Color your life with thoughts…

                 The Boshido Code or the way of the warrior is the unwritten code of conduct of the Samurai warriors.  The code is very strict and it requires loyalty, frugality, martial arts mastery and devotion and honor to the death.  In this code, if the warrior is unsuccessful in defending his honor, he could reclaim it through performing ritual suicide or seppuku. There are seven virtues associated with the Bushido Code; Gi – Rectitude, Yu – Courage, Jin – Benevolence, Rei – Respect, Makoto – Honesty, Meiyo – Honor and Chugi – Loyalty. This is also the code of moral principles which the samurai were required. Bushido also became the soul of the Samurai an it developed over the centuries due to the influences of Zen Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintoism and the expression of these habits had their medium in visual and literary art such as painting, poetry and living the way of life they want to be. The soul of Boshido is simple is the same as humanity. It has a universal sense of values that everyone can understand especially to the class of warriors.

The movie helped me understand the way of life of the Samurai in Japan and their objection to modernization in terms of adopting western style of fighting. The Samurai really shows how they defend their means of battling and the usual things and practices they do. I just realized in the movie that each single part of a Samurai is really important just like their hair, sword, armor, etc because these represent their obedience to the code of conduct. These classes of people really offer their lives in honor of their country and will never allow themselves to be captured by the enemy. The code of Bushido in the movie was portrayed in the movie and how does the Samurai stand on it and keep their courage in winning over the enemies. Moreover, I appreciated how important the duty of a Samurai is, even in his last breath the reputation of their class is still overflowing. Just like what I’ve read about the lifestyle of the Samurai and the Boshido code, all of these were showed in the movie which portrayed the bravery, loyalty, courage, and honesty of each Samurai. They will not stop in the point of losing and their sword symbolizes their thoughts of morality and importance of service to defend their colleagues and the culture inculcated by then of their existence. I also came up with the realization that even Japanese at that time were not united to defend their society. Greedy people exist and want to benefit for themselves and can even adopt changes to abolish their old way of method of survival. The influence of voracious desire for power and fame results to betrayal. The concrete example for this is Omura. In some sources that tackle about Samurai, it was stated that some of them are coward and weak and can’t take hold of their code of conduct because of illiteracy and insufficient training. Somewhat I noticed it on the movie in the character of the Emperor Meiji. At first cowardice and weakness win over the principles of their society. It is on the late part of the movie when he realized to defend the dignity and honor of the Samurai.