Kenshin, Samurai or Ninja?

no offense...but that post made little to no sense. samurai are warriors that are hired by a lord or a shogun. the ninja were spies and were sometimes called metsuke. they served whoever payed the right amount of money. an imperialist just means he sided with the Ishin Shishi it doesnt tell whether hes a samurai or a ninja. and "Battousai" is just his nickname, given to him because he mastered ever stance and form of "battou" or the drawing of the sword from its sheathe in the fastest possible speed in order to kill in a singe hit.

 

he is no samurai

1) samurai means to serve. Kenshin never served anyone but he did work for people.

2)in order to be a samurai one must be born to samurai family or be adopted by one. it never said he was born to a samurai family. His master wasnt one either.

3)At the time he was batossai, samurais were slowly starting to disappear because japan was modernizing. Samurais rebeled against the government.

4)kenshin assissinated a lot of the rebel leaders thinking it would stop the civil wars which had been happening for 1000s of years.

5)he is no ninja either. He is a assasin. Ninjas also serve someone i.e. the emperor.

6) ninjas do not use katanas. especially the long ones. They carry ninja stars. the ninja's sword sheath is not on their waist but it is on their back and finally ninjas always wear masks to avoid detection when they are on their mission and he never wore a mask.

SO KENSHIN IS ONLY A SKILLED SWORDSMEN. AND A FORMER ASSASIN. LIKE SOMEONE SAID YOU DONT HAVE TO BE A NINJA TO BE AN ASSASSIN.

 

1) the word samurai is a very modern term and prehaps the best term to use for such warriors would be, monofu or tsuwamono. also, youve basicly contradicted yourself here, yes the word samurai does mean "one who serves" but working for someone is the same as serving them. but, then, Kenshin wasnt really hired by Katsura Kogorou rather her agreed to fight for the Ishin Shishi because of his own beliefs.

2) Himura Shinta was born to a peasent family somewhere in the Kansai Region on whats believed to be, June 20th, Kaei 2 (1849). no, Hiko Seijurou isnt a samurai but the founder of the Hiten Mitsurugi School of Kenjutsu was.

3) yes, Japan was starting to modernize, but there still were hundreds of thousands of samurai wandering the countryside as ronin or serving their lords in their han. its really wasnt the samurai who rebelled, but the government, the samurai were living best they could during times of peace when Commordoe Perry sailed into Uraga. he forced the Nihon government to change their ways of dealing with foreigners which upset many of the samurai who believed in keeping japan a closed nation.

4) again, the Ishin Shishi were the rebels. they were the faction that started in Choshu and began gathering strength to do a coup de'ta against tha Bakufu. and there really werent any civil wars going on at the begining of the Bakumatsu. Japan had been ruled by a single family for almost 300 years creating a peace throughout Japan.

5) "Ninja" didnt really serve anyone. if one payed enough money they would assassinate whomever you wanted. supposedly the Tokugawa Family used the Iga and Koga Ninja to assassinate faction leaders and others who might pose a threat to the Shoganate.

6) the biggest misconception. the ninja did use katana. they used the same swords that the samurai did. there is no historical data whatsoever in any records or detailed accounts that they used anything else. its debatable whether ninja stars are a real item or just a hollywood deception. as for them carrying on their backs. the most likely thing is that they carried them at their sides just like the samurai did. having a sword across the back is going to slide around and fall more easily than if simply tied to the obi like the samurai did.

-Hitokiri_Gensai

 

i don't think he's niether. because like everyones been saying hes not in a samerai family, and he doesn't do "gravity defing things". But he is flexable if you know what i mean *winkwink* lol

 

well, to be put in stricter terms. hes a ronin. hes a masterless samurai, or as "ronin" means "adrift on the waves". to be perfectly frank, hes a "rurouni" a term created by Watsuki-sensei meaning somthing similar to vagabond.

