Mediocre Samurai Describes Real Life in Historical Japan
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- čas přidán 16. 08. 2023
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Extracts taken from: Musui's Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai by Katsu Kokichi (Author), Teruko Craig (Translator, Introduction)
University of Arizona Press (July 1, 1991)
uapress.arizona.edu/book/musu...
Edited by Douglas Baker and David Kelly
Narration by David Kelly
Thumbnail Art by Ettore Mazza
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not a great company...
"The same quality as in-office therapy" is just a blatant lie.
Please please please never stop making "Voices from the past" they are absolutely captivating and I can't get enough of them.And I know they take a long time to produce especially if there's added animation to it.But your channel to me and thousands more of your viewers would agree with me that you've got one of the best channel's on CZcams.And the extra caveat is you also even give us a "History lesson" and as well..👍😁
Patreon account????
If Ieyasu hadn't driven out Christians, this samurai might have received not only mental help, but everlasting life.
Actual scam company.
Bro just casually explains how at 7 years old he lost a fight over some kites and decided he must commit ritual suicide on the spot
This deserves more upvotes
Harsh world to grow up in
Reminds me of my mw2 multiplayer where a certain player told me to hang myself to the ceiling because I had 17 kills lol.
Tbh it be like that sometimes. Especially if you're a kid
Dude was wild. He got in 2 different fights over kites and almost killed 2 people over it: First another child and then himself
The dude managed to have kids and an active sex life after rolling off a cliff in his sleep and smashing his nuts so bad they got infected. He didn't even seek medical help for them out of sheer embarrassment. This dude has all his stats in luck
Tbf i doubt the whole cliff story, i think its a cover for a more embarrassing one.
@@mattthorne8419 Good catch. Considering he was too embarrassed to even tell a doctor, it's unlikely he would tell the whole truth for the history books.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
God. DAMN. I grabbed for my nuts as I've read this! Fucking hell, that sounded like it hurt extremely bad.
Real incident involved peanut butter and a dog
For those that don't know Katsu's background before he started his story. He's a LEGENDARY slacker. He was adopted into his family so his "sister" could marry him without giving up her independence. His "brother" Otani by the time he was 25 was a famous calligrapher and philosopher. His father was a shogunate official. Katsu more or less survived on NEET allowance (43 koku = 43 x $800) for his entire life as a death benefit from his adopted father. Katsu was so notoriously inept that he begged his son at FIFTEEN to take over the entire household because the family was falling apart and Otani couldn't handle it anymore. His son Rintaro would go on to become one of the best naval commanders in Japanese history, driven by his fear of turning into his father and the wise guidance of Otani making him so charismatic he talked the legendarily hardcore ronin rebel Sakamoto Ryoma into quitting his terror campaign and becoming his assistant.
very interesting. thanks for commenting this
this adds alot of context, thanks, awesome story.
Guy was the comedic relief character
Based
The reality that feeds the stigma of adopted kids persists crossculturally. They tend to have this slacker, lost, centerless quality due to a lack of real mother / father. Sorry to say, surrogates and step parents dont come close most of the time. They can, just not the reality of the norm.
I am WHEEZING at that part where as kids his classmates tied him up and strung him above them to eat his lunchbox, so he PISSED ALL OVER THEM AND THE FOOD
The best part is no matter what they did: they couldnt stop him once he was up there.
Facing up or facing down, gravity is on his side.
It was planned all along and they fell for it
Right! That was so smart!
If Naruto wasn't for kids, I could see him doing is.
Highly legendary.
Hey man not everyone can be a Miyamoto Musashi.
not everyone can grind like a champ
Not everyone can survive Better Help.
weeb
A lot of Samurai were Pirates and Bandits.
Lot of them were not honest or honorable.
🎉 Feliz Jueves 🎉
The craziest part of this story is how he had a serious infected untreated testicular injury that lasted months or years, and he was still able to have children just fine. Man is strong.
Feudal people were a different breed they had really strong inmune systems and knew how to survive really well i cant even imagine surviving as a beggar in this modern world and this dude did that shit on feudal japan
@@I.Love.Porrosmy great grandfather was a POW in WW2. He survived Bataan. I was told the native american way of life is what saved him. Sadly, Marlboro did what the Japanese couldnt.
@@kellyshea92 Your great grandfather was a Native American and used Indian survival lore to get through Japanese captivity in WWII? That’s wild. Do you know anything specific he did to survive?
@@I.Love.Porros it's the one that survived that got to write a book about it. The others were not so lucky. Childbirth was a likely cause of death for any mother.
Id go with no paternity tests back then.
