Original subtitles

Raised...

in a world of violence...

The samurai have a die-hard,

absolute bloodthirstiness.

Trained to attack...

with iconic weapons of war.

Real katanas can cleave a person in half.

It's terrifying.

Built to honor loyalty...

more than life itself.

There are even examples of people reaching in and

grabbing some of their intestine

to show how manly they are.

Japan's samurai...

become icons.

Warriors aren't born...

They're built.

Understanding how

reveals the true nature of their greatness.

From the cradle to the grave,

these are the steps to creating...

History's Greatest Warriors.

The samurai...

A legendary warrior like no other...

His mastery of military strategy and combat...

enables him to dominate Japan

from the 12th to the late 19th centuries.

What makes the samurai so special and different is

both their dedication and their indoctrination

to martial arts.

Martial arts, as a lifestyle and a mindset,

allows them to now apply

all of this training into their swordsmanship,

into their battlefield tactics.

No one else does this the way the samurai do it.

It's not just that they were superior fighters,

but it's also the way of the samurai that intrigues us.

These principles of loyalty and honor that are

so central to the samurai's identity.

The journey to becoming a samurai will

require years of brutal training.

Mastering the long bow...

and the katana, will re-shape the body

and the mind.

The warrior will learn tactics that keep

the samurai in power for nearly 700 years.

It is a path that dates back...

to feudal Japan.

So the 8th century,

Japan has its capital in Kyoto,

where the emperor is.

Kyoto is the cultural and political center of Japan.

Because Japan is an island country with

few enemies breaching its borders,

conflicts over power and territory

often pit samurai against samurai.

The emperor at this time is very weak.

More of a ceremonial head of state.

By the 9th and 10th centuries,

a powerful group of landowners rule the provinces

as feudal lords.

They have large clans, loyal armies.

They rise up as provincial warriors,

who are called on by the central government to

effectively be their police force, their militia.

And they do so with great skill,

to the point where their power begins to rival

that of the imperial family itself.

By the 12th century,

control of Japan by an ineffective emperor...

weakens.

There's now a power vacuum, and the feudal lords,

along with their armies of loyal samurai,

are eager to fill it.

Samurai means servant.

He puts his master above his own family.

He's dedicated to the clan.

The clan comes above everything.

Bit by bit, the samurai become the military class.

They charge around the battlefields of Japan.

However, they then start to break up and fight each other

for power over the imperial court.

This behind-the-scenes

power struggle over who controls the emperor,

escalates into open conflict.

Two of the strongest regional samurai clans

position themselves to rule all of Japan.

Now, when we talk about clans,

we're not talking about a few hundred people.

These clans are huge, could be thousands of people,

with different branches.

The two clans fighting for power

are the Taira and the Minamoto.

Their respective armies allow them to dominate

huge swaths of Japan.

Eventually their conflict explodes

into all-out civil war.

For clan leader, Yoshitsune Minamoto,

the conflict is personal.

When he's a child, the Taira kill his father,

and he is raised by Buddhist monks.

But there's nothing peaceful about this guy.

He devotes himself to the study of military tactics

and strategy, and he's really good at it.

I mean, the man is a tactical genius.

He demands that the samurai under him become

expert swordsman, expert archers,

expert horseman.

He is a very demanding tactician.

Minamoto's five-year period of

brutal fighting against the Taira builds...

to an epic showdown.

The Genpei War comes down to

the Battle of Dan-no-ura.

The climactic battle is a naval battle in 1185.

And this battle is fought in Taira home territory.

Most of the Minamoto forces

are from landlocked areas.

The Taira are from the west

where there's a lot more water,

so they're much better at sea warfare.

The Minamoto have to figure out how to beat these

more skilled opponents at sea battles.

The Minamoto become quite shrewd in their attacks,

massing archers on ships that are slightly modified,

raining arrows down.

Nearly all of the Taira...

are slaughtered.

They fling themselves into the sea and drown.

Even the noblewomen are getting shot and killed.

This is the end of the line for the Taira clan.

The victors and the

emerging warrior-class of samurai...

will change Japan forever.

After the Genpei War, the real power to

control Japan, the country,

comes from shogun.

The emperor is more of a ceremonial figure.

The shogun is the ruler.

The shogun controls the daimyo...

And the daimyo have their own armies of samurai.

And the samurai are fiercely loyal to their daimyo,

or lord.

To successfully wield power,

the samurai will need to build an elite warrior...

one whose training begins in childhood.

