Oh fantastic, no one else posted this concept yet
So, I think there’s an important connection there you’re touching on. Samurai and cowboys occupy the same space in media, and I’ll give you some examples.
Someone else mentioned the movie, but Seven Samurai, a HIGHLY influential and well received film from japan in the 50s, helped inspire The Magnificent Seven, a key cowboy film from the early 60s.
The film Yojimbo (please watch it if you haven’t, it’s just very well done, really funny, have to get over the ‘movies had NO real soundtrack back then’ problem if you’re not used to old films) is like watching The Matrix AFTER you’ve already seen the slow-mo and ‘i know Kung fu’ tropes in movies. The man rolls up into town, two sides opposed and neither really ‘good’ but innocents in the middle.
What were called ‘spaghetti westerns’ in the past due to the Italian directors at the time, a majority chunk of those movies utilized similar filmography techniques and plots. The kids who watched those westerns also watched samurai films (cheap movie is a cheap movie on a weekend night) and the concept sort of melded over time to where the Ronin of Japan and the Lone Ranger of America are two flavors of the same steel-wielding hero.
The way samurai in movies revere their swords, talking about the efficiency of a weapon, the artfulness or it, all VERY similar to how revolvers took/take a center stage for western fantasies. Add to that the individualism of the west, the rugged nature of a traveler with a weapon, the tie-in of ‘honor’ in both cultures, the ‘only lawmen can have a weapon in city limits’ laws that were featured in the America AND Japan at that time.
Super neat
I think this is why Star Wars is so successful. It’s western, samurai, and sci-fi all mixed together (at least the good stuff is).
Seven Samurai was made by Kurosawa, which became “The Magnificent Seven” and “A Bug’s Life”.
He also made “Yoimbo” and is sequel “Sanjuro”, which became “A Fist Full of Dollars” and “For a Few Dollars More”.
And he made “The Hidden Fortress”, which inspired “Star Wars.”
Dude was influential.
TIL I need to watch A Bugs Life again, but yeah, I’m very familiar with his work.
I forget it’s not a super widely known thing that samurai movies and westerns have built off each other in a way. Slow burn, fast climactic action, stoic protagonists. It’s one of those things that you wouldn’t expect at face value, but actually have a lot in common when you start breaking it down. They have influenced each other a lot over the years, with 7 Samurai itself even pulling some inspiration from Ford’s westerns.
It’s cool seeing some of the history laid out. That sharing of ideas has led to some incredible films.
Can’t do this with a katana. Check mate atheists.
Drawing your katana with speed and faster than the other guy killing him in one blow
Drawing your revolver faster than the other guy and killing him in one shot
Checks out to me
There’s a reason why they made westerns out of samurai movies.
And samurai movies out of westerns too.
Example?
Sukiyaki Western Django
There also exist several japanese comics and videogames heavily influenced by westerns, but they seem to take influence from all sorts of cultures idk if that counts.
Isn’t that reverse logic?
Westerns were adapted from samurai movies therefore they have a lot in common, not the other way around.
Read that again. You’re both saying the same thing.
Fistful of Dollars came out 2-3 years after Yojimbo, they have the same plot except one is Samurai and one is a Western. Kurosawa even got paid from it after a lawsuit.
They changed the setting to Mexico (kept most of the set design choices) changed the names, and added guns.
I like Yojimbo and cowboys enough that I’ll watch both
Both weapons and users coexisted at the same period of time too.
In fact, you could write a story about a samurai and cowboy playing with Nintendo cards and drinking Coke and it could be historically accurate.
Plus you could add faxing Abraham Lincoln. Faxing is surprisingly old.
I forget if it’s Yojimbo or Sanjuro where one of the bad guys is basically just a guy with a revolver who looks down everyone else for using swords.
It is Yojimbo.
Pretty sure its Yojimbo, mostly becuase Fistful of Dollars had the same gimmick with a rifle vs a revolver. And I know it was Leone’s remake of Yojimbo
Please elaborate, with links for further reading.
Samurai class existed until 1870 but presumably they didnt just vanish at that date https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai?wprov=sfti1
Cowboys in the traditional sense existed in the 19th century, if not not earlier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy?wprov=sfti1
Revolvers in some form have existed even longer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolver?wprov=sfti1
Nintendo was formed in 1889 and produced playing cards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo?wprov=sfti1
Coca Cola formed in 1886 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola?wprov=sfti1
Hell fucking yes, thank you!