 

if i seem blunt dont take any offense, its not intended to be mean or anything.

not true. ninja served their clan for the most part, (protecting the homes, defending themselves, etc.)
the tokugawa family never had ninjas assassinate ppl to my knowledge. they posed as gardeners and servants on the estate to keep watch and guard the place. they saw basically no action for a long time and they really got out of shape overall, most had died of old age by then. when the tokugawa family went to war around 60 years later they served as recon and hit and run groups in the military. a few groups stayed in the mountains and preserved their way of life. they did sometimes take on jobs for money, but never something they wouldnt do in the firstplace.

tehy did usually tie the sword like the samurai, but if it was needed for climbing or keeping it out of the way, they would move it to the back. its actually a pretty good place, it doesnt slip as much asone might think.
stars are real. they are called shuriken. they often cut with it,rather than try to make it stick. that way the opponent may not know what it was and end up thinking its a guy with a sword and he didnt see him. he would go to get help and then the ninja would sneak by, thereby avoiding the need to kill.
ps. they did use short swords a lot. usually a wakizashi. this left room to hide things in the scabbard if they used a katana scabbard. it also allowed them to draw the sword in a smaller area than the opponent would expect.

nope. they usually dressed just like anyone else in the area. if they wanted to avoid detection, rather than suspicion, then yes they often wore masks. rarely ever black suits though. it makes a nasty silouette. they usually used dark red, grey, green, or blue. sometimes even purple.
hope this helps.

 

well, if youve ever strapped a nihontou over your back youll quickly find that it sits unevenly there, but i will admit its much easier to climb without it at your side. because of its curve it will slip into the curve of your back making the tsuka unreachable, and even more undrawable. as for using a wakizashi, as they no doubt did, i find it rather unlikely that the would use a daito scabbard. there are many reasons for this. First, the point of using a wakizashi or in earlier cases an O-Wakizashi or Chisa gatana, is that its much smaller and can be used in confined spaces, so by using a daito saya, youll find that its hard to move about using it. the samurai never wore their daitou in the house because of its length. as for drawing in a smaller area its very true and ive done the same in experiments, but tell me this, what purpose is drawing in a smaller area if the opponent is already standing out of the range of a daitou. in other words, why bother? its only fooling them into standing fully out of your range. another use would be to fool them into thinking that you were carrying a daitou therefore them becoming cocky. but because your carrying a shoto you can move much faster then they can therefore making you much more agile then them. eitherway, i believe the ninja were more likely to carry kodachi than shoto such as wakizashi, because the handle is about 10 inches long, which allows for two handed cuts and it also brings the balance point nearer to the tsuba making the sword incredibly well balanced in the hand.

 

the farther he is away, the more time you have to plan, or get out a tool to deal with the situation (caltrops would be good, or metsubishi-blinding powder-) if they think you have a daito, they think you cant do lateral draws, (in a hallway i mean)and the rest of them would be quite limited. hopefully it would open up a target that would normally be guarded.(nothing always works tho). as for the slipping saya, try leaving the X in teh back when you tie your belt, then, assuming your right hand is your primary hand, put it in at the top of the belt on the right, and then have it come out the other side of the x. it should grip better that way. is really only to keep it out of your way anyway though, for climbing and stuff. i didnt mean strapping it over your shoulder, however. i meant in the belt. i agree, its nearly impossible to draw one over the shoulder with any reliability. also, when the daito saya got to be a problem, tehy could just take it off and carry it. i find that far easier when im training indoors, you can just drop the saya, or sling its contents into the opponent's eyes, if it has metsubishi in the extra space (as you can see,i like metsubishi) if you are spotted. and yeah the kodachi is possible, they used whatever serve their purposes best. usually a katana in battlefield stuff, or a naginata, often a kusarigama or one of its variants for both battlefield and stealth.

