https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1496788626658807814
edit: Wait no, it's maybe worse. That's the Ukrainian ambassador to Japan so this is actual weeaboo cosplay: https://www.theweek.in/news/world/2022/02/16/ukrainian-ambassador-to-japan-poses-as-samurai-in-message-to-russia.html
Along with the impressive image, Korsunsky wrote in English and Japanese "We know what we are fighting for. How about Russia?"
Sergiy Korsunsky
Reminder that Japanese swords were notoriously awful and were only reasonable to use because Japan’s a shitty island with no resources so no one could make better swords or armor worth a damn.
Samurai used bows and spears more often iirc.
TBH I think there is something admirable and impressive about the craftsmanship of japanese swordsmiths to take such shitty iron ore and make something like the Katana out of it.
Far more sus IMO is the entire modern viewpoint on samurai culture which actually seems at least as rooted in WW2 propaganda as actual history. Speaking as a recovering sword guy weeb who actually read the Hagakure in highschool (no, I never got a date big shocker): one of my favorite details is that Yamamoto, the dude who wrote ad naseum about death and honor and all the dos and don't of what the essence of being a samurai means, never actually saw combat and was in fact considered a massive reactionary of his era. All the great Samurai philosophers are really no different then the idiots on this side of the pacific who cite the illiad unironically and talk about when we used to have REAL MEN.
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Bushido is not quite like Chivalry, for the most part it was used to push an imperial cult during the Meji restoration as they feared during westernization they'd adopt some things like liberalism i.e. getting rid of a cringe royal, that's why they took some rather obscure, for his time, samurai and pushed his philosophy on what makes a good samurai. All spearheaded by Inoue Tetsujirō a huge xenophobe and imperialist that basically wrote the 'modern samurai' into reality, his revisionism and his explicit racism were of enormous use to Japan’s political leaders, who saw immense value in promoting an ideology of militarization, nationalism, and xenophobia, in order to turn the entire country into a de facto army united by fanatical loyalty to the emperor and the goal of imperial expansion. And this weaponized Bushido militarism whatever you want to call it was used as a sort of Manifest Bushido fueling wars of conquest and imperialism all over Asia.
So yes they are both made to lionize a historical knightly/warrior class that never existed however Bushido was pushed quite a bit more than chivalry I think the whole Viking mythos is a better comparison as that one was pushed by the swedes to feel better about losing finland.
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I don't I'm sorrry.
And I can see your reasoning I'd totally agree that their positions/situations in said hierarchy is very similar, however I'd disagree on the dynamic part. Your experience can very well be different to mine but the three 'warriors' that are really appealing to Chuds from my experience are Vikings, Spartans and Samurais. Knights aren't as sexy to fascism and reaction as the others could you rewrite them to be? Absolutely but I don't see it currently.
I'm really just arguing minute things because bored.
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What's up with that? Like...I think you're right...but I don't really get why. The space marines of warhammer 40k are closer to knights then modern marines so really its all there...but I feel like Chuds don't really latch onto Knights as a cultural touchstone. Is it just cause they're not trendy or in fashion? Kinda feels like it.
Might just be an aesthetic thing: Samurai got their swords, Vikings got their axes, Knights have Armour makes it the least accessible and rather boring.
The swords really aren't that bad. They had shitty steel to work with and the way they made their swords compensated for that. Everyone used bows and spears more often than swords, because the further you are from the guy who wants to kill you the better off you are. Swords have been mostly a sidearm throughout the world historically.
True, didn’t mean to imply that Europeans were all about swords or anything. Before guns existed spears were the dominant weapon in pretty much every army for all of history. Cheaper to make, easier to use, and they keep your enemy over there
Even medieval European knights primarily fought with lances and poleaxes, with swords mostly used as backup- or to cut down retreating infantry. The imagery of two knights in plate mail swinging swords at each other is a Hollywood fantasy.
Then there is the zweihander, a spear which was abandoned as a child and raised by feral swords.
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Very true, as it turns out “Keeping the guy who wants to kill you further away” is almost universally helpful
They also carried daggers with their swords because if you're in a tight area like a battlement or something you can't really draw a sword easily. Daggers were faster to draw and much better CQ stabbers.
Swords are also crazy expensive and hard to use properly. I don't think there has ever been a place and time where swords were the primary weapon.