I remember in Golden Kamuy (set in the beginning of 1900s) there were several old samurai, at least one of which was proficient at using firearms, too. Though, sadly, they didn’t have any Coca Cola there.
Looks like coke wasn’t widely sold outside the US until around the time samurai were abolished. Unlikely that any of them drank it, but not impossible. I’d love to read some short stories that have those kinds of seeming anachronisms.
Definitely not in the East. WW2 is what brought coke global.
Are you at gun point @[email protected] ?
The m1 garand as a better example?
Hearing an m1 ping… that’s what life’s about
Wasn’t it actually a pretty damn good semi auto rifle for the time ?
It was for reliability in the 40s, lost the edge in the 50s
No quick draw mechanic like with katanas and revolvers. Also no dueling with M1.
Ways in which revolvers are not the katanas of guns:
…
Revolvers are generally incredibly simple and cheap to build, operate and maintain compared to semi auto pistols, submachine guns, assault rifles, light machine guns, etc.
Conversely, katanas require a significant amount of skill and practice to wield proficiently, as compared to many, but not all, other kinds of swords, and are/were also comparatively more difficult to properly forge and balance than many other kinds of swords, and were quite expensive.
…
Revolvers were incredibly common during ‘the West’, almost anyone could fairly easily equip themselves with one, and many did.
Katanas, for essentially all of their history, were only allowed to be carried by wealthy, royals or nobles or warlords, and their extremely small in number official bodyguards/goons, and soldiers. The vast majority of people were/are legally barred from owning or carrying them.
…
One on one revolver quickdraw duels almost never happened in real life.
One on one katana honor duels were actually somewhat/fairly common amongst those who actually had them.
…
Other points:
Revolvers are romanticized akin to Katanas because A Fistful of Dollars is basically a shot for shot remake of Yojimbo.
Kurosawa sued Leone over this, and won 15% of A Fistful of Dollars’ sales revenue.
Nonetheless, A Fistful of Dollars was widely influential on future western films.
The modern, relative popularity of revolvers in real life is a result of their simplicity, reliability and inexpensiveness compared to other hand guns.
They would still be largely popular irl even without their depiction in media.
Katanas, on the other hand, are basically only popular in media in the West due to media, very few people actually own a katana, ever fewer have enough Iaido training to know how to use one.
Compared to revolvers, they would probably be far less popular irl were it not for the media exposure.
Forging a katana is not specifically more difficult than any other shape of blade. It’s just forging any steel sword with the less-than-stellar japanese ironsand and the lackluster smelting methods they had was a LOT of work compared to European iron ore and techniques. Starting the iron age some 700 years earlier with better geology is a hugely imbalanced move.
The shape of the Katana is more influenced by how hard it was to get quality metal than anything else, but making one isnt any harder than making a longsword. It’s different though.
You are the best kind of correct, technically correct.
Yeah, what I was going for was that compared to revolvers as guns, katanas as swords were much more difficult and time consuming to produce, primarily due to all the techniques used to compensate for the very poor ore quality and lack of high temperature forges.
The result in a weapon that was far more expensive and rare, taking waaaay more hours of specialized labor than a revolver coming out of a factory.
Making a katana in the modern age, with modern forges and access to high quality ore/alloys is yes, not much more difficult than with any other style of sword.
In other words, revolvers are popular, which is why they showed up in movies, whereas katana showing up in movies is what made them popular?
It depends on what you mean by ‘popular’.
Do you mean popular in the media, in people’s general conception of ‘badass weapons?’
Or do you mean… actually popular, in real life, everyday ownership and usage?
The 4 chan post says ‘only popular because of how they’re depicted in media’.
If you are using the first definition, this is a meaningless tautology, thing is popular in media because thing is popular in media.
If you are using the second definition, this is just a false statement, hardly anyone actually owns or uses katanas compared to revolvers.
Both absolutely have been emphasized as ‘cool guy weapon’ in media.
But probably 1,000x to 10,000x more people actually have revolvers than katanas.
Both revolvers and katanas are largely popular in media and general public conception, becauase the characters depicted using them are often well written compelling characters, or at least are the heroes of compelling plots, and their usage of them is often depicted as extremely skillful…
…, but revolvers are far more popular in real life, because they are far easier to use, and more practical.
If you can be more specific with your question, I can probably be more specific with my answer.
