Samurai and Cowboys: Brothers Beyond Cinema! - Which Samurai 

Fun fact: when Mad Max first appeared on the silver screen the Americans called him a lone ranger and the Japanese called him a Ronin

I remember seeing a reddit thread about it, but a cowboy, a samurai, an old french pirate, and a victorian gentleman thief could all exist simultaneously around the late 1800s. They'd make a hell of a team.

I imagine a Samurai who served in the Boshin War and Cowboy who had served in the Cavalry during the Civil War would have a lot to talk about, and probably vary similar stories.

I would love to see a movie where a samurai and a cowboy slowly learn each other’s ways and discover at the end that they are not so different. In addition, the cowboy learns about the past to appreciate the present while samurai learns more about the present to let go of the past.

The commonality between Western and Samurai films can also be observed in franchises like “Star Wars”, which manages to blend both genres together seamlessly along with sci-fi, fantasy, and historical war films. It’s really no wonder why the series became the global phenomenon it is - there was something in it that every culture could identify with and appreciate.

I always found it really funny how much the west loves samurai and ninjas and Japan was like “alright bet” and started loving cowboys

I find the same romanticism of a moral code in chivalry. Another moral code retroactively applied to people who mostly did violence.

As an American, I find it really humbling that one of the countries that we've come to love a lot about has something about us that they love just as much. America is often the butt of everyone's jokes (for good fucking reason), but It's really heartwarming to see it go both ways. Side note: This also reminds me of how there's a debate in Japan about if King of the Hill is better subbed or dubbed, much like our debates over Anime.

a lot western films even before before the adaptations of samurai flicks actually had characters who mirrored the archetype of the Ronin with the whole post civil war wandering soldier without a cause concept

In times when discussions of "cultural apropriation" are on fire here and there, this video is an oasis. Japanese can appreciate cowboys, Americans can appreciate samurai. And that is ok.

I could see a Samurai and Cowboy being popular in both Japan and America, particularly because both warriors are extremely popular worldwide. Hell, you should see the Cowboy craze in France. Famed artist and author Moebius created a series of Bandes Deasinee based off of his cowboy character, Sheriff Blueberry. Hell, Moebius WAS a cowboy for a good bit. I think it's the idea of the Outlaw and Ronin being similar to a Knight Errant of yore: all the freedom to wander and be where you want and do what you want, tempered and even bolstered by a great sense of duty and honor; tied together in a neat little bow of Justice and Heroism. It's the idea of being some kind of great wandering paladin that seeks to bring justice and peace to the lawless and turmoiled; classical Hero stuff that never really goes out of style.

The connection between samurais and cowboys gotta be my favorite cinema connection

Cowboys got off lucky compared to samurai. Because cowboys weren't explicitly tied to status, they live on in everyday life, tho in a far more practical sense.

The fact theres a trope called the samurai cowboy. Fuses the best of both worlds. I'm huge western fan and I'm happy u did this video

I need to send this to my Western obsessed dad. He could use some culture.

To add to the discussion of why both are so well received in the other cultures, they both represent the unknown, adventure, exploration and freedom in a barely known world that is so radically different to what the local culture knows themselves. A representation of what I think is an incredibly basic human desire to go beyond your own borders, both metaphorical and literal, and show one's merit. To a Japanese native, the Samurai are a known quantity, they don't have a significant "interesting" factor beyond what would be expected when looking at a figure of authority. The same is true of the Old West and Cowboys. But then you factor in how both have such similar underlying principles and while many people likely wouldnt be able yo consciously make that connection, they would still recognize subconsciously that there are core shared elements to empathize with.

In one of my recent-ish tabletop games set in a weird wild west I played a Samurai Cowboy. He had been disowned and exiled to the west by his father under false pretense to save him from being executed for participating in the Satsuma rebellion, went west and fell in with a group of others both foreign and native and became a deputy and eventually the sheriff of a small town, taking up protecting them as a way to go from being a Ronin back to Samurai, finding a purpose to live out his life. Oh, and he had his trusty pooch with him.

