Samurai

Japan's hand-forged knives a slice of samurai metallurgy

Blacksmith Yoshihiro Yauji pulls a piece of glowing metal from the forge in a Japanese village, continuing a tradition dating back centuries to when the region was renowned for crafting swords carried by samurai.

He places the steel under a spring hammer and the sound of the metal being flattened and fortified into a kitchen knife echoes off the mountains surrounding the workshop.

Brutal femicide with samurai sword triggers wave of anger

In yet another case of femicide, a woman has been brutally murdered in broad daylight with a samurai sword while she was walking on a street in Istanbul.

Başak Cengiz, a 28-year-old woman, was attacked by Can Göktuğ Boz out of nowhere with a samurai sword while she was walking on a street of a housing estate where she resided in Istanbul's Ataşehir district late on Nov. 9.

Traces of samurai on Slovenian soil to be explored at Metelkova

The exhibition on Japanese weapons and the warrior culture on the Slovenian soil will showcase museum exhibits as well as pieces from private collections.

Some 50 select pieces of Japanese weapons and protective gear, including state-of-the-art swords and a rare gem, a fully preserved samurai armour, will be on display until 5 November.

The first Non Japanese Samurai was an African slave named Yasuke

According to Histoire Ecclesiastique Des Isles Et Royaumes Du Japon, written by François Solier of the Society of Jesus in 1627, Yasuke was a Muslim from Mozambique. Solier’s account may however have been an assumption, as it was written so long after the event and there is no surviving contemporary account that corroborates it.

Civil War In Japan – The last Shogun marches toward the end of an era

On the 27th of January, 1868, the army of the Shogunate was marching toward Kyoto. For more than a quarter of a century, the Tokugawa Shoguns had ruled Japan in peace, but now the country was once again in turmoil. Foreigners had come to Japan, Dutch, British and French, and modern European weaponry and training had for the first time become influential in the land of the rising sun.