Five Cool Samurai warriors

Famous for their ferocity and loyalty, samurai warriors epitomize the fighting spirit.,they have an important place in the history of Japan, influencing  not just the political structure, but building the bases of cultural traditions still in practice until this days, including Budo.

The Samurai code of honor is the soul of martial arts and it’s practitioners should find inspiration from some of the figures around it. Sometimes heroic other plain weird, his life are worth to learned and shared. Names like Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro are now common in popular culture around the world, but our list looks at less known but equally cool warriors.

Date Masamune

One more day at the office for Mr. Masamune

"Merciless" was a common adjetive that defined many samurais of the Sengoku Jidai or Warring States period. It was a "quality" need of a person in order to unify and control Japan. There are no other Samurai who have embody this condition better as much as Date Masamune.

  Masamune was born as the eldest son of the famous Date Terumune, who played an active part in the battle of Genpei. Although it was thought that Masamune would inherit his father as the head of the family, he lost sight of his right eye with a smallpox, and he was told by his mother that he was "inappropriate for inheriting a house," but in battle After experiencing several defeats, Masamune laid the foundation for leadership and became one of the most feared people in Japan.

 In 1590, Masamune, who already headed the Date clan, refused to live under the rule of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. When Masamune met Hideyoshi, he acted without thinking or fearing that he would be executed on the spot. Fortunately, Hideyoshi missed Masamune.
Despite the rudeness against Hideyoshi until then, Hideyoshi took up the Masamune, and Masamune also made allegiance when dispatched to Korea, and after Hideyoshi's death he became a faithful general of Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Visual impact is part also of warfare , and Masumune, displaying a big Kabuto helmet with a long U shape katana and eye patch, definitely, made his enemies tremble.
Masamune is also known for opening the door to foreigners and Christians. He made an effort to spread foreign technology to Japan and traveled to Rome to deepen his relationship with the Pope. Date Maru became the first Japanese ship to sail to the world.

Tadakatsu Honda

Another great example of helmet design.

Honda Tadakatsu was born in Mikawa Province in1548. A member of the Honda Clan, a prestigious Japanese family known for their reliable, fuel-efficient hatchbacks and lawnmowers, as a young man Honda served as a page in the army of the mighty warlord Tokugawa Ieyasu. He’s one of the four ‘heavenly kings of Tokugawa’, and is fortunate to be called "The Warrior who surpassed Death". 

As a Vassal of Tokugawa, Tadakatsu was a fierce soldier who had over 100 battles and never was defeated as a general. On top of that, he was never hit by injury in any of the battles, winning it’s particular nickname.

Tadakatsu was praised by both for his bravery and martial skills. It is told that was particularly good at using a long spear, which set him apart from the other ‘heavenly kings ‘.  But probably his most distinctive characteristic was his  helmet , which display enormous deer antlers' design on top, what made him visible from anywhere on the battlefield, and scare rivals. Honda Tadakatsu is also credited with being the first Japanese battlefield commander to fight with riflemen in two ranks, giving enough time for the first line to reload while the second fired.

Honda had a long career as a warrior and general for Ieyasu and fought during the entirety of the  Warring States period. including the Battle of Mikatagahara,  a defeat for Tokugawa, the Battle of Nagashino  and the decisive victory of the famous Battle of Sekigahara . 

Kusunoki Masashige

One of the great strategist in Japanese military history, is a legendary figure due unrelenting loyalty to the Emperor and his A master of guerrilla tactics.

Kusunoki Masashige was a military leader who supported Emperor Go-Daigo’s war to restore Imperial rule in the 1330s. Starting as a small landowner, with just only 500 people obeyed him, but reaching to the level of serving faithfully to the Emperor as a general. 

His tactics are famous, sometimes unorthodox but effective,such as rockslides, throwing boiling water, and pitfalls. More suitable to little ewoks, another tactic included rolling down heavy logs into enemy troops. His devotion to the emperor made him famous…but also cost his life. During a battle in Minatogawa , Kusunoki followed the emperor orders to fight a bigger more powerful enemy. Against his tactical experience he charged, after a unfair battle, he found himself and only 73 of his original 700 soldiers surrounded. Before being captured he committed seppuku, together with his brother Masasue and the rest of his surviving battalion. The loyalty to the emperor made him famous, and got him in to pantheon of Japanese heroes, tragically becoming the patron saint to the Kamikaze during WWII.

If you are in Japan , don’t  forget to visit the impressive statue of Kusunoki Masashige sitting in the corner of the Kokyo Gaien National Garden, the external garden of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.

Minamoto Tametomo

When you think about Samurai, probably the first weapon you picture is the sword. Most of them excellent swordsmanship, and some of them perfected the art of fighting with swords. But in the case of Tametomo Minamoto is the art of the bow and arrow who gave him fame and made him a legend.

 It is said that he was able to fire the bow with super human accuracy and streght, thanks to an abnormal left arm, 6 inches longer than his right arm. He’s credited to be able to  sunk an entire enemy ship with the blow of just one arrow.

Unfortunately, what secured his place into the warrior stardom was the doubtful honor of being consider the first recorded samurai to commit seppuku suicide. Ben Hubbard, author of The Samurai: Swords, Shoguns and Seppuku, describes the infamous scene: “ this particularly well-aimed and probably painful last shot would pass through two sides of a boatload of Taira samurai and sink it. In the end, though, the Taira trapped Tametomo in a house, where he would famously cut open his stomach while standing with his back against a pillar. While this gave Tametomo the dubious legacy of the first recorded seppuku suicide, more  would occur in the Genpei War which followed. “

The life of Minamoto Tametomo, like other warriors is clouded in many myths and legends, for example stories say that instead of saying in battle, he travelled to the Ryu Kyu archipelago, where his credited to fathering Shunten, the first king of Okinawa but some authors debate this idea as a a pure fabrication, in order to justify Japanese dominion over the Ryûkyû Kingdom

Gozen Tomoe 

In the case of ancient Japanese warriors, the line between fiction and reality has always been very thin. And in the case of Gozen Tomoe, the line seems to disappear.  Seemingly straight out of a comic book, or more accurately from an ancient Japanese novel, many scholars believe that this famous female warrior is a fictional figure invented in the “Heike Monogatari”, one of the masterpieces of Japanese literature. Nevertheless, the accounts of this warrior are worth to study.

 Gozen Tomoe, a true woman warrior, is usually depicted as an excellent female archer and swordswoman with beautiful skin and long dark-hair that was always “ready to face gods and demons". According to Minamoto Yoshinaka, Gozen was one of Kiso (Minamoto) Yoshinaka's most trusted soldiers. Her fighting skills were said to rival even the strongest men in her same unit. 

 She is said to have fought through the end of the Genpei war. At the Battle of Iizutsu, Gozen took the head of a prominent enemy samurai. She was however, just warming up as in the battle of Yokotagawara, she defeated and collected the heads of 7 mounted warriors. Her most famous story is from the Battle of Awazu (1184) where Yoshinaka was finally defeated by his enemies. When the battle was lost, Yoshinaka told Tomoe that he would fight to the death. He then ordered her to leave the battlefield as he would be ashamed to die fighting with a woman. She obliged, but not before killing another opposing samurai warrior as her swansong. Having accomplished that, she left the battlefield. 

Who is your favorite Japanese warrior of all time? Share it with us!