As a Texan training in bujutsu, im lovin this. By the way, you dont get more ninja than the longhunter/mountain man/scout. As a country song goes, Country Boy can survive Your last point id say centralization of government also played a role in the cowboy becoming redundant, or at least seemingly to be. Most of the action happened during when texas, new Mexico, Arizona and California were still territories. The only real central, aka federal, force would be US Marshals and the Army. So unless you were a soldier or a criminal, or happened to be a citizen in a town nearby either a fort or marshal office, you wouldn't see a fed. I actually would recommend the RU-vid channel Arizona Ghost Riders for anyone interested in this subject. They do reenactments in old Tuscon where a lot of westerns were filmed.

I've always thought its so interesting that these two groups existed at the same time!

monkey punch actually made a manga about this whole concept, it's called "bakumatsu yankee" and it's amazing! It really encapsulates all the ideas that you pointed out would happen if a samurai and a cowboy became friends. it got adapted into an amazing anime, too.

With their many similarities one could say that samurai and cowboys go hand-in-hand like peanut butter and jelly.

Both America and Japan have a romantic period around the turn of the twentieth century, where the symbols of their past became phased out as culture changed and adapted to new technology. At the end of a civil war, America's pioneer expansion ended and Japan westernized. Both cultures were immediately nostalgic for the symbols of their past and wondered if they would lose their identity in the new era, and so immortalized a romanticized version of their past in mass media.

Fun fact: some cowboys rode camels. The U.S. army thought that camels would be better able to deal with the weather and terrain of the west and had some shipped from Africa. When they got here the Civil War was underway and the plan was abandoned and the camels were released into the wild where some were captured and used by ranchers. Also the Gunnie Rose Trilogy by Charlaine Harris is one of the best westerns I’ve ever read.

Great video. From all the similarities you discussed I can't help but think of Jigen and Goemon from Lupin the 3rd and how well they work together despite their obvious differences. I know its not exactly 1 to 1 but that's the vibe i get from everything you talked about.

I love when they fuse the two together like in Red Steel 2 and Sakura Wars 5

I wonder if it’s also worth mentioning the relationship between the gunman jigen and samurai goemon from Lupin III.

Man now we need a story of a gunslinger and a samurai fighting bad guys together!

I now imagine a samurai jack and the scotsman kind of interaction with the samurai and cowboy

My favorite blend of samurai and cowboys is Metal Gear Rising and mainly Sam. It's Raiden vs a mercenary group called Desperado and Jetstream Sam literally uses a gun sheath to make his quick draw/strike faster

As a european I have to point ay that all the things you said can kinda be used for our knights. The code of chivalry, serving their lord/king, sword and shield, horses.

The use of "That's The Way It Is," from Red Dead Redemption 2, at 17:55, just as you start talking about how time forces change with modernization, is a brilliant choice.

This video was mind-blowing. Two of some of my favorite historical warrior groups have so much more in common that i've never even considered before! It's honestly incredible. Another excellent video, Gaijin! (And i definitely gotta watch Red Sun now lol)

You skipped the influence John Ford had on Kurosawa, Ford's "Three Bad Men" vs a certain "Three Bad men in a *Hidden Fortress* ".

Idk why but this reminded me of the existence of Animas Trujano. The first (and maybe only?) Mexican movie to have a Japanese superstar. Toshiro Mifune starred as the main protagonist, Animas.

I like both Cowboys and Samurai, they both have a unique charm that sets them apart. Yet their culture and values can be enjoyed by both the West and the East respectively.

This is actually kind of funny. I just bought a brand new Magnum Research BFR in 460 Smith & Wesson with a 10" barrel. After taking it out of the box my daughter asked me if she could name it. Of course I said yes. She named it "Bebop." 😂❤

Damn, just added "Country Bars" to my list of To-Dos in Japan lol

Yugioh related meme: "Remember, it's Okay to run Gagaga Cowboy in a themed Six Samurai deck because Cowboys are just American Samurai." Yeah, I thought that checked out when I first saw it on twitter.... now it seems even more valid.

I’d be interested in a samurai cowboy buddy comedy that compares and contrasts these two different cultures.

Here's a bit of a fun fact about the origins of the romanization of the Old West: One of the big influences of the early writers was the legend Wyatt Earp himself. That's right, Wyatt Earp lived long enough to be a writer/consultant for early Hollywood, and many of the very early Old Westerns about Earp were actually written by the man himself. Embellished a bit of course, as most old folks talking about the good ol' days tend to do. Earp's tall tales even touched the life of a young stagehand who became fast friends with the old lawman. Those tales inspired that young stagehand to take up acting himself, styling himself after his friend Earp's tales of how a cowboy should behave. And you could say that young stagehand went on to have a big impact on the views of the Old West himself, acting under the stage name "John Wayne".

