is saying "headless head".
JackTradesman How can there be a head of the head has no head.
@@only-mint head
JackTradesman yea, nobody cares about the semantics since we all know what is meant by it.
More like bodiless head.
"1 Samurai did not fight fairly" I could answer this with another quote "If fight is fair, your tactics suck."
So, Samurai were basically Predators without active camouflage?
No no no, the active camouflage is still a thing. I mean, have You seen any Samurai lately? No? Point proven.
*****
see, they are sneaky them Samurai. Just like the Dinosaurs. Terribly sneaky, the Dinosaurs.
and predators don't return the heads to their owerns family when they're done
Say's a yt video. Dont believe everything about culture u find on youtube lmao
I don't disagree with skepticism but this channel has good credentials. Also if you research a little on samurai you find head hunting has a strong foundation of truth, including my ancestors from the Tokugawa
Hello everyone. My Name is Antony Cummins and I am the author of this video. I hope that you enjoyed it and that the information is new, or that it confirmed your research. The documents we used where: Heika Jodan and Ippei Yoko (multiple transcriptions all of which can be found in Japan). They were written by Natori Masazumi who was writing in c.1670. His goal was to preserve the war skills of his grandfather's generation, veterans of the wars. Please leave your comments for me here and try to keep this message at the top. I will periodically return to answer what i can.
Hello Antony Cummins and Top Tenz I am fascinated by the Japanese Warrior culture of the time and how they were the Nobility and head of society of their time ( kind of like the knights of Japan) but what I am fascinated about the most is a Samurai under the command of Oda Nobunaga. his name was Yasuke and we was brought to japan by Portuguese Traders..... do you know of any info on this
Hello Anthony. I've bought 5 books of yours and plan to get this book soon. I was curious how difficult it would be to get a signed copy of the book of samurai? If I have to order a copy, ship to you and even pay to have signed, I am willing to do so. Or if you have a copy available that you could sign and sell, will be amazing. Please let me know if either is something you're willing to do. Thank you for your good work.
Do you have his full name and have you found him in Wiki? In short i answer the question "what do samurai do" and do not deal with historical figures so much. But give me his full name and i will try.
There is little known about him or his exact origins but I have found an interesting article on him oddly enough it is posted by the U.S. Marines....but here it is
www.mcasiwakuni.marines.mil/News/News-Stories/News-Article-Display/Article/503891/the-legend-of-yasuke/
this channel has already released one inaccurate video on the samurai (the metatron has a video debunking it), and while the facts presented here are backed up by historical documents they are presented in a very misleading and disingenuous manor. the majority of the video focuses on the collection of heads for the verification of killing high ranking enemies, but makes this sound very gruesome and uncommon despite the fact that the collection of bodies and body parts for verification of the death of high ranking officials has been and still is a common occurrence during warfare (remember photos of saddam's sons being published during the previous iraq invasion) which is further amplified by the multiple inflammatory references to the samurai (and thusly ancient japanese culture) as a "head cult". even if the samurai prescribed some fanciful notion such as gaining the strength of one's opponent by collecting their head (which, as far as i'm aware they did not) it would not be that out of place for the time period, especially for a culture that had limited trade and interaction with western culture. it would be bad enough to just present random things you've found on the net as a list of facts, but citing historical sources and then presenting the data in an inaccurate or misleading form is just disgraceful.
i'm not being critical of your work, antony, only the way in which it was presented in this video. i chose to post this here just because it's more likely to be seen and only address you to let that be known. i'd love to hear your take on this as a historian, but do not expect it as i wouldn't want to cause you any hassle.
Thats one way to get a head in life.
Now that's using...your head.
Lets not lose our heads in all these puns
can we not head this way with these puns...
You're giving me headache with these puns
I feel like we have to make a clean cut here
Bring decapatated head for bounty is not only samurai thing. It's happened all around the world
He's saying they did it the most
Nine Breaker what about the french revoulition
SimpDestroyer what about Iraq and Afghanistan
You can always trust the samurai to get a head of the crowd. . . yeah, I went there ^_^
Come on guys, lets make a thread of the most samurai head jokes!
Hi Shad mate. Glad you got here
Those guys really knew how to give head to their lords.
Antony Cummins Iv just ordered your book I can't wait to read it.. It will be kept next to sun tzu art of war..
