Hello, and welcome to the History of Japan podcast. Episode 22.

The Way of the Warrior.

This week, we'll be discussing our first listener submitted topic.

So before anything else, I just wanted to take a moment to say thanks to listener Becca for suggesting the idea.

Thanks for getting in touch, Becca.

I really appreciate it.

To the rest of you, I've already gotten a few topic submissions from you, and I'm definitely

planning to take on all of them. If you've got something you've been thinking about but haven't

submitted yet, let me know. I'd be more than happy to take a look. So what will our topic be?

Well, it's an idea that pervades most of modern Japanese culture,

and is famous the world over as one of the defining characteristics of quote-unquote Japaneseness.

I refer, of course, to Bushido.

Bushido is often described as the code of the samurai.

The phrase literally means the way of the warrior, and is put described as the code of the samurai. The phrase literally means the way of the warrior and is put forward as the defining characteristic

of the samurai as a social class.

It is a code of personal honor and above all else strict obedience.

Which leads us to our first and most important point.

The term Bouchido is coined in the 1600s, but as we all now know,

the samurai class existed as far back as the 1100s,

and the predecessors of the samurai, the Buke or the warrior families of Hain Japan,

have roots going as far back as the 800s AD.

So that leads us to two possibilities.

...