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Samurai Helmets

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Re: Samurai Helmets

#51

Post by DavidAdams »

zentropia wrote: post #26
ereyes01 wrote: post #7

After looking at pictures of a bunch of samurai helmets, I came to a realization that Darth Vader's helmet is more or less the shape of a samurai helmet. Maybe this should have been obvious to me (especially being a fan of the Hidden Fortress film), but it was a cool discovery for me.

George Lucas was inspired by samurai films. This film are called jidai seki (period films). From jidai --> jedi. Also C3PO and R2D2 are inspired by the couple of mongrels in Hidden Fortress.

This is also why the Jedi (at least in the earlier films) use two hands to hold their lightsabers. It's the Japanese style. Of course, Samurai swords were two-handed because they were heavy, due to the poor quality of steel available. A light saber "blade" would presumably weigh nothing, so it would make more sense to hold it one handed like a, well, saber.

A master of the more technologically advanced European saber would probably cut a Katana-wielding Samurai to ribbons. Good thing the Samurai would probably just shoot him from horseback anyway.

Re: Samurai Helmets

#52

Post by hangonhn »

guiomie wrote: post #20
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

George Lucas was heavily inspired by "7 Samurai" by Akira Kurosawa. Its a must watch if you like samurai movies.

Interesting I always thought it was artistically derived from the german ww1-ww2 helmets.

The Stormtroopers are based on WWII German army uniforms and equipment, even down to the gas mask cylinder that German soldiers carried behind them. Even the name Stormtroopers comes from German WWII unit type name.

Re: Samurai Helmets

#54

Post by cnahr »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #46
cnahr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the first and only one I had seen, too. I suppose there may be a few more but they certainly seem to be rare. This exhibition had no other examples. The helmet with a flame-engulfed dragon that was shown mounted on an armor suit comes closest.

Armor 1 and Armor 3 both feature heavy use of a light bluish thread for decoration. In China a similar blue, made from kingfisher feathers, would be an imperial symbol -- do you know if there's any relationship / what the significance in Japan was?

I’m not aware of any such relationship in Japan. The exhibition didn’t mention it, and I haven’t heard of it elsewhere either. I think it’s just decorative here.

Re: Samurai Helmets

#55

Post by Razengan »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #29
sorokod wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the websight "Nakamura Ryu Battodo is a distillation of traditional Japanese swordsmanship ..." In other words, it is not a traditional sword system but a modern one.

Given it's less than savory origins I wouldn't consider it a basis for meditative contemplation either.

For those wondering, this may be referring to it being the replacement for allegedly using live prisoners for sword practice.

Re: Samurai Helmets

#56

Post by benj111 »

DavidAdams wrote: post #51
zentropia wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

George Lucas was inspired by samurai films. This film are called jidai seki (period films). From jidai --> jedi. Also C3PO and R2D2 are inspired by the couple of mongrels in Hidden Fortress.

This is also why the Jedi (at least in the earlier films) use two hands to hold their lightsabers. It's the Japanese style. Of course, Samurai swords were two-handed because they were heavy, due to the poor quality of steel available. A light saber "blade" would presumably weigh nothing, so it would make more sense to hold it one handed like a, well, saber. A master of the more technologically advanced European saber…

I've been mulling the cause and effect mentioned in your comment. Poor quality steel -> heavy -> 2 handed.

I don't ever recall seeing a 2 handed bronze sword, and if the steel is worse than bronze, why didn't they go back to that? Which kind of suggests that it isn't.

I'm assuming low quality steel is overly soft rather than overly brittle. If it were overly soft wouldn't that favour shorter blades? You'd either get flex, or as you mentioned, added weight, which seems a bad trade off compared to a shorter sword and shield?

I got the impression 2 handed swords/no shield was an honour thing, rather than a tactically advantageous thing, I'm in no way an expert on such things though.

Re: Samurai Helmets

#57

Post by hutzlibu »

Spearchucker wrote: post #39
sorokod wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a lot of respect for martial arts disciplines that put martial arts first and keep spiritual aspects of the practice ( if they have one ) off the marketing material.

This is interesting. I've been doing Krav Maga for some time and a few years ago did a week of it in Isreal, sampling all its aspects and applications - military, close protection, civilian, police /crowd control and... it's spiritual side. For a martial art so young I was surprised it even has a spiritual side. It's also become the aspect I find most fascinating. And yet the instructors accompanying us seemed embarr…

Can you tell more about the spiritual side of Krav Maga?

The seeming lack of it, might be why I never took a closer lock into it. So I am also surprised that there might be one. Can it be that just some instructors personal spirituality got mixed into it?

Re: Samurai Helmets

#58

Post by krapp »

benj111 wrote: post #56
DavidAdams wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also why the Jedi (at least in the earlier films) use two hands to hold their lightsabers. It's the Japanese style. Of course, Samurai swords were two-handed because they were heavy, due to the poor quality of steel available. A light saber "blade" would presumably weigh nothing, so it would make more sense to hold it one handed like a, well, saber. A master of the more technologically advanced European saber…

I've been mulling the cause and effect mentioned in your comment. Poor quality steel -> heavy -> 2 handed. I don't ever recall seeing a 2 handed bronze sword, and if the steel is worse than bronze, why didn't they go back to that? Which kind of suggests that it isn't. I'm assuming low quality steel is overly soft rather than overly brittle. If it were overly soft wouldn't that favour shorter blades? You'd either get…

>I got the impression 2 handed swords/no shield was an honour thing, rather than a tactically advantageous thing, I'm in no way an expert on such things though.

I am not an expert either but as I understand it, Samurai were nobles and fought on horseback with their primary weapons being spears and bows, and they considered swords a backup weapon.[0]

The mythologizing of the Samurai, their honor-above-reason mentality ("bushido") and the katana as their primary weapon was a retrofiction created in the Edo period, when the Samurai had been disarmed and relegated to bureaucrats, and they wanted to justify and romanticize their violent past, and the term bushido was invented in the 20th century, and was itself based on Western ideals of chivalry in knighthood (which also, really, didn't exist.)[1,2]

[0]https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/10331/why-didnt-...

[1]https://www.tofugu.com/japan/bushido/

[2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11990721

Re: Samurai Helmets

#59

Post by gnulinux »

username223 wrote: post #13
Lowkeyloki wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to at least give credit that the bot was apparently written in lisp.

Scheme, actually, since it uses "define" instead of "defun." I formatted it reasonably, but it still looked like a pain to untangle.

Scheme is a lisp.

Re: Samurai Helmets

#60

Post by knolax »

jtms wrote: post #5
siqu wrote: post #3

(define (get) (get1 (quote ()) (read)))(define (get1 b r) (if (eof-object? r) (reverse b) (get1 (cons r b) (read))))(define (put) (put1 (quote ()) (read-char)))(define (put1 b r) (if (eof-object? r) (list->string (reverse b)) (if (char=? #\) r) (put1 (cons #\. (cons #\. (cons r b))) (read-char)) (put1 (cons r b) (read-char)))))(define (final lis) (if (null? lis) lis (final1 (car lis) (cdr lis))))(define (final1 f r)…

Nice try bot, whatever it is you were trying to do

It's more likely to be a human testing something than a bot. TBF, this comment and the replies were more interesting than any of the on topic comments or the article itself.
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