I'd lose my head if it weren't attached
the Japanese enjoyed getting head from their enemies.
I can't find anything on the kubichō.
Does anyone know of a page where I can read more on this...
BOOK OF HEADS?
6:05 Darth Vaders ancestor
Ralph McQuarry (concept artist for Star Wars) did indeed base Vaders helmet on samurai styles.
Exactly what I was thinking when I saw him!! lol
but, star wars happened a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away. if anything he's vaders descendant
holyshit!! mind blown
Dank Squidgey
You forgot one thing though : Once they loaded the room with decapitated heads it was the women that were appointed to take care of the heads . Like carefully salting the heads for better preservation and also sleep in the same room with the heads ! it was a sort of 24 hour job for about a week or so !
One of the few "Top 10" style videos on RUclips that is actually worthwhile.
Well done.
Thank you!!!
TheJapanChannel contact me through email (not youtube) i would love to collab with you.
not at all, he repeated the heads skinning way too much
Youre doing the right thing doing collabs with knowlegdable guys like Raffaello and Anthony. Good.
He goes by the Metatron on RUclips
***** Yepp. The metatron :)
***** Whupps. ^^"
Audrianna Henson Yeah ? ^^
Oh..... My...... Goodness.... A commenter used "you're"...... Correctly!!! Although the apostrophe was omitted (but that's absolutely excusable). Kudos, well taught other human.
5:54 Samurai Vader
Phil V true
Darth Vader was based on samurai armor and the stahelm
5:58 Darth Vader cosplays a Samurai
Loving these new collabs! Really great video :)
Can you guys do something based on the art of war by sun tzu? Like top 10 lessons from the art of war or something? Thank you! Great job on the video by the way!
just read the book you lazy entitled pleb
Top Nep - "Top ten". The whole book is a "top". One of the greatest books on warfare. There's no taking 'top ten' from it when the whole thing is invaluable if you can understand the contents.
rave2mygravejoe he could even read cliff notes and it'd be less lazy than watching a top 10 vid
This is so metal.
There is a VERY good book called, Bushido:The Soul of Japan.
The hidden message in the story is that, even though a samurai may be hired as a bodyguard for a prince, they will always keep their loyalty to their families service and/or loyalty to their kings they pledged to.
The tyrant brother who has one of three of these hired bodyguards (Retainer) orders him to kill his brother to hold the throne. The other two retainers are hired by one of the other three prince brothers, one of them being promised the throne.
The hidden message comes in to play when the triplet retainers realize one of the princes was the lord of their father, so through their fathers honor, they sacrifice themselves due to shame brought about their house unknowingly, all but one who was pledged to the tyrant prince (the triplet retainer, still living uses his sins to bring honor back to the exiled prince).
Ending with the tyrant prince demanding the head of the child who was born from this prince (He was thought to be assassinated, but wasn't. Also he was exiled by his tyrant brother).
The retainer knowing that the Tyrant wanted the head of the royal bloodline, decided to deceive the tyrant by giving him his own sons head (His son looked almost identical to the princes).
There is a lot more context to it but the main lesson is, The way of the bushido was based on honor. A man following bushido would sacrifice his life, or his families life, just to keep that honor. The retainers son and wife both knew in order to keep this honor, they had to give them their sons head. This was how ALL samurai were taught, the boy even knowing his death was assured gave it to protect the honor that his father (The retainer) lost. The samurai would sacrifice everything to keep that honor, and it was something us americans could not understand, how the philosophy could possible be effective.
To sum it up, the way of Bushido is completely based on loyalty, even if it means killing their entire family to murder a king they do not hold loyalty to, even if they are hired to protect them. Quite an amazing story/play.
Charles Maxwell it's virtually a work of fiction. It became the standard to which people were supposed to aspire, but had very little to do with historical reality previous to that point. The guy who wrote it was no historian and did so in America and it wasn't even translated and published in Japan until 15 years later. It was used as a tool for the kind of nationalism that helped bring about WW2 and that's why it has become regarded as historical truth but the fact is there was no such concept as bushido in that form until the book was written. It's the equivalent of a westerner writing about King Arthur's round table and chivalric code then saying that it was how knights actually behaved in history and that modern generals should be the same.
