Kenshin a samurai?

Kenshin is a great show. however, the creators and many people have made a mistake calling him "a wandering samurai". Samurai means "to serve". Kenshin never served anyone. he worked for people but thats it. Also in order to be a samurai one must be born to a samurai family. You can't be a samurai just cuz u got a katana and dress like one. It never says once in the show that he was born to a samurai family. His master he isnt a samurai either. It never says he was. Also the show takes place when japan was trying to modernize itself. At this time the samurai class was slowly disappearing. Some samurais rebeled against the government. Kenshin killed a lot of these rebels when he was "battosai". so in conclusion he is only a very skilled swordsmen. he never was a samurai and never will be. instead he contributed to the extinction of the samurai class.


After finding out about this i was really disappointed. :sad:

 

hes not a samurai. at all. period. end of story. he was born to a farming family. at this point anyone could carry a sword of any length and wear their hari chonmage. before 1871 there had been a ban stating that anyone could carry a blade of 1.8 shaku if one obtained a permit. therefore, the ban limited the use of carrying a "daito" to the samurai class. to be of the samurai class you had to have been born into it. you had to be the ligitement son of a samurai family. or, you could be adopted into the family, that was the other way to become of the samurai class.

Himura Shinta later known as Himura Kenshin or Himura Battousai, was born to a peasent family in the Kansai area. although his exact birth date and place of birth arent known, its assumed that he was born on, June 20th, Kaei 2 (1849).

as for his master, the first to live under the name Hiko Seijurou was a true samurai. one of the last in the nation of Kitakai. however, one under the name Hiko Seijurou since then havent been blood related. they saw the only thing that qualified a student was his will to live and his, perhaps, hidden talent.

 

well rurouni isn't a real word either. it's from a samerai without a sensai and something else i forget. and didn't kenshin hang out with a couple of gypsies or something? (sry from my spelling i really suck at it)

 

Watsuki-Sensei created the word himself. it means something similar to vagabond. gypsies?

 

he is 1

he is a samurai the are mixed fellings about that but the reason he is not a samurai in your defininition is because your definition is "o serve" but to be a wondering samurai mean's to serve different ppl. but the main reason he is a samurai is because he was a top ranking member in the 1 samurai clan in Samurai X the Motion Picture. :anime:

 

i love these post so much discusion it makes . hey Hitokiri_Gensai long time
kenshin/shinta is just cool and leave it at that. lol

 

Ive heard the same thing over...and over agin in other threads...my lord

this is off topic but i have a question for you Hitokiri_Gensai...
i'm assuming uve been to japan,
i know that in okinawa there are bars that are "japanese only"
do they do that on the mainland?
or in tokyo ?

 

The American title is Samurai X but in Japan the OVAs are still called Rurouni Kenshin. I just think of Kenshin as just a swordsman. During the Shogunate, a samurai usaully was appointed to the position by a war lord or the emperor(sp)

 

well just up holding the Samurai code of bushido didnt make you a samurai, it made you perhaps, courageous or honorable, but it didnt make you a samurai. he was merely an assassin with a strong sense of honor.

as for offtopic questions,
There are paces that dont serve to other asian people such as Korean or Chinese. ive heard of hem more only being in places like america in the poorer regions of like Chinatowns.

Big_man,
he wasnt really a top ranking samurai at all. Katsura asks him at one point to join them as a member of the cabinet but he turns him down saying that hes only a bodygaurd. In Rurouni Kenshin: Requiem De Ishin Shishi hes the exact same as he was in the OVA.

Kenshin is not a samurai as i stated before, he may uphold the moral standards of the samurai but he is not one.

As for the shogunate appointing them, this is true but again, only one of the samurai class could be appointed to a post.

 

oh yeah, note to Zanza,

the "real" Kenshin's name was Kawakami Gensai. Born under the name Komori Genjiro he later changed it to Kawakami Gensai. in the end he lived under the name Takeda Genbe. he was a short man with long black hair and was sometimes mistaken for a girl. he outer appearence hid a cold calculating mind and soul. he is considered to be the most powerful of the "Four Great Hitokiri". He is famous for cutting down Kuma Shouzan in broad daylight with his Furanui Ryuu. whether or not he was the one who performed the numerous assassinations is questionable. when power was given to Emperor Meiji his ideals of isolationism conflicted with the interests of the Meiji Government. he was caught and beheaded on false charges in the fourth year of the Meiji (1871).

Hitokiri Gensai created Furanui Kenjutsu after learning kenjutsu from Todoroki Muhe and he learned Bushido from Miyabe Teizo. its not a certain thing that he favored a battoujutsu stance like Kenshin, but many assassins of the period did, because of the fact that they could make a single killing strike with lightning swiftness.



note, because this topic comes up so much im going to sticky this thread

 

If I may point out, you had to be _born_ to a Samurai, to be a true samurai. They do not inherit this through teachings, but rather by association from birth.

Sanosuke!
Return to Japan - October 2004 (Yep for a whole month again!)
Addicted to Rurouni Kenshin & Japan!!

 

i already pointed that out in an earlier post.

 

doesn't rurouni just mean job-less or something like that? so i just looked in the japanese dictionary and it said that it's a person who has no home and just travels around.
and samurai doesn't mean to serve. it's 'taishita gymbutsu'. or like, taishita hito. bushi. like um.... a person who can do like um....... lots of sword stuff like kendo and things like that. it's also like to protect and, yeah.

anyway, kenshin isn't really a samurai. he's just a wandering swordsman. a guy who just has no home to go back to... who ever said that he was a samurai? oh well.

going back to aomori!!! but in the winter... snow

(o^-^o) yaka.

 

where exactly did you look up the word "Rurouni" Watsuki himself, pointed out that he made the word up. BTW, "Samurai" does mean to serve, you have to look at the Kanji tho.

 

Battousai!

you spelled Battousai wrong.

 

Overall Kenshin is an assassin I'd say, or a mercenary Samurai, what is the name of that again?
I'll find it but until then, I'm stickin with the belief that he's an assasin.

 

Kenshin could be called an assasin, but he really wasn't. Simply put, he was a warrior of great speed and strength. And he can't be a samurai. As said before, samurai means to serve, and only people of nobility could be samurai. If you were the son of a farmer, there is no way you could be a samurai.

 

check and mate by Hitohiro

 

wow i havent been here in forever...

anyway, Kenshin was born to peasent parents, so therefore he couldnt be a samurai unless he was adopted, but he was sold to slavers so hes not a samurai. as for him being an assassin thats his job, not his social status. socially, hes nothing more than a peasent. oh and theres a difference between being a swordsmen and being a samurai