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The samurai were the legendary warriors of Japan from the early 12th century until their abolition in the late 1800s. They were revered by all, and it was the dream of many Japanese boys to one day be a samurai, much like young European boys wanting to be knights, or Norse boys wanting to be Viking raiders. These honorable and noble warriors have caught the interest of many throughout the centuries and that trend continues even in modern times. TV, movies, video games, and books all show grand battles between samurai and some great foe, gamblers and bandits in movies like Seven Samurai and Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa, the Mongols in the video game Ghost of Tsushima, or even stormtroopers and battle droids in Star Wars which was heavily inspired by Kurosawa’s films. I am one of the people whose attention has been grabbed countless times by these great men and the tales of their deeds. I’ve personally always been intrigued by their sense of honor and duels and some of my favorite characters in pop culture either are samurai or are based on samurai. Jin Sakai in Ghost of Tsushima, Roronoa Zoro in One Piece, and Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader in Star Wars are all samurai or are a twist in the ideals of the samurai. These, however, are only the ones that I have the strongest connections to. There are hundreds of these characters with their own stories throughout pop culture and they have all drawn someone to learn more about them and their culture, whether that’s from online research, watching movies, or playing video games. They all give us a deeper appreciation of samurai and the impact they’ve had on our world, even if they no longer inhabit it themselves. For those new to this community, I welcome you and hope that this welcome guide helps teach you the basics about the life of the samurai and the things that were important to them in their lives. In this guide will be a list of important terms and their meanings, a breakdown of the moral code of the samurai and how important honor and shame were in their lives, a gallery of images to show some important artifacts of the samurai, and more information on the samurai in general. I hope that you find this informative and that it helps you appreciate the samurai in the way that I do.