So, if you're born into a samurai family,

the expectations are- from the very beginning-

you will become a warrior.

Becoming a samurai is hereditary.

At the core of this early preparation,

is instruction in the samurai code...

Bushido.

Bushido means "warrior way."

It's about being a good warrior,

being an honorable warrior,

and winning victory at any cost for your lord.

This is in accordance with bushido.

Honesty, integrity, honor, courage...

bravery in the face of danger.

Bushido seeks to create a

well-rounded warrior...

by first creating a well-rounded person.

For someone who's engaged in the occupation

of killing, in order to balance that out,

there are other things.

It's not just about military preparedness.

For the samurai, it is this emphasis

on literature, poetry.

You're starting to learn the basics of

reading and writing, which mostly consists of

Chinese political philosophy.

The child then hones his physical skills,

spending years practicing horsemanship.

Probably say around 6 or 7,

they are already on the horseback.

You had to learn archery off of the horse,

and then you had to learn archery on top of the horse,

which is difficult because you have to gallop while not

necessarily using your hands to guide the horse.

There are several prominent warriors

who die from horse falls...

so knowing how to ride a horse really is

a matter of life and death.

With a foundation in place,

a young samurai is now ready to begin

the rigorous training...

that will forge him into an elite warrior.

Since birth, the young samurai

has been on the path of bushido,

"the way of the warrior."

As a teen,

he begins a training regimen that is comprehensive...

and grueling.

The samurai is built from the ground up.

They build his character...

They build his body.

They supply him with weapons...

and they supply him with armor.

And then they supply him with a goal.

The goal is to win for the lord...

and they will do that at any cost.

Training affects every aspect of their life.

Most samurai actually devote

their entire lives to training.

The youth will need to progress from the

fundamentals of martial skills to true mastery.

But he will not do this alone.

For archery, horsemanship, and sword fighting,

you seek out an instructor within your domain.

And you are essentially mentored by this person

in how to be a warrior.

More than 70% of Japan is mountainous.

To excel in combat in this kind of terrain,

the samurai must combine long - range weapons training...

with mobility and speed.

The samurai are trained from an early age to

draw these heavy bows,

and they must be accurate with them.

A good samurai archer needs to be able to draw a

powerful bow to penetrate armor of his enemy.

The samurai would use it on horseback,

and at full gallop!

It was an incredible thing that they could do.

The main way for training is actually to go on

hunts together, learning how to gallop after game,

how to shoot precision arrows

at the game.

Becoming a skilled marksman from horseback

will distinguish the samurai on the battlefield.

But he must also train to kill

with close-range weapons,

and there are many steps in this process.

Samurai, they don't start with a live blade.

They start with something called a bokken.

It's a wooden blade made of red oak,

used for practicing your forms.

And they would practice different stances,

different styles, different techniques...

holding the sword, forms of attacking.

As he grows into his teens,

the trainee will graduate from blunt wooden

practice swords to razor-sharp steel blades.

In Japanese, this sharp blade sword

is called shinken.

But shinken has actually another meaning...

"seriousness".

Handling a real-life blade sword requires

utmost seriousness and focus.

You might also be trained in iai,

which is the art of drawing and cutting

with a real blade.

Realistic training results in injuries,

even when the young samurai is learning unarmed combat.

So, there are lots of different terms

for what we would now call jiu-jitsu.

These are all forms of unarmed combat that

are the predecessors of modern-day judo

and even Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

At one point, there's 18 different

martial arts that samurai train in,

that range from hand-to-hand combat,

using different weapons, to even ninja,

the art of stealth and spying,

moving without making noise,

without making your enemy aware.

But to build a samurai requires

more than mastering martial arts.

He must also submit to a regimen that shapes

his character and sharpens his focus.

Buddhism arrived in Japan

before the samurai even started.

So they are a Buddhist warrior,

and they grow up being taught zazen.

How to sit, how to be still,

and how to focus themselves,

to make sure that they are combat effective.

In Japanese martial arts history,

Buddhist terminology is used to describe

that state of training.

Mushin, or "no mind", it's this idea that

you're moving without thinking at all.

Zanshin, "the remaining mind",

the idea that you're always aware of

what's going on around you and you just keep moving.

So even in the midst of a giant battle,

they're focused on the person

they're fighting in the moment.

They train themselves to never let their horizons

get so far out that they become overwhelmed.

To link body and mind,

the young warrior may use training techniques that

trace back to mystics of the 7th and 8th centuries.

To build a great warrior,

you might also have to engage in

some kind of asceticism.