This is what real life feels like. There’s not always a solid beginning, middle and end. Just things happening, things being left undone or unsaid, and finally a bit of reflection and maybe even regret before death. We’re just so used to only “outstanding” people having their histories recorded for us, never the common guy.
True and well put.
Because the common guy is common
@@user-uf7uq6vc1fThe common guy is the best idea of what life in a given time was.
There may be a handful of exceptional people who give an idea of what an extinct culture valued, but the day laborer, the servant, the slave, the peasant, the cook - these are the cross section of what life was actually like outside the walls of affluence, lineage, privilege.
Most surviving cuneiform tablets tend to be receipts of sorts leftover from merchants - this is how we understand their number system.
@@Your-Least-Favorite-Stranger But this story is about someone that came from lineage and privilege so your point is kind of moot.
It was once said “if you can’t do great things, then do small things in a great way”
For the common person this can sow the seeds of luck for a lifetime.🍀
His son, Rintaro, better known as Kaishū, would later go on to be the Shōgun's army minister and is considered to be the father of the Japanese Navy. He also negotiated the surrender of Edo castle and the safety of the last Shōgun Yoshinobu (Keiki). While he may have been mediocre, his son became a national hero. Good thing his testicular infection healed.
goes to show a bad father inspires their sons to be better
@@Armored_Ariete very very occasional
Katsu Kaishu? I've heard of him.
I suppose that depends on the son more than anything.@@YourHealthNeeds
@@Armored_Ariete sometimes. Other times their sons grow up to just smoke meth and steal Harley's with their dad.
This is so cool because it's actually the story of someone's life, open ends and unfinished business, plans that didn't work out, just a mess of ideas and experiences.
Agreed
I like the way you wrote this.
Very well said.
While I agree in the novelty of the authenticity…eh😅 that sure sucks to have a mess like that.
@christopherjannette5863iiiiuuuuuuuuujjjjjjjjjjju
The story about the innkeeper helping him after his things are stolen is really wholesome, one man's kindness has survived hundreds of years.
I do wonder if the innkeeper might've been in on it?
@@CamdenKnightly he probably was, real people aren’t that nice. It’s a nice story though
Ah, finally something redeeming from this man's story...
@@CamdenKnightlyNotice there is no mention of any inappropriate adult male attention... Some things do no end up in memoirs.
@@Disappointed739 Yeah, a young boy, alone and destitute on the road? Bad times for him.
"My body has no scars"
BUT WHAT ABOUT YOUR BALLS
i bet he’d never imagine that people hundreds of years later would be watching a video about him. crazy how life and history works
In a thousand years this post you wrote my be in a museum
Meanwhile, his older brother, who was praised for being an exemplary samurai, scholar, calligrapher and administrator in his own day, is largely forgotten now. Funny where being a slacker can get you.
You can thank a couple pioneering historians for that.
@@erichoepelman7764 haha. Unlikely, given how much digital text is now generated every second. And you know, no one is actively saving what is written either. Bigv technology companies simply periodically delete everything without any thought whatsoever.
@@erichoepelman7764this comment too
It's interesting that the son of this samurai was Katsu Kaishu who was one of the foremost and most interesting figures in the Meiji restoration that brought Japan into the western 'modern' era. He helped save Tokyo from destruction in the civil war that ensued among many other accomplishments.
The battleship CSS Stonewall took part in a civil war, but it wasn't the one that makes sense.
Mediocre samurai, top tier parent.
@@WELLbethere I thought his life was rather extraordinary. It seems the samurais those days basically made money like the Italian mafia does, from a protection racket, hinted at in the video when talking about "hustling the market". Probably asking for money or good from merchants in exchange for nothing bad happening to them from anybody.
It's a wonder he could even have kids after hearing this story lmao
@@mariah5714 Apparently his testicles recovered.
No man is mediocre who, after a life filled with wretched failure and strife, comes to terms with his own foolishness and leaves a word to the wise for those who come after him.
So true
Yeap. He wised up in the end. So many never do
Mediocre just means average.
Yeah, word to the wise, remember Pearl Harbor
The first step to being wise is to know you have much to learn and far to go.
Plain journals like this from average cowboys and samurai are in my opinion the best way to look into history accurately. They don’t dwell on significant events like historians or record keepers do, and I think that makes their perspective less prone to corruption or censorship.
I recently read the autobiography of man named Albert Facey, he was born in 1894 just a few blocks away from where I currently live. There was nothing special about him, he was just a regular working class guy, which is what made it interesting. All the other biographies I’ve read have been about famous historical figures.