I just find it humourous how the west embraced samurai media with 60s spaghetti westerns and the east in-turn turned to western cinema for neo-chambara style films.

8:24 #5 has me in stitches, knowing exactly how some people who embrace cowboy culture in the US actually conduct themselves. Far from even a majority, but enough regionally that I get to laugh about it.

I think Hanzo and McCree should've had more dialogue between each other, not just mentioning Robin Hood and Goemon

Have you seen Gung Ho? It's about a western Pennsylvania auto plant is acquired by a Japanese company, brokering auto worker Hunt Stevenson faces the tricky challenge of mediating the assimilation of two clashing corporate cultures. At one end is the Japanese plant manager and the sycophant who is angling for his position. At the other, a number of disgruntled long-time union members struggle with the new exigencies of Japanese quality control.

An interesting similarity is connection with Spain. Spain brought its firearms to Japan and horses to the Americas. There are even archtypes similar to the cowboy throughout Latin America

I still remember the pixiv art piece I saw that's a girl in samurai armor but the kabuto was shaped like a cowboy hat. Yes, she was weilding a tanegashima rifle to top it all off. It's such a great picture.

In Lupin III the character a Jigen is a American gunslinger and thief and works under the Grandson of Ársene Lupin alongside a samurai named Goemon

What a coincidence i am watching “for a few dollars more” right now

I knew about the Japanese Cowboy fans, and I want to go to Japan for that. Everything else is cool, yes, but like, it's cool to see how we influenced each other. Cowboys, Samurai, Knights, all bound together by a weird sense of honor and just being cool.

He'll Japanese people loving Westerns is where Kojima got the idea of Revolver Ocelot from and all of his revolver tricks.

While I'm loving Gene Autry's take on the code, I always thought the code of the west was, "if a man steals your horse, you shoot him," as a horse was how one survived and horse theft in the middle of no where was nearly stranding a person to die of exposure. I got that from a TV show though and I could be remembering wrong from. 30 years of nostalgia filters. One aspect of popular media that I find funny about cowboy movies is how rarely they show law enforcement confiscating guns to enter towns. Bar and street gun fights are way overblown and romanticized to the point some folks look at movies as a form of history but that's another matter of media and historical literacy. That said, pretty sure Red Sun is what got me really into Toshiro Mifune and finally appreciating both cowboy and samurai movies. Hated the white hat/black hat movies that never depicted the actual consequences of violence. Just guys clutching their hearts and falling dramatically ot someone getting guns shot out of their hands. As if hip firing could be that accurate! SPOILER below - Red Sun shows Mifune's character mortally wounded barely badly and it was such a shock on my first viewing

Speaking as a somewhat modern cowboy, a lot of us noted it as time has gone by. Technology makes it easier to work but it removes the need for some of the extra help. Which is part of why its hard to keep family farms running or people who are willing to stay close. Something of different note for films about comparing the lives would be Monte Walsh. The film goes over the expanse of the ranching industry and the refusal of some cowhands to "spit on their whole lives". Let alone problems with adjusting.

I always find it interesting that the samurai and cowboy are a yin and yang situation

I just found out Ken Watanabe did a remake of Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven in 2014. It's set just after the Meji restoration I believe.

We can thank Westerns honestly for influencing Hirohiko Araki for without them we wouldn't have most of what makes Jojo's Bizarre Adventure what it is especially Steel Ball Run and Jotaro's inspiration from Clint Eastwood to name some examples.

im making a pathfinder buddy group now of gunslinger/samurai/martial artisst/ anmd what ever other cool af cultural heoroes i can causae THIS IS SO COOL!

Just as the sun sets on one era, so too does it rise on another. This is the lesson of the Cowboys and the samurai. Thus how they began, and how they ended.

There is another Cowboy ninja in the Sentai Series Ninningers call StarNinger, who transforms using a burger phone and his outfit is that of a cowboy.

Nah... this did not come out right when I decided to make a Samurai character for a wild west D&D game based on this whole idea. What the heck kinda mind link did we accidentally make? But seriously that's actually really cool.