Correct me if I’m wrong but weren’t katanas fragile (in sword terms) because low iron quality and a one on one sword duel was less clashing blades and more of a mobile type of duel that ended in a few decisive strike
A well made katana is probably (?) more flexible and less brittle than many european bastard or two handed longswords.
That is to say, they’re more likely to deform from bending, from striking or blocking at an improper angle, whereas a stockier european style sword is more likely to crack or shatter generally from hitting something solid too many times or with too much force.
That is a huge generalization though, an in depth look would require a lot more specificity.
One on one katana duels varied in character depending on the nature of the combatants, relative skill levels, level of armor of combatants, overall scenario.
Some duels would be more as you first describe, a drawn out struggle, others were finished in seconds.
I am far from an expert as to the relative commonality of different natures/kinds of one on one duels but they did actually happen with decent regularity, as compared to one on one revolver quick draw duels, which there seems to be no solid evidence of more than a handful of occurences of, and even those are contested.
The quick draw duel trope as we know it today largely comes from A Fistful of Dollars outright doing its best to emulate a fast, one on one or one on many katana engagement scene from Yojimbo, but with revolvers instead.
Such scenes with katanas as depicted in Yojimbo may not be literally historically accurate, but are generally more grounded in reality.
It would kind of be like if that movie version of Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo Di Caprio, where they just use modern guns that are named ‘Longsword’ and such for artistic liscense… somehow kicked off a greater cultural trope or meme about how street gangs in the 90s often conducted armed disputes with guns.
IRL in the 1980-90s gangs in cities like Los Angeles did in fact regularly shoot at each other. The truce between the Bloods and Crips was a big deal and made national news. That isn’t a meme or something from a movie.
I can imagine a few hundred years from now the same thing will happen with AKs.
Of all the weapons in the vast Soviet arsenal, nothing was more profitable than Avtomat Kalashnikova model of 1947, more commonly known as the AK-47, or Kalashnikov. It’s the world’s most popular assault rifle. A weapon all fighters love. An elegantly simple 9 pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood. It doesn’t break, jam, or overheat. It will shoot whether it’s covered in mud or filled with sand. It’s so easy, even a child can use it; and they do.
Lord of War is such a good movie.
Single Action… maybe. But double action revolvers are a great choice for most people. They can be more reliable than semi-auto. They can hit harder too.
Imagine proving a joke this hard.
High bore axis, more recoil energy, shit trigger on DA
Meaning you can’t hit anything
One third the capacity, slow reload
dead operator“Used to revolvers, .38 don’t jam”
“It don’t hold 15 neither”
I was told many years ago by a biker, who looked like Danny Trejo, “revolvers don’t leave behind empties”.
Single action is a godsend. Virtually no trigger pull, and the mechanism just feels satisfying. Very reliable as well.
Also, revolving rifles. Taurus Circuit Judge my beloved…
I use a single action .22 Ruger more than any other gun. Long barrel, easy to aim, instinct shots for ratshot, cheap, durable. Use hollow points for groundhogs. One of my favorite tools.
I’m heavily in the market for a small .22 rifle soon. I’ll likely go with a Ruger 10/22 because there are so many options, but that Henry Survival Rifle looks pretty cool and I could just pack it in my bag when camping.
I’ve got a 10/22 takedown that is my squirrel rifle. It took a lot of work to get it to group right. Don’t know if I would get the takedown again, however, I really like the 10/22 design. Would get it over the Henry Survival. The Henry is neat, but is probably a toy unless you’re flying in the artic bush or something.
I thought the fedoralord firearm of choice was the Colt 1911.
YOU SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH
Magnificent Seven is the western version of Seven Samurai. Prove me wrong.
Wait till you hear about A Fistful of Dollars and Yojimbo.
I love Fistful of Dollars. I tell any of my DnD rogue players to watch it as inspiration. Dude is the roguest ass rogue.
Fist Full of Dollars is the western version of Yojimbo.
You can’t prove me wrong because it’s verifiably true.
Is that even debated? I’ve thought for decades that that was an accepted fact.
They’re popular because they’re reliable, easy to operate, easy to work on, and come in a wide range of calibers.
That being said, yee-haw motherfuckers!
One great thing about revolvers are they don’t jam. They leak gas instead.
They seldom jam. When they do they are much tougher to clear than a semi-auto. My LCR is famous for jamming.