Yes I understand it's as I stated, a story. The story was concocted from the way of Bushido, and even though the actual title may have been as queer and as real to some as Patriotism is in North America, it was a real following. Sacrificing ones self is the least a follower of Bushido can perform to restore some honor. The belief that not only sacrificing your body, but your heart and soul is the most prestigious thing a follower could do, and would not only clear their name from dishonor, but the entire family name. (Heart and Soul could very well refer to your lover and children)
Now I'm not saying other cultures didn't follow this way, but for an advanced civilization at the time to still follow this way of belief was very astounding to American soldiers since just signing up to go to war, to us Americans, was considered an honorable thing to do (Well I should say, to SOME Americans. Soldiers going to and coming from war during those times did not get the same respect they do now).
Now even, for the population of Japan to go from the idealistic of Bushido, to one of the most advanced countries (More so in technology than culture of arts), is impressive to say the least.
The same could be said about the Vietnamese and now possibly Islamic or Muslims. I won't say they're exactly the same as Bushido followers but the idea could be comparable in many factors.
6:04 he looks like a samurai darth vader
トトノイソウジ specifically "seven samurai"
do top horrifying facts of the crusades
first: only the first crusade was actually successful
second: one of them raided Constantinople instead of going for the holy land
third: the crusades advanced European architecture by exposing them to other forms of architecture
four: c'mon man what makes you think they would do the topic justice and not cherry pick out of context scraps of information (like this list) to fill the video?
Top horrifying facts about Islamic conquest (might requite more than 100)
Actually, the first crusade saw the raiding of Constantinople as well! Basically the only successful crusade was the first one, and some of the smaller Crusades throughout Europe like the Albigensian Crusade. Also the fourth Crusade, also witnessed the complete take over of Constantinople and forced the Byzantine empire out of the city and gave a lot of control to Venice!
Most of this video was just explaining what they did with stolen heads
Yuck. It is amazing how we as humans seem to have an overwhelming need to devalue the worth of other human beings, especially in issues such as war. If an opponent was valued enough to fight, seems like their bodies would be valued after death.
And most of all ( I don't know if it was mentioned) samurai's primary weapon was not sword, but a bow.
Deplorable Pepe not very horrifying....
To weebs maybe it is.
the beginning of the samurai, they rode on horseback with bows (sorry for my english)
Deplorable Pepe that's true, but in duels that happened very often due to their "honor" the sword definately was.
The katana was really a secondary melee weapon, hardly used. The yari (spears) and naginata were the melee weapons of choice, and as said before the bow was even more prominent. Much later it became somewhat of a status symbol for Samurai when their warring days were over and firearms were common.
My hypothesis: The katana's status is mostly from Western fascination with Samurai and because in medieval Europe swords were used much more. We probably combined the two and took to the Samurai sword as the symbol of Samurai warfare.
The "taking or defeding of heads" is somehow similar to the epic "taking or defending armor" by ancien greek heroes as described in the Iliad by Homer.
The number 1 spot thing reminds me of ganking in dark souls
YOU DIED!
It explains a lot
Nothing personal kid.
That's why they mostly play Jan Ken Po for decisions instead of using coins, as all of them would choose "Head" and fight for it if they had to.
5:54 I see you, Darth Vader... (-.-)
the samurai in 9:00 looks so fearsome. awesome photo.
but the last one should be named samurai did not fight fairly in *WAR*
it's stupid to do so
fair fights are for duals
Is that a Darth Vader?
Darth Vader-sama, if i may.
KamiRecca I lol'ed
Gaara Sama
Then im doing my unpaid job. ^^
Darth Vader's attire was inspired by the samurai armor
With all this fixation of heads, I was almost mistaken that we were talking about Gauls instead of Samurai.
first off let me say this is not a negative comment. this video was much better than your previous samurai videos. the only thing that I question is, how do you become a "samurai expert"
I love ninjas and warriors etc. is there a video on spartans?
+Jamshed Jamshed cause ninjas and warriors are the shit
Antony Cummins is a anthropologist that studies samurai and with help translates and publishes old documents. He, along with Steven Turnbull are some of the best when in comes to studying the samurai culture.
I have a friend that is a historian, writer and performer.
