hello i'm simon whistler you're watching
top 10's net and in the video today
we're looking at the top 10 horrifying
facts
you didn't know about samurai
number 10. they tested swords by cutting
people in half
in a nutshell testing a sword involved
testing the sharpness and quality of a
blade on a straw mat
something you've no doubt seen
replicated by innumerable overweight
guys wearing fedoras on youtube
sometimes though when the client
purchasing the sword was particularly
wealthy
or of high enough social standing the
sword would be tested on a live
often screaming condemned criminal
depending on the severity of the crime
the committed could lose a limb
or be cut completely in half 9.
samurai randomly murdered people for fun
during the tumultuous sengoku period of
japanese history there was an informal
practice among samurai known as chishu
giri which roughly translates to
crossroads killing invariably undertaken
by samurai who'd recently purchased a
new weapon or mastered a new technique
for turning someone's bowels inside
out the practice involved walking around
at night testing the new weapon or
technique on the first person they found
in the rare event that a samurai was
caught cutting down an innocent civilian
they could always claim they were
invoking their right to
number 8. they murdered people they
thought insulted them
kirisutgomen was a basic right afforded
a samurai that allowed them to
immediately kill
anyone of a lower class including other
samurai if they felt insulted
with a punishing sword-assisted backhand
the only conditions were that one they
had to do so immediately after the
perceived insult occurred
and two they had to be a witness luckily
a samurai could use his own servant as a
witness
meaning it was possible for a samurai to
basically kill anyone he felt like
without reprieve just because society
said
they were important enough to get away
with it number 7.
common women had to pay to marry them
marriage in the age of samurai was an
unusual thing because what exactly it
entailed depended on the class of the
woman
a given samurai wanted to wed today
we're going to focus on what happened
when women from the lower classes wanted
to get themselves some of that sweet
samurai loving though
because it's hilarious in short common
women wanting to marry samurai had to
pay them for the privilege of becoming
what amounted to a servant
that last part isn't hyperbole either
it's noted that one of the most valuable
traits in samurai wives was obedience
and that they were basically expected to
do everything for their husband
including making themselves available
for sex 24 7.
6. wives were expected to kill
themselves if their husband
messed up seppuku for the lucky few of
you who've managed to make it this far
on the internet without running into
those people who
are oddly obsessed with japan was a form
of ritual suicide practiced by samurai
when they
really messed up usually it was done as
a way to rob an enemy of the
satisfaction of killing them
to commit seppuku a samurai would slice
open his own stomach with a small blade
before his head was ceremoniously cut
off by a trusted associate
but here's where things get well weird
you see when a samurai screwed up so
badly that he felt he needed to commit
supuku to die with at least a shred of
honor in tax his wife was expected to
kill herself too
number 5. bushido and how it killed
thousands during world war
ii bushido is generally described as
being a strict code followed by samurai
that stressed the importance of honor
and self-sacrifice
in reality though bushido was more of a
nebulous group of rules that samurai
kind of followed when they felt like it
this didn't stop the japanese government
reviving the idea of bushido during
world war ii as a way of convincing
conscripts to die in the most
explody screw you way possible while
it's not necessarily the fault of
samurai that years later the government
would use them as a shiny
example of why sometimes killing
yourself could be awesome if you did it
in a metal enough way
it is their fault for being so cool
everyone was all like
yeah i'll crash a plane into a
battleship if it's what a samurai would
have done
number 4. they used to shoot dogs with
arrows
for sport though samurai are synonymous
with the katana
samurai placed a great deal of emphasis
in learning how to properly use a bow
so much so that they trained by chasing
dogs on horseback and shooting them with
arrows
over time the exercise became popular
enough that samurai and japanese nobles
began doing it for fun
competing against one another to see who
could preemptively annoy peter the most
just so this entry isn't totally
depressing we should mention that the
arrows used were sometimes padded so
that the dog wasn't killed but
this was less out of concern for the
dog's well-being and more so that the
samurai shooting at them
didn't have to go out and buy more if
they were really good at it
number three they used to have lots of
sex with teenage boys
it may surprise you to learn that
becoming a samurai involved having a
surprising amount of sex with an old
creepy man
to explain samurai training young boys
in the ways of combat were allowed to
take their apprentice as a lover until
they became an adult as part of a
brotherhood contract
though it's noted that the samurai could
only do this with the boys express
permission
anyone with a basic understanding of how
consent works should be able to see how
gross this
is number two they refused to
reintegrate into society because they
felt
they were above working the idea of
ronin masterless samurai who become
wandering swords for hire has become
almost as romanticized as the idea of
the samurai itself
and as such we felt like we should call
them out for being awful people too
in short if a samurai lost his master or
otherwise dishonored himself
he'd become a ronin which was roughly
analogous with being a hobo
despite being considered one of the
lowest rungs of society ronin still
mostly acted like samurai
in that they treated everyone like crap
and refused to work like normal people
considering it to be beneath them due to
this many ronin became bodyguards
mercenaries and criminals
and earned their keep killing or robbing
people for money
1. the kabukimono like ronin kabukimono
were often masterless samurai who
decided that being alive was a
preferable alternative to letting
someone cut their head off with a big
sword
unlike ronin though they celebrated
their new lease on life by being utterly
fabulous
the kabukimono would dress in wildly
flamboyant outfits in the most
garish colors possible when such an
outfit couldn't be found the kabukimono
would settle for women's clothing
kabukimono as samurai with no masters
and thus no responsibilities
spend most of their time actively making
the world a worse place
engaging in activities that would make
master betty proud
like beating random people in the street
or fleeing from restaurants without
paying so i really hope you liked that
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