I feel like someone could make a lot of money having a game or a story where the two mix with each other. Like imagine Rockstar does a DLC for RDR2 or an entire new game that’s basically the magnificent seven with Arthur Morgan and other cultures warriors mixing to create a team. I feel like Arthur Morgan meeting a Samurai is enough for it to be a best seller. I dunno this idea needs more thought into it but it could be good

so, stumbled upon a trailer called KYŌRYŪ and its so cool! its set in japan with dinosaurs but! these dinos have a japanese twist like a t-rex with samurai armour but its aart of him with bone horns shaped to look like the helmets. theres also a dimetrodon with a koi karp sort of pattern that looks like a mob boss its so cool! figured gaijin would find it interesting

.......a video both my mother and could have enjoyed. My mom grew up with westerns and adored the old west, I did too for a VERY long time, my biological father is VERY proud of having Cherokee blood and I recently found out I have more on my mother's side of the family thanks to my maternal aunt on my mother's mother's side doing some digging into the family history on her side. I'm shocked honestly to hear that there's a honest to goodness festival in Japan that celebrates the old west...and more than a little wish I could attend. As a southern born boy who grew up with the old west and has been slowly splitting himself apart about my love for Japanese culture, medieval European culture, and the old west...seeing people in Japan who honestly love the other two (the sheer amount of fantasy JRPGs and RPGs, anime, and manga with a fantasy medieval style Europe style setting shows that) it makes me very happy and makes it easier to get back to my roots so to speak when it comes to westerns. This vid also helped to explain why Revolver Ocelot was the way he was...his in universe self was much like the creators and fans in Japan who love the old west.

This is by far one of my all-time favorite videos you’ve ever made! 👍

For which samurai you gotta do Magnamalo! Fir fir which ninja how about yoshimitsu from tekken or Oboromaru from live a live! XD Also a joy to see new vids from you!

An additional note about pistols and katanas instead of rifles and bows/polearms/proto-rifles, it shows the shift from mass warfare to stories based on "squad fighting," on a smaller self-defense/dueling scale where war strategy isn't as much of a necessity as quick and accurate technique. You'll see them come up when droves of bandits show up to raid some town in force, but it's not very practical to defend yourself in a conversation-gone-sour with a weapon that requires two hands to properly wield.

It is worth to mention that in a sense Sakamoto Ryōma can be described as samurai cowboy. In later periods some samurai were known from using imported revolvers as sidearm.

there's also the mecha anime "Gun X Sword" who mixes the samurai and cowboy into one with the protagonist Van who dresses like a cowboy but his main weapon of choice is a sword, granted a shape-changing sword that is not a katana but works the same way anyways.

I think something that ties these two with in the minds of those looking back is the stoicism. Both the US and Japan (as well as many other cultures) romanticize the "Stoic Hero".

1. Gotta find this movie Gaijin talking. 2. Damn 0_0, this explains everything.

As an unapologetic shill for Kurosawa's work (of the, I think, 10 movies I've seen) Kirosawa-san was deeply influenced by not only Shakespeare, but Dostoevsky (and this is just from the top of my head, mind you) (I've also seen Jon Ford's westerns thrown around as an influence for him as well)

Wild Arms definitely made the iaijutsu/quickdraw connection, since one of the main characters is basically a samurai cowboy with sword techniques called "Fast Draw".

I remember a story (possibly apocryphal) about how when "A Fistful of Dollars" was first released, a friend of Kurosawa asked him if he was going to take any kind of legal action because it was just "Yojimbo", and Kurosawa said "No, because "Yojimbo" is "Red Harvest"."

Hell hath no fear than a Cowboy with a Katana and a Samurai with a Revolver.

Django is not "da-jango". The D is silent, so it's "jahn-go". So..."corpos kill culture". Well, I'm a believer. Let's grab our collective odachi and Winchesters and go drive them money-men extinct. (In Minecraft.)

What’s funny is that your talk of how cowboys and samurai would interact reminds me of the dynamic between Rattrap and Dinobot in Beast Wars, Rattrap being the cowboy and Dinobot the samurai.

Have you ever played Red Steel 2? It basically blends samurai and cowboy stuff together and is fun to play.

It goes full circle with Sukiyaki Western Django. As it is a cowboy Western with a full Japanese cast, filmed in English, produced by an American about the war of Roses.