And that might involve things such as meditation

or standing under a cold waterfall.

This extreme cold will shock your senses.

And so, being able to remain calm

in the midst of all this happening,

is a way that they train zanshin.

Some source says the samurai

used to train in complete darkness.

You might get attacked by some other samurai

when you're on street, in darkness.

You have to prepare yourself.

There are also other practical reasons

to do this darkness training.

You might injure yourself like above your eye,

and blood might cover your eyes.

It's a useful skill.

Other areas of training show whether

a young samurai has the mental discipline

to become an elite warrior.

One of the most unusual is cha-do,

the tea ceremony.

Tea ceremony is a formalized,

ritualized ceremony where tea is made,

presented on special pottery to your guest.

It's not just making tea.

It's an occasion to be mastered.

So, it becomes another way for the samurai

to demonstrate greatness.

The way a samurai conducts the tea ceremony

shows the type of person he is.

If he does it well, people around him know:

He is a focused warrior.

The practice of cultivating a calm mind

prevents panic in combat,

as does acclimating the youth to extreme violence.

Young warriors are exposed to

as much violence as possible.

A lot of the mental resilience among samurai

comes from experience on the battlefield.

Starting around the age of 13,

the trainee is taken onto the battlefield to witness the

reality of war- the dead and dying soldiers,

the screams, the gore, the severed limbs.

So by exposing them to this extreme violence,

they will be familiar with the battlefield.

A calm mind on the battlefield

allows for strategic thinking.

It is at the Battle of Okehazama in 1560 that

such training pays off for 23-year-old

Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

The young samurai exhibits the calm,

calculating demeanor of a gifted leader.

In the 1500s, Toyotomi Hideyoshi

works his way up in the household of a famous

samurai daimyo, named Oda Nobunaga.

He starts off as a foot soldier.

He is a fighter, but what he is known for is his...

tactical and strategic acumen.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi is very good at tactics.

He helps Oda's forces at Okehazama

overcome terrible odds.

They're a force of just 3,000 facing off

against 25,000 enemy samurai

in a battle for control of this region.

Even though this is a huge battle,

he is not intimidated and is tactically brilliant.

At one point,

he launched a rearguard action to protect Oda

that was so well done that Oda promoted him to

become one of Oda's trusted generals.

The young warrior studies the tactics and

techniques of those who have gone before him.

And when he is ready to join them

in the ranks of his clan's samurai army...

there is a sacred ceremony.

Genpuku is the coming of age of a samurai.

It's usually in the late teens.

They will take the samurai hairstyle.

They'll shave the pate, and they'll grow their

hair out long and put that hair in the top knot.

This ceremony marks a young man's

formal beginning as a full samurai.

He'll likely receive his kabuto, or helmet.

They get a new name,

and once you go through that process,

that means you are ready to go to war

as a samurai.

The young samurai has officially come of age.

But before he can aspire to victory for his lord

and clan in combat, he will need to wield

the samurais' weapons of war.

Years of intense training transform a boy

into a fearsome warrior.

Now he is ready to use some of the most

lethal weapons ever forged.

So anybody who knows about the samurai thinks of

the samurai sword, the katana.

But, their primary weapon is actually the bow.

In the earliest days of the samurai,

the warrior rides into battle on horseback with a

long-range weapon capable of precision attacks...

He uses the yumi, or long bow.

The yumi has the ability to reach an enemy

from a significant distance away.

The yumi was also incredibly accurate.

The bow is long and powerful.

This size allows its effective range

to be 100 yards.

You can fire it much further than that,

but for the killing blow, 100 yards or closer and

you will see off your enemy.

The yumi's unusual design

makes it a surprisingly versatile weapon.

It's larger at the top,

shorter at the bottom. It's asymmetrical,

so that they can move across the horse

when they're actually riding,

and then they can turn around and shoot.

Because of the way it's asymmetrically formed,

people can use it in different stances.

Crouching, standing as well.

When combat requires close-range weapons,

the samurai reaches for his blade.

Around 1000 A.D.,

the sword that we now know as the samurai sword...

adopts a form which is initially a tachi.

And it actually is primarily a cavalry sword.

The samurai's on horseback,

he's charging through the battlefield,

and he has to have a longer sword,

a great sword. He has to swipe down,

taking the enemy with him, left and right.

As the battlefield gets closer,

and everybody is fighting closer,

the samurai cut their tachi down,

to create the katana, and that's where

we get the iconic sword of the Japanese warrior.