His name is Gideon Hodge. He was famous recently for running into a burning building to save his novel. lol
You should message him, I bet he'd love something like this!
These historical warrior lists must be really popular, cause you keep doing them more and more.
Video was OK, but I feel like the list focused a little too much on the aspect of decapitated heads, and not on OTHER aspects of samurai warfare. Some diversity between the numbers would have been appreciated.
The picture at 5:58 is amazing.Imagine seeing 1000 of those on a field.
List of movies and pics used in the video?
Kareem Williams the fight scene was a cinematic opening from shogun 2
Kareem Williams When they were talking about young samurai and death squads the movie was The 7 Samurai
Kareem Williams and the picture the white guy wearing samurai armor was from the last samurai
What are the clips (that aren't The Last Samurai) used during point 1? Looks like a really good fight and the rest look like quality movies.
Achieve death! Now that is bad ass!
OOOOh, so this where "Skulls for the Skullthrone" comes from.
Also: on the battlefield, if you are fair in war you are dead a second later.
A Samurai killed the first santa claus! But he thought it was a ninja...
check out antony cummins videos, samurai were ninjas, stop with this hollywood bullshit samurai vs ninja, check out antony cummins books and videos
@@tohshindo5920 shut, they weren’t ninjas, quit believing everything on the internet
The Book of Samurai is truly excellent in a way that many other translated samurai toms are not! Well worth a read with some very useful comments and ideas throughout. Do check it out.
one of the few top-channels that do their research
I hate the thumbnail of your profile.
Phenomenal historical look at the Samurai. Great video
"Top 10 Most HORRIFYING Facts about SAMURAI WARFARE"
Yeah, Samurai not fighting fairly is such a horrific fact.
A battle is a battle it's not a duell.
There is a big different between Samurai in Sengoku period ( age of war) and Samurai in Edo period (age of peace time)
For any fellow Americans that find this barbaric, check the history of scalping. It's rather eye-opening.
scalping survivor stories are the best!
CharlieSwabb I saw a documentary about a guy that had to fake death to survive and was scalped while doing so, and still kept up the act. Much respect.
Noot only them. Look at wat the Celts did back in those days. Especially those of Ireland did a good job at headhunting. They sometimes even scooped out the brains instead of entire heads.
Loving this series of Top Lists of soldiers and warriors from around the world; Persians, Aztecs, and Samurai. Wonder what will come next
Not too different than the Celts.
One thing: chop off a head is not an easy task - it can be more tiring than combat if you are not skill. Able to collect one or two head without tiring yourself (during war), this action itself already tell other how skilled you are.
This is why the invention of ''Guillotine' is considered as one of the best invention. It allowed execution to perform in most humane way - without the victim suffering, and without the executioner suffering. Seriously, imagine you have to chop someone head off but you failed to do so after you land 5 hit on their neck - victim is not dying, he is mourning in pain, but his head just won't come off, you feel panic, and the crowed start angry at you because they think you are toying with the victim.
DRIFTER was the reason why i watch this was wondering why he keep wanting heads lol
Same lol
I didn't know most of those details about head collecting. That's interesting.
5:54 Darth Vader
I think it was only a Muramasa that had to taste blood if drawn... Legends say that using one filled the wielder with a powerful bloodlust, that might even cause him to shed his own blood to satiate the blade.
so... where the horrifying part?
Yeah, pure clickbait title. Just random info put into a 'top ten' list. Even the headcollecting and skinning isn't so much horrifying as it is just plain macabre since it is done for a practical reason.
Horrifying is collecting heads to stuff them as trophies, horrifying is skinning people alive.
Cutting a corpses head off in order to provide proof of the deed is merly maccabre. Further skinning a patch of that head because you don't want to lugg around the head all the way is just further disgusting and maccabre, not horrifying.
+alichi101 good points mate
Soooo... The fact that Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered what amounts to the genocide of your people isn't horrifying for you?
Alexis Perron what alchi101 is trying to say that if we were all samurai, it is the norm of that time since there were no cctvs or gps present to prove that you were able to kill a warrior of such position therefore it was acceptable back then. I believe it was also mentioned in the video that the heads were also returned as respect to the enemy, something we dont see necessary today.