"Gauche" mean Left in french, Alain Delon, the actor who plays Gauche is French

Hey Gaijin Goombah, I've always wanted to reach you personally about a TTRPG project I've been working on and wanted to see if it at all Piqued your interest. The only issue is I wouldn't necessarily call geeking out about how you and Japans plethora of yokai and gods helped inspire this Essence 20 power rangers campaign as a business inquiry. Thanks so much for these awesome videos you make.

This video makes me curious what samurai armor and cowboy garb mixed together would look like; beyond the obvious of simply a cowboy or cowgirl wielding a katana as we see in Sakura Wars 5 and Onechanbara; and what a mixture of Wild West architecture and Feudal Japanese architecture would look like, as well. That might be interesting.

I think one of the most fun little subgenres of science fiction is where cowboy and samurai aesthetics combine into a great ride.

If that Japanese Office Worker can visualize his life as if he were a cowboy in a sense, not only can I do the same for my factory job but I'm happy for him. Ride on Cowboy

A quick note here: the common media depiction of a Cowboy riding with their firearms holstered on their waist is a demonstrative inaccuracy; does it shoot well? Yeah, did some genuine cowboys do that? Maybe, but probably not for long. More often than not, they would ride with their weapons holstered in special carriers for their saddles; that way, if the gun did go off, then it would shoot harmlessly into the ground, and only a complete idiot would intentionally try to get under a horse, because if they actually did ride with their firearms holstered to their sides and backs that could mean danger, for both them and their mount, having their firearms holstered that way meant increased likelihood of the farm unintentionally going off and shoot them and/or their horse. And self-injury is usually something you want to avoid at all costs, especially with how medical treatment was much harder to come by in those days, and even incredibly expensive for people in those days. I imagine weapon treatment for samurai was similar, keeping your weapons in special slings and the like that were attached to the saddle so that they didn't interfere with your ability to handle a horse.

warms my heart seeing how much both east and west are such weebs for each others culture for so long.

In a manga I'm making, there is a character that's a hybrid cowgirl and samurai.

related to this, MBTI community has also noticed the similarity ("ISTP" type personality) between stereotypical cowboy and stereotypical ronin - and stereotypical ninja is also considered to be ISTP type.

Snipe is a Japanese Cowboy hero In My Hero Academia

There's a fungus called Chorioactis and it only exists in Japan and in Texas.

I made a half Orc samurai character for my dnd campaign that took place in an alternate Earth during the aftermath of the Civil War, my character Goro, left Japan when his lord died and went to the United States and fought for the Union during the Civil War. He got naturalized as a U.S. citizen for his service. He alongside his adventuring party Vex Fortuna, went around helping people. One of the BIGGEST inspirations I had for him was Yojimbo and Samurai Jack.

The last connection you spoke about was what originally inspired me to start writing my book. A warrior class made onselete by modernization. Another layer of this, is that many Cowboys (or at least what we see as Cowboys) were former civil war soldiers who were left aimless and without direction and with few other skills besides combat. This same situation is what lead so many samurai to become bandits after the unification conflicts. This kind of pattern has lead to many different classes of warrior throughout history. Societies made warriors and then had no place for them post conflict. Another big example is pirates during the golden age of piracy. After the wars between england and france and spain slowed down many se faring men had no other skills besides being soldiers.

I love this video and if you wanted I would love to see more which samurai comparing the cowboys in westerns to they're eastern samurai movies but in more specifics one to one comparisons. You gave a bunch of movie pairings at the begining of this one that would be good videos on they're own if you wanted to.

So I guess may have an idea for my next deadlands character.

Not gonna lie as soon as I learned about the code of the West it made me think of a Paladin's oath now I'm just thinking of a paladin cowboy

This connection is literally the basis of a lot of Metal Gear Rising. Can I get a thread of people singing one of those songs

Spaghetti Westerns are so popular in japan for this reason.

I'm playing in a kinda silly urban fantasy ttrpg game set in the early 1900's. I decided to play off these tropes by making a character who was the child of a Samurai and a cowgirl. It's been a fun time playing around with the tropes.

Why not take a look at all the yokai in hellboy sword of storms.

Ok, if we're looking at it with this kind of context as well, let's see the Gentleman Thief archetype compared to the Shinobi. You opened this door.

It's a beautiful cultural exchange.

It's funny that this video popped up today, because for the past few days I've been letting a concept for a new story stew in a mind. A story about two warriors from two different nations having to find common ground and work together to survive a coming conflict. I think I may use the code of both cowboys and samurai to help do this.