But the katana comes to symbolize

in the popular imagination

everything that we associate with the samurai.

It is, in essence, the soul of the samurai.

The katana blade is about

32 to 36 inches in length.

It's a single edged blade.

It's slightly curved.

An authentic katana sword,

they're not as heavy as people might think.

In the hands of a proficient wielder,

it can cleave a person in half.

And it feels like butter.

You're cleaving through butter.

It's terrifying and incredible at the same time.

The way it's constructed, it's truly a piece of art.

A good samurai sword should be flexible,

and it should be able to bend and return back to its shape.

It should also be able to withstand being

clashed against other swords and armor.

And this type of two-handed sword...

continues right the way through samurai history.

The only way the samurai can be sure of

his blade's effectiveness is to test it.

But some tests of strength and sharpness

are shocking for their brutality.

The samurai will get permission to kill criminals.

They will tie them up in bamboo, strip them up,

and they'll use different cuts,

and they'll go through the entire body.

Say it's a new sword,

you will cut through the body,

through the bones, through the hips.

And we know from samurai documentation,

the more secure your handle is,

the deeper into the enemy it will go.

In 1602, they banned the testing of your blades

on cadavers and condemned criminals.

Bushido bans it as going against

the way of the warrior.

The most common enemy

a highly trained samurai will face...

is another samurai.

To increase his odds of surviving an encounter

with such a formidable opponent,

he needs armor.

In the early period, the armor is...

lacquered leather that is

strung together in strips with silk.

It's called lamellar, which allows for it

to be light and very flexible.

Later, they add in iron pieces,

especially to the breastplate,

the most important part.

The ornate kabuto

completes the samurai's defensive gear.

But it, too, is a weapon...

of a different kind.

The kabuto is the samurai helmet.

The actual emblems represent where the samurai

came from or who they're loyal to.

It would include psychological warfare.

The way a kabuto looks,

including the face mask worn by the samurai,

it's used to frighten their opponents,

in a way that deters them from fighting

at their most optimal.

Although many samurai pride themselves

on their mastery of traditional weaponry,

others adapt to the changing times.

Portuguese traders introduce firearms to Japan

in the mid 16th century.

They bring in primitive muskets,

matchlock rifles.

And the samurai are intrigued.

During this time,

the samurai are fighting each other constantly,

in huge battles, so any advantage

that you can achieve through the introduction of

a new weapon is highly prized.

And so all samurai daimyo, or samurai warlords,

at this time are interested in these new weapons.

One such warlord is Oda Nobunaga...

In the Battle of Nagashino in 1575,

Oda Nobunaga employs firearm units in a staggered line

to put out a continuous fire against his enemy,

who are essentially slaughtered by it.

The enemy is surprised and terrified by the gunfire

coming from behind the wooden palisades

built by Oda's forces.

Firearms have been used before,

but never on this scale...

and it fundamentally changes the nature of warfare

in medieval Japan.

Expertly trained with a variety of weapons,

the samurai warrior now faces the

life and death test of real combat.

The samurai has trained for most of his life.

He has acquired the skills, weapons,

and mental fortitude of an elite warrior...

all of which he'll use in continual

life or death battles...

Not against a foreign enemy,

but rather, enemy samurai.

Before 17th century,

the battle was always on a bigger scale, and...

bunch of people fighting together.

And then, in the 17th and 18th centuries,

when Japan is relatively united,

larger-scale wars are less common.

That's when a samurai may find himself

fighting another samurai,

and that means he's up against someone

just as skilled, and just as deadly as he is.

It is a solemn event,

likely to end in death.

There are certain preparations that

must be made before the first blow is struck.

A samurai before battle will make sure

he looks presentable.

When you tie your armor, you tie the helmet,

you would get a knife and cut all the bits off,

so just the knot was left.

And this is known as the costume of death.

And it means, "I'm not coming back unless I win."

When you first go into battle,

you're in absolute fear...

and it's like a fog around you.

And he says, all you have to do is focus.

Pick one target,

kill that target and take their head.

A samurai has been trained to assess the enemy

before the first attack, putting into practice

zanshin, the art of extreme awareness.

He watches and waits with intense focus

for the optimal moment to strike.

Sometimes I'm looking into the eyes of the opponent,

and I might let my gaze fall down a little bit

'cause I know that most of the threats

are gonna come from the torso.

How well they maintain their space from their opponent,

it's very, very important.

If you're too close, it limits the ability

of the katana to be useful to you.