 

well, if you think about it, in that confined space, you would be fighting with someone who would be using a shoto just as you are. and would probably not let you have any advantage. an even if you did take him by suprise more than likely he wouldnt let you have any advantage over him. he would probably draw you in close and attack just as fiercly. overall if think youd be better off carrying a shoto or a kodachi, without the extended saya. and more than likely they would only be able to carry one of whatever they had in the end of the saya meaning that it was very limited carrying space. as for slipping the end of teh says through the "x" like such is a very good idea, but it limits mobility and cuts agility in almost half. if i do need to climb when im practicing, which i rarely have to do as my kenjutsu style has little to do with being higher than my opponent, i just tie the sageo around my hand and let my nihontou hang from there.

 

yeah, true. he probably wouldnt give you any openings, but it does raise the likelyhood of him ruling out lateral draws as a possibility, if the hall is narrower than a daito is long. and the things they carried in there were mostly blinding powders, poisons and messages, so it was pretty useful, especially since you can swing the saya at a distance that seems to be out of range and blast poison/blindingpowder/metal shavings in the opponents eyes. then again they didnt ALWAYS us the long one, it was up to the individual to decide what tools/tricks he wants to use.
tying the sageo around the hand is a good idea, except for the fact that ninjas often used steel claws called shuko to help them climb, and the cord would get in the way, not to mention be hard to fight with, if he was suddenly spotted. good for 1 handed styles, though.
you seem to know a lot about what youre talking about, and present it in an intelligent way. its a relief from who i usually end up debating this stuff with(people who think traditional MAs are all scams, mainly).
anyway, lets not hijack this thread. its about kenshin, not ninjas. if you wanna keep debating, i'd be happy to if you go to my thread on ninjutsu "in the sports section".

 

ive studied Kenjutsu and the Nihontou for 9 years now and ive studied Japanese culture and history for 10.

anyway, your correct, we'll move this.

 

Not my work

-First and foremost, Kenshin is not a 'samurai'.
-Although some people concider any Japanese warrior with a sword as a 'samurai', this is not correct.
-Samurais were just one of many different types/classes of warriors who fought throughout Japan's hsitory.
-Kenshin's role during the revolution is more accurately described as an assasin, shadow asssasin, or even manslayer. But he was never an 'samurai'.
-The author of the Rurouni Kenshin manga (Nobuhiro Watsuki) describes Kensin as "wandering vagabond" and indicates that he created the word 'rurouni' to describe Kenshin. Since "ronin" means "masterless samurai", he would have probably used that if he meant Kenshin to be a samurai. In his forward for volume two of the manga, Watsuki wrote (translated from Japanese to English, of course): "Not only are the kanji for "wandering vagabond" not read "ruruoni," the word itself isnÕt even in the dictionary. I completely made it up."
-Throughout the manga and anime, Kenshin is never (to my knowledge) refered to as a 'samurai' by anyone who truly knows him or his history


JL Mondazzi

 

i dont know enough to debate it, but since samurai means "to serve" he would at least have done a samurai-ish thing in fighting for Ishin shishi. even though he only served because their motives coincided, he DID serve. (if he did what they told, instead of taking his own actions. again, i dont know enough to debate it)

 

well, samurai does mean to serve. but its much more than that. first off, one had to be born into a Samurai family, or adopted. secondly, a samurai's duty was to not only his han or province, but also the Shogun, so he would have been fighting for the Bakufu had he been a true Samurai. Also, he didnt hold up the code of Bushido like a true Samurai of the period. the code of Bushido put simply is "to know life in every breath". he was just an assassin, he didnt have much care for any of the targets he a told to kill. honestly, Kenshin is nothing more than a wandering swordsman.

 

I dont think kenshin would ever consider preforming Hara-kiri either

 

well, no, because by commiting seppuku he would be letting down all the people that he had pledge to protect.

 

*clapclap* Okay, children! Let's review SYNONYMS!

"Happy" and "Glad" are the SAME!
"Assasin" and "Ninja" are NOT!

Though he was an assasin, that dosen't automatically classify him as a "ninja". -_- When was the last time you saw a ninja wielding a Sakabatou?