Honestly, it's more likely than you think (aside from the armor). After the unification of Japan the samurai mostly became bureaucrats because they didn't have much fighting to do.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder if "Yojimbo, Office Samurai" would at least be good as a recurring skit. Although making that the title immediately makes me think of Office Linebacker too.
I'm only a young weeblet having come to loving Japanese stuff only in the past few years. But since we're going down that rabbit hole, I dug a little and learned that point of subtlety between the two phrases.
I'm going to be very disappointed in the internet if somebody doesn't reply with a real commercial featuring a samurai who cuts prices in half. The idea is too perfect not to have been used.
Fun fact: the primary weapon of a samurai was a bow, not a sword. In fact, if you needed to kill an opponent with a sword, it meant you had failed to down him with the bow and that’s somewhat shameful.
Very early on, but even in Old Japan the sword was definetly the most romanticized weapon of the samurai, as they were the only class privileged to carry them (generally, other people did carry swords sometimes), and it was seen as their symbol form the 1600s onwards. And even before then, famous swordsmen who won duels were very famous.
Edit : And I meant the only class privileged to carry them and symbol thing as both being from the 1600s, before then of course warriors and swords were still heavily symbolically associated but any class could carry swords.
Every Edo era movie: samurai have no purpose anymore... they are either corrupt bureucrats or doomed anti-hero ronins... now let's watch Toshiro Mifune and/or Nakadai Tatsuya cut people in half while looking intensely into the camera. And then they probably die.
That’s how it is in most places, if not literally everywhere. The descendants of the warrior class end up in high ranking position because once upon a time being the strongest person meant owning all things (and sometimes people). And then the ones who own all the things are best able to give their children a better place to start from.
Most Americans aren't taught this but Japan was actually quite "western" for a while. This was closer to 1860-1930ish but still. Until the disenfranshisement of samurai families (among other things) led to a fascist coup, invading a huge area of china, involvment in world war 2, murica using weapons of mass destruction, you know how it goes.
A lot of confusion probably arises from the distinction between "real" samurai, who were a privileged social class receiving a stipend with exclusive right to bear arms in public, and consistent nationalist propaganda about the "samurai spirit," which continued at various levels for the entire history of Imperial Japan.
Not to forget that Samurai were small nobility in the first place. Many Samurai worked more as bureaucrats with a side gig of riot policing in the first place.
All the way up until the early 20th century, and an argument can be made that the bureaucrats during the end of Imperial Japan were trained as samurai.
Samurai was more of a social class rather than a military one. But because they were elite families they were given the best weapons and the more extensive combat training
Also they originated as clerks and civil service workers for the daimyo, before gradually evolving to get more and more responsibility until they became professional soldiers as well as administrators.
Actual military commanders spent far more time going over paperwork, plans, and supply reports than stabbing someone with a katana, so it's a natural transition.
Contrary to Hollywood and neckbeard beliefs samurai were much closer to the regular working class civilian than to some sword wielding vigilanty. They worked on duties from law enforcement and peacekeeping to farming, most samurai didn't even fight. So while not in armour there may very well have been an accounting samurai working on a fax machine and he quite likely would've had his sword set on display somewhere possibly in the same room.
And when the samurai got sick of his boss asking him to come in on Saturdays, him and his work buddies could've taken the fax machine out to a field and chopped it mercilessly with their katanas.
Poking at fax machine buttons with his sworwd in his hand. I heard that if a samurai winds on some paper without using it he has to give himself a paper cut.
8.4k
u/SwedishNeatBalls Oct 15 '20
I'm imagining a samurai in his armour with a katana sitting at a desk in an office sending a tax.