If you're too far, you can't reach your opponent.

Where the armor can't protect your opponent,

that's where you want to strike.

At the shoulders, behind the knees, at the elbows.

A truly skilled samurai will be able to

deliver those blows with accuracy.

When a samurai recognizes that he is

defeated by his opponent,

he may request an end to the duel...

and to his life.

Seppuku is the ritualized suicide of a samurai.

And it's usually done for a variety of reasons,

including shame, losing in battle.

It's seen as the rite of a samurai to

show the world, as they leave it,

that they were a true samurai.

That they, in fact, did have honor.

Most samurai will traditionally grant the

defeated enemy the supreme honor of committing seppuku

because they share the same path of the warrior.

It is the ultimate expression of bushido.

Just as the samurai has studied the ways

to kill his enemy in combat,

he has also learned the ways

of seppuku.

It's something that people in modern days

have a hard time understanding...

because there are different kinds of seppuku.

It may be a very formal ceremony,

with time to prepare- to bathe in cold water,

to write one's death poem,

and to have witnesses to the event.

But it can also be much more spontaneous.

It can take place when they lose a battle,

and your opponent will

grant you permission to do seppuku.

It's basically the praise, to say,

"You fought well."

Seppuku involves taking your short sword,

and you cut...

from left to right.

And, you're supposed to,

to show your true strength and honor,

remove your intestines.

You're not supposed to be crying out in agony.

And there are even examples, probably apocryphal,

of people reaching in and grabbing some of

their intestine to show how manly they are.

In acknowledgement of his opponent's journey

along the path of bushido,

the samurai victor may act as

the other man's "second," to spare him further agony.

What this person is waiting for,

is for you to stop moving your head in pain.

To straighten up, and then

he'll take one slice to take your head off.

For the samurai, there's satisfaction at

proving himself against a worthy opponent...

There's also confidence that he's ready

for the larger battles to come.

The samurai has been built into

a formidable warrior...

At the dawn of the 17th century,

tactics are evolving...

and some ambitious samurai

are eyeing the ultimate prize:

control of all Japan.

Archery does one thing for Japanese military history.

It changes how armor is made.

It changes tactics.

Muskets add another layer to that.

Tactics have to change.

The organization of the battlefield has to change,

where to position your soldiers.

How to flank people.

This all has to be taken into consideration as muskets

become a primary weapon in many battles.

These new tactics are in play in 1600,

a time of great conflict.

After the death of the country's effective ruler,

Toyotomi Hideyoshi, clans are battling...

for control of Japan.

When the ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi dies,

there's no one to replace him.

Similar to the Battle of Genpei,

which launches the age of the samurai,

there is once again a fierce battle

between two rival warlords.

It pits in Ishida's samurai in the west against

Tokugawa's army in the east.

And that conflict reaches its conclusion

on the battlefield of Sekigahara.

The Battle of Sekigahara is one of the largest battles

of all Japanese history.

It's a fight between the east and the west.

Tokugawa Ieyasu is actually

fighting against his old master's family.

Even though he's promised to look after them,

he's going for them.

Tokugawa decides to take power for himself,

and essentially all of the warlords line up

on one side or the other.

This is the battle royale of all warlords,

picking a side and sussing it out

on the field of Sekigahara.

Sekigahara is northeast of

the capital city of Kyoto.

It is the midpoint where the two great armies

will decide the fate of Japan.

It pits over 150,000 samurai on the battlefield.

And they come together in a narrow valley.

And the battle involves multiple types

of units- samurai who are mounted,

foot soldiers with all different types of weapons,

including matchlock rifles.

The scale is untold.

Tokugawa leads the eastern force's

70,000 warriors,

which is the bulk of the eastern army.

But Ishida has almost double that.

And when he sends out scouts,

they confirm the numerical advantage.

One well-armed samurai is deadly.

Now, when you imagine

nearly 200,000 squaring off against each other,

highly trained fighters with katana,

or spears, even muskets-

that's a mind-boggling number

of deadly samurai meeting on the battlefield.

Tokugawa knows he doesn't have the numbers.

But he learns through spies

that the enemy coalition is weak-

the western warlords don't respect their leader.

Through diplomacy,

Tokugawa exploits this to his advantage.

Tokugawa is kind of a sneaky politician.

He's not necessarily good at combat, himself,

but he was just a real conniving strategist.

Tokugawa has a secret weapon.

Through a series of letters, he offers land and titles

to any enemy warlords who are willing to

fight with his army.