The only thing of historical significance he was involved in at all was his war service in WW1, he fought at the battle of Gallipoli, but he doesn’t say much about it. Most of the book was focussed on his impoverished childhood and early teen years.
Historiography is the study about WHO/WHAT is chosen as "History" and how that relates in today's society as the "past."
More historians have come around to what you state; the common, everyday struggles of average individuals matter as much as the people that are grandiose.
A great book about hearing history from the people that aren't in the major education system is Howard Zinn's "A People's History Of The United States: 1492-Present".
It deals with American History, but from journals, recollections, and records of the average people that weren't on the winning side of History, the oppressed. It brought a very ample understanding that history is very disgusting and never as clear as some propaganda would have you believe.
They are prone to ignorance, which is much worse.
@@jamjox9922 that sounds cool man, I’ve seen the court document for my Great Pawpaws mark on hogs. It was something like “two notches on left ear” and I think it’s just neater’n a skeeters peeter to see things like that. Very modern/official looking documents from a time we consider to be very far away. He was born in 1898 and I was born in 1998, almost exactly a century apart.
@@whiteskull1067 you’re prone to the same thing and you think you ain’t, which is even worse than that. A lack of knowledge has more genuine thought behind it than a person who thinks he’s knowledgeable and therefor has nothing to learn.
"you've got to admit, the friendship between beggers os something special"
It's not because the poverty, but the absence of greediness and jealousy that people nowadays lack more than ever.
This guy must have had a lot of charisma. For all his hardships, people seem to just want to be nice to him. It's amazing to hear about him being robbed and the kindness he received from strangers afterward. It's somehow comforting knowing that human nature has largely remained the same for so long.
yea, thats what i thought too. he must be good looking, clever/smart, or charismatic in some other ways that he goes through life being the center of all that drama (and coming out of it relatively unscathed)
For sure. Not everyone begging in their underwear who gets taken in by a nice family has charisma, but I think it's safe to say most of them do lol@@jazzyj2899
Its cause HE is telling the story. Of course, embellished to his advantage
It has remained the same and WILL remain the same because it is our NATURE, we can not help ourselves.
This was hardly 200 years ago. Thats only a handful of generations
As a 40 year old man, it felt good having a conversation with this man.
I enjoyed this conversation...in english.
@@magnusdiridianNice Ken Watanabe / Last Samurai reference
you did not have a conversation with anyone
@@Teo-uw7mh He did, actually. He used a time machine. Obviously.
@Teo-uw7mh thanks, buzz Killington von capitan obvious
"Ever since my father died I've had no one to turn to"... I toally felt that part. Miss you pops.
May he be at peace.
“I got up my courage, and spend my whole day begging” I can only imagine what one must be going thru when they make this mental calculus. Yet I hardly ever consider the lives of the panhandlers on my daily commute. What adventures and misfortunes they must’ve endured up to the decision to start begging on the side of the highway
Unfortunately for most of them it’s a simple but sad case of substance abuse.
While I don't recall ever begging during my homeless months the uncertainty of where to sleep each night was a constant source of stress. Many people asked me about this, and I often had no answer.
@Axle-F which is because of prohibition making it so expensive. If it was legal opium would be viewed as one of the least benign addictions one could have. No actual opium for sale its all fake nitazenes and xylazine
@@user-hq8wg7dg2h this is why I wish schools would teach how to construct shelters from wood. And how to make a fire and fish. If you got all those you'll never be homeless. Home is where one thinks of you or where you set up camp! God bless!
Imagine going down in history as the ''Mediocre Samurai''
Xd
Imagine ‘going down in history’ PERIOD
@@fifthofascalante7311Yea, atleast he made it into history unlike most people could ever nowdays.
That would be over 99% of all samurai. This one just happened to also be a mediocre wordsmith, and his journal somehow survived the age.
Beats being a Good Samurai who doesn't live to 25
The pissing while hanging animation... Best CZcams content I've seen in the past year. Your animators are true artists .👏
Time stamp please.
@@fifthofascalante7311 6:21
@@fifthofascalante7311 6:35
@@fifthofascalante73116:27
@@fifthofascalante7311 6.40
Honestly I have to imagine this guy was pretty charismatic even if he is not emphasizing it much in his writing. There seems to be an implication that he charmed most people he met and was able to get by living a fairly idle life off of his personality alone
Dude was a DnD bard
from what i can tell he seemed to make most of his money as something of a merchant, buying and selling in the night markets,so he must have been atleast good at bartering
He's clearly very self deprecating, hinting at a more impressive figure in real life.
