Samurai Museum

There is a small museum in Tokyo dedicated to the history of the Samurai. The Akira Kurosawa fan in me was basically screaming with joy on the inside the entire time I was there.

The armour on display was all authentic and beautiful to behold in person. I’m not entirely sure how I’ve been so interested in this history and never knew that all of the armour was actually a series of iron plates. They are woven together with fabric, but the layered plates made mobility much easier than the European armour of the same time period.

Many of the helms had ornate and custom designs. This one has an Oni adornment.

The museum even had an authentic sword created by Musashi Miyamoto’s apprentice. Musashi pioneered the use of two sword fighting, the traditonal method was always a single sword using both hands.

There is a pretty common misconception portrayed in movies that the English and Americans introduced guns to the Japanese which the Samurai were not prepared for. In truth the Portuguese introduced firearms to the Samurai in the 1500s. Many Samurai carried and used firearms, resorting to their swords after the first shot was fired because of the slow reload speed.

In the Edo period, the Shogun at the time was so paranoid about being shot that he had many of the weapons destroyed. So they became more and more rare amoungst the Samurai. So valuable were these firearms that some families would trade their children for a gun.

I loved this place and it was a bit of a perspective change to see a sword that was 3 times older than the country I live in. You know, just laying around, here’s this sword that’s over 800 years old.