If you think the samurai and their genocide crusade were horrifying, what do you think about nuclear warheads that could be activated with just a few nuclear codes and a single command from a certain "commander in chief/prime minister/president/sulta/monarch"? But of course you havent thought about that simply because it is the norm at present.
thank-you Simon, again storing imagination with history,
So rather than 10 facts, you've listed multiple instances referring to the same basic concept...While Headhunting is a singular and interesting / horrifying fact yes, but then splitting that down into partial details to pad your list is kind of lazy.
what did you expect from a top ten channel? all they need is a click-bait title and some pretty editing.
As an addendum to #1, the Samurai were known for dipping their arrow heads in horse dung, so enemies who got non-fatally shot by arrows could still die of...shit, I forgot the disease.
5:59
Samurai Vader!
Yes, I noticed that one as well. Makes sense, the helmet of Darth Vader was inspired by the samurai helmet. But this one strikes a very similair note.
Yeah, I think almost halve of Star Wars is based on either Buddhist or Japanese ideas.
+keukenkastje05 actually reader's helmet was inspired by German ww2 helmets, his name even means father in German
Kris Martin I'm afraid that's not entirely true. 'Vader' is Dutch for father. The German word for father is 'vater'. Which, I admit, looks the same. But sounds very different. The same with the English pronunciation of 'vader' and the Dutch one. Vader in English sounds like in'vader'. The Dutch put the emphasis more on the 'a' by streching it a little. It's hard to explain without actually pronounciating it for you. I'm afraid you have to take my word for it. My only authority is that I'm a cheese eating, wooden shoe walking, water loving Dutch bastard myself. About the German helmet thing, I don't know, could be. I image George Lucas had many inspirations. Why not WW2 German helmets? Fits the theme. However the Japanese kabuto helmet looks more familiar to the Darth Vader helmet in my most humble of opinions.
keukenkastje05 In the original films George Lucas had kendo and fencing instructors choreograph the duels, but I also believe ww1 & ww2 was part of the inspiration for the war against the galactic empire. I think Darth Vader has inspiration from both, he is like a samurai Stalin in my opinion
6:04 why is the samurai wairing a darthvader mask
Too late, but vader mask was inspired by samurai helmet.
Them having to say "hunt bamboos" instead of "cut bamboos" trully is a HORRIFYING samurai fact
Very informative, didn't know ANY of these things
The only people you could trust back then where Ninja.
Ironically ^^
Nope
The ninja were a class that came about to exterminate samurai. Trusting a ninja? Yeah. Go for it.
Nobody more trustworthy than someone who uses poisons and traps for assassinations. At least the Samurai let you draw your weapon first. A ninja's goal is to kill unseen.
Well as long as ninja were paid they would honor their engagement unlike those samourai who changed side when people give them more land and a better Katana. + Ninja was a job not a class, samourai could be ninja as well as woman or merchants or nobles etc... their goal was simply to use conflict to maximise their profits.
Loved this video always a grate thing to learn more about samurai after watching I jumped right on line and ordered the book of samurai. Hope too see more amazing videos like this keep up the grate work guys
So... samurai are a khornate cult? I approve.
Blood Blood Blood Blood Blood Blood
Another point for the vent at the top of the kabuto or helmet was that in earlier times the kabuto didn't have a liner so the samurai wore a stocking cap called an eboshi. The eboshi along with the tuff to tied hair under it would be pulled through the vent to keep the knot predestine and unflattened.
An example, albeit small, can be seen on this page.
www.iz2.or.jp/english/fukusyoku/wayou/36.htm
Darth Vadar mask at 5:56?
It's actually true.
Thank you for this video. Can you please share the source of the picture of a armoured samourai holding a head?
Thanks in advance.
Please do top 10 HORRIFYING Facts about ISIS. trust me it's going to be a hit :)
it's going to blow up...Their hit count
Nymph Beta hahaha these comments are funny 😂
Number one would probably be "The Islamic state has nothing to do with Islam".
Yup and if they made a crusade one it would be "The crusades had nothing to do with religion"
Helgi Páll Eiríksson Beside the fact that never anyone claimed that the crusades don't have anything to do with religion and that the crusades 800 years ago where fought to recapture former christian land and holy places which were at first conquered and ravaged by Islam.