It often seems like my life has only gone as well as it has because I am just a little more charismatic than average and thus get free passes when I do not deserve them
It's honestly sad that he lied to such kind benefactors. They would have supported him regardless given his circumstances
As another less than mediocre samurai, this related to me a lot.
Does 2023 shock you or is it just more Waring States?
As a homeless teen I related a lot, up until he met the Samurai and his wife. His poor nads!
Well, I'm somewhat of a mediocre samurai myself. 😅
Who is your lord?
@@0therun1t21 "I must admit there is something special in the friendship of beggars."
The fact he’s self aware enough to criticise his life actually makes him smarter than those others he’s referring to that went missing - who prob had no awareness
It’s crazy to think that even across so much time, ppl really are just kinda the same still
Yeah
Humans never change no matter what time period
Katsu Kokichi (勝 小吉, 1802 - 1850) was born Otani Kokichi in Edo. He was a low-ranking samurai who was adopted by the Katsu family in order to marry the only Katsu daughter, Nobuko. Kokichi's father, Otani Heizo, was a minor official in the shogunate.
And he was practicing Judo, that was invented in 1882?
@@AlkoMHHe also had a GameCube
@@methanedirigible That's sick! Playing Samurai Jack probably..
@@AlkoMHthought something similar, it may have been jujitsu and this is a translation error
@@Robiig-tf1owHow would you translate judo or jujitsu? 😜
feel bad for the couple who briefly adopted him, probably have trouble conceiving their own children so they must've been heartbroken to see him just gone
It says in the book that he was adopted by the Katsu family mainly because they are going to marry him off with their only daughter. Basically he was adopted to ensure the Katsu lineage will not end with the daughter. They eventually had a son.
勝 小吉の息子、勝海舟には沢山の子供が産まれました。
その内の１人は、アメリカ人の女性と結婚しました。
その女性と子供達はアメリカに戻ったという記録があります。
勝 小吉の子孫は、今もアメリカにいる可能性が高いと思います。
@@GRA5S I think he meant the couple who brought him to their place when they discovered he run away from home.
They are better off without him. He is a handful, a disappointment (from a parent's perspective), and unloyal.
Takes one to know one
Doesn’t sound mediocre at all. What an interesting, determined guy, and a good story teller.
The mediocre nature of the story is what makes it great. Who cares about how the entitled lived or felt?
From what I got he didn't do much samurai-ing, did he? Other than getting into some brawls.
At least he descrives himself as an above-average rider.
@@Rodrigo_VegaBy this time in history there simply isn’t much “Samurai”-ing to be done. There was no internal or external conflicts, society in general were prosperous and stable. Being a Samurai back then mean no more than a private security guard or something of that nature to their respective masters. It wasn’t until after a decade of this guy’s death that thing’s started to get interesting again with the arrival of Com. Perry.
@@sio2ch.168 right, still under that definition it sounds more like a guy that needed to be samurai-ed more often that he had the chance to samurai xD
In the Edo period, Samurai were essentially bureaucrats with swords. Which was why he was so distraught on not getting a position, he was essentially unemployed. Also, he brought further dishonor on himself by selling swords, he was engaging in activities not appropriate to his social class.@@Rodrigo_Vega
This diary is remarkable. I was shocked to see that this diary in the original reads like modern Japanese! He wrote in roughly the 1840s (He died around 1850 at slightly less than 50 years of age, so I guess I shouldn't be so surprised in a sense, given the recent period. Yet so many written works are written by elites, which are commonly written either in Sino-Japanese (Kanbun) or classical Japanese, so that may be part of the reason.) He also was active to some degree in mercantile activities, which were obviously "banned" for samurai but suggests such bans, by the late Edo period, were effectively meaningless, as increasingly indebted samurai became desperate. I taught in US universities earlier in my career, and I commonly had students read the translation in the J culture course. What an entertaining narrative! His son became the prominent Meiji figure Katsu Kaishu, but many Japanese unfortunately themselves have little idea about this fellow (father Kokichi), despite the existence of this diary.
How did he die?
Glad he stood up to bullies
He was the bully...
Away from big battles, important dates and superheroes, these are the stories that tell of real life, real people. Struggling with life, a difficult childhood and the harshness of society is of all ages. I take heart from the good people who help us on our way for goodness sake and the lessons we must learn. And how most of us mature and make amends with the mistakes we make. This is history at it’s best: this is about the lives we live.
@@ChrisHeart-kr1uqI had a stroke trying to understand who you are talking to
@@ChrisHeart-kr1uq I have a hunch you are struggling with your mental health as well. Maybe it