Before the battle starts,

he convinces an enemy warlord

to switch sides.

And, he wants him to switch sides before the battle,

but the warlord is cautious,

and begins the battle on the western army side.

The battle begins.

Tokugawa's samurai warriors

face overwhelming odds.

It's a chaotic scene.

There's fog, there's musket fire.

Records suggest that both sides use katana

and muskets, along with cannon,

and the effects are absolutely devastating.

30,000 samurai are killed in just six hours,

so the Battle of Sekigahara is

the battle that decides the future of Japan,

and also, the leader of Japan.

The battle is a deadlock.

But then, that reluctant warlord,

who starts with the western samurai, finally flips.

He decides to switch sides,

and join Tokugawa and his army.

Other warlords on the western side

see an army moving to the other side.

And so, they jump ship as well

and move over to the eastern side.

With numbers now on his side,

Tokugawa's eastern army

gains the upper hand.

After this happens,

the battle is a rout.

The eastern army wins rather easily.

The western side is defeated.

The western leader, Ishida, is publicly executed.

His death, and Tokugawa's victory,

marks the end of the period of warring clans.

Tokugawa, he takes all of Japan for himself,

and he sets up the shogunate and the Tokugawa Regime.

This brings in a period of peace for 250 years.

It starts the Tokugawa Period,

the last reign of samurai until their fall in 1868.

The warrior has fought with honor,

but he knows from his Buddhist training

that all things are transitory...

that power cannot last.

By the 19th century,

Japan is in a period of stability.

But it won't last.

For 250 years, Japan is locked.

They're isolated.

No one is allowed to go outside.

No one is allowed to come inside.

It's a relatively peaceful era,

in terms of not having any major warfare.

But then things begin to

fall apart in the early 1800's.

The more samurai that are born,

the more samurai inherit different lands.

And every generation, that land fractures.

This means the samurai get poorer and poorer and poorer.

There are disputes over succession

in the Tokugawa house, itself.

And then, there's the arrival of Westerners

in the seas around Japan.

In 1854, one of those Westerners

is American commodore, Matthew C. Perry.

It's his second trip to Japan,

and he arrives in Tokyo Bay with

a fleet of 4 steam-powered war ships.

Matthew Perry's fleet of battleships

has the Japanese terrified.

They actually call them "The Black Ships".

And they're something the Japanese

have never seen before.

If anything symbolizes the onslaught of

the modern world, this is it.

The time is right. Commodore Perry,

he says, "Open up or we'll open fire."

So the samurai go to war with themselves.

Those who want to go forward

and follow central samurai, old power...

Or the new way of a modern government.

Perry, essentially...

forces the shogun and his advisors

to sign a treaty that opens up Japan

to other commercial treaties with the European countries.

Matthew Perry writes in his journal,

"I have opened Japan."

It signals a turning point for the samurai.

The samurai are essentially wiped out...

in 1877, when the last samurai rebellion against

the new modern government is crushed...

by young samurai,

who see the possibilities of a modernized Japan,

and take it upon themselves to remove

their own ruling class

to create that modern Japan.

There are a series of laws

that essentially ban samurai culture,

for all intents and purposes.

You can no longer carry swords in public.

Samurai are essentially given retirement stipends,

and for the most part, they are kept out of

local governorship and local government.

While the samurai's journey has come to an end,

the social and cultural impact of many of

his warrior attributes... remain.

Almost immediately, the Japanese government

decides to use bushido

as a way to unite the nation,

to instill in the nation...

these idealized tenets that the samurai

is supposed to follow, including courage and honor...

But most importantly, loyalty.

They use this to unify the nation to create

a modern Japan that will become

an important political power in the world.

The samurai eventually becomes

a cultural icon around the world.

They're in films, they're in games,

they're in anime.

They are an icon of Japan.

We see it in perhaps the biggest Western

pop cultural sensation, Star Wars,

where the director, George Lucas,

draws on bushido to create his characters

of good and evil.

There are very few weapons in popular

imagination that are so intimately tied to the

image of a warrior class than the katana.

Immediately you see that weapon, you think samurai.

The samurai have an ideal,

and many of those samurai got close to that ideal.

They followed "the way", the path.

Somebody who's focused, disciplined, and capable.

And we'd all like to be that.

We all want to be a samurai.

Two centuries after they're disbanded,

the samurai's achievements continue to inspire.

His elite martial skills,

plus his quest to achieve his full potential,

physically, mentally, and even spiritually...

earn him a place...

among History's Greatest Warriors.