The Japanese word for head is "atama". "Kubi" actually means "neck". There's an awesome idiom in japanese that's used the way we would say someone got fired from a job: "kubi ni narimashta"... "he became a neck"... which makes sense, because if they remove your head, all that's left of you is your neck.
Interestingly, the Japanese word for "knee" is "ashi-kubi" or "foot/leg neck". The word for foot and leg are the same word in Japanese.
you dishonor "Famiry" (family)
weeb
The samurai also performed pederasty with the younger apprentice samurai-in-training. Not something most people think of when referring to samurai.
that's actually the first thing that comes to my head when someone mentions the samurai
"The book of heads" " Head inspection" hahahah that's macbre bureaucracy
Love your videos keep getting good
didnt many of them test their swords on civilians?
Not all.
Maybe some occasions were recorded.
But the swords were tested on prisoners
If you're oblivious and bonk in to his scabbard on the way past, then yeah, he might "test" his sword on you.
As far as I know, criminals were the preferred test. Specifically those sentenced to death - granted in most medieval societies that would be pretty much all of them.
They did, if they felt like doing so. Because nobody would dare challenge a samurai if he felt like testing his new sword on a peasant unlucky enough to pass by.
More prisoners and corpses. A swords worth was determined by how many bodies it could cut through in a test cut. Seven bodies is thought to be the highest ever recorded.
Darth Vader at 6:00
I hate how this guy screws around with his facts. The "primary aim" of the Samurai on the field of battle was head collecting? The PRIMARY aim? Uh....no....the primary aim was survival, secondary aim was killing the enemy, third aim was loot. After that was accomplished there was time for the glory involved with bringing home a bunch of heads. There would have been no samurai archers or horsemen if their primary objective was head collecting, they would all have been katana men and yari men.
Looks like a great book! Thanks for the video guys.
how is number 1 horrifying? If anything that sounds practical to me. What, you want chivalry to be there in war? Please.... All is fair in Love and War.
TheLandOfTears s ohhhh the edge is strong with you no one really understands you huh?
Solid Excalibur
CRAWLING IN MY SKIN!!!!
Everything made sense until the second comment
Great interesting video, Many thanks.
That´s why the samurai had beards so their heads wouldn´t be confused with female heads. But I wonder what would happen if some Shogun or Emperor would have made the decision to invade the Visayas, the samurai wore heavy armor and layers upon layers of clothing they also wielded curved swords and used long bows but didn´t use shields, the Visayans how ever was wearing light weight armor from water buffalo hide and was merely wearing loinclothes rather then multiple layers of clothing they also used straight swords, shields and short bows. The samurai swords has been deemed useless against shields and further more the samurai went to samurai school at the age of seven but didn´t actually kill anyone until their first battle or duel over honor or some shit like that (and no killing farmers and other commoners doesn´t count) the visayans how ever carried out their first kill at the age of 12 in a rite of passage to be worthy to be called men. The samurai would possibly win in the short run but what about the long run remember that the visayan Rajah Lapu Lapu defeated Ferdinand Magellan with ease.
outnumbering him 10 to 1, and a feudal japanese army didn't consist of only samurais,
Squiddy McSquid Well I am aware of that but both of us are also aware of that in times of peace the samurai was sitting on their asses doing nothing because their samurai title didn´t allow them to do anything else then being samurai. While the visayans went raiding as well as fighting off raiders.
Sander Nielsen highly doubt their armor is as heavy as you made it seem
Hi sander nielsen. I know ure pinoy, so please stop trying to over glorified your ancestor and claiming that they are t3h most d3adlyzzz warri0rs... pinoy pride..LOL
low vins I am not pinoy
#10 - heads, #9 - proof of heads, #8 - displaying heads, #3 - skinning heads, #2 - friends' heads
I'm waiting for Metatron to make corrections for this video.
I did not assume that. I just remembered Metatron uploading a video that refuted some points on your previous video about Samurai top 10.
Wondering if anyone would mention that xD
It should be noted I haven't actually watched the video and I know very little on the subject, so I'm not trying to say it's wrong.
Honestly... I clicked here 'cos I thought it was the video he corrected and I was wondering how it could be only 5 days old
Hello. I am the author of this video and i have spent my life researching these documents. However, just to be sure i sent the script to Metatron - who admits this is my area - and he found zero fault with it. So there will be zero debunking. My team only deal with primary sources. I hope this helps.
Wow. :)
i actually went and watched that other video and the guy only debunked like 3 or 4 facts. the rest of the points were valid but the guy just expanded on the context more. in this video, the guy won't find anything to debunk.
Excellent informative video. Now I want to get the book and read it. Not just historic opinions but backed anthropological study. Great info. Thanks for sharing it Top Tenz.
There is so much misinformation in this video
one thing you gotta know about a samurai is they always had there HEADS in the game.
Entertaining, yes. But, I think this list might have been called “10 Items Lost in Translation.” I would seriously urge those interested in the art or history to dig deeper and with more accurate translations. What Mr. Cummings (I mean Ms. Minami) has translated is very off. But, to his (her) credit, translating modern Japanese into English is very difficult. Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream learned this a few years ago when the top-selling ice cream worldwide did not sell at all in Japan. This top flavor (Chunky Monkey) did not indicate banana ice cream with fudge pieces. It was translated to Chunks of Monkey. That is exactly what you have here. Thank you to Simon and the team for their work! I enjoy it all.
cough katanas were made of weak metal so they could dent easly unlike a European sword
But it's true
except that he is right, they didnt had much quality metal on japan during the time of samurais, and you talk as if was not the katanas that had that "cult" surrounding them (edit typo)
+oil massage
Good quality steel was very rare in Japan. They also has much more primitive forges that were not able to reach the far higher temperatures of medieval Europe.
European longswords were not only stronger, but just as sharp.
oil massage
The only person who came close to "crying" was you making fun of European swords
oil massage I'm not crying I'm just saying that they dent easly if they clash with another sword similar to a Greek bronze sword
I love that you have really dramatic, poetic and religious claims:
We gather in high places to unite with the spirits of war so that they can unite us across all of japan!
Then you have:
I'm gonna go up here so my mates can actually see me
Movies painted a heroic and glorious picture of samurais. In a nutshell, samurais are murderers!!!
mmm very interesting and unique murderers
And more often than not, they were well paid murderers.
What type of warrior isn't a murderer?
Just as Knights, Janisars, Vikings, Freedom Fighters, Soldiers and any other kind of wariors.
All those are politicians' puppets. They are just fed and raised to kill or be killed. Don't be a politician's puppet!
Well done! Thanks for making the effort. You did the right thing redoing the vid!
You shouldn't dis the samurai...they were just trying to get ahead
5:53 Darth Vader... You're welcome.
The armor in star wars was based of this one
samurais had gay apprenticeship
Totally a pic a samurai Vader...
i thought that's spartans and greeks?
well i guess that was a thing back then..
It's simple. Women couldn't be there on the battlefront to satisfy sexual urges.
Some were also misogynistic as warriors. They had contempt for female frailties and behaviors. This applied to quite a few ancient warrior groups. That's why some guys love tomboys. Girly-girl "feminine" behavior just isn't a turn on for some.
I remember playing the original Shogun Total War as a kid. Hearing about the head collecting custom after a battle isnt really new to me; the nose collecting is though.
Today, samurai are associated with gangsters in japan.
yakuza are not samurai
josef stalin no, not even historically. But samurai have a corrupt and thuggish image. And they are used in modern japanese political discourse to describe criminals and corrupt politicians.
yemo34 wait aren't samurais nobel men ?
josef stalin Nope. Just thugs. Sorta like knights in europe. They're reputation is innaccurate. Theres good reasons most people in the world don't live in fiefdoms and pure monarchy's anymore. The reality wasn't as noble as the fantasy.
Samurai were gruesome, ruthless, and a lot of times coined as ignoble. Research for an hour and you would be surprised
A sip everytime the word "head" is said
This video is perfect for weeaboos.
decapitating their heads
Jarle Patrick Nielsen weeaboos and people who actually like samurais and there martial arts it's not only weebs who like samurai
or people (like me) who are generally interested in old warfare and stuff
go eat dog meat korean
You're quite tough when you're on the internet commenting whatever you like.
I can sense your weakness through your negativity lol
Heads up.......another cutting edge video from Simon and Friends. At least after the Samurai code declined the sword makers had the kitchen knife industry to fall back on. Seriously, a very interesting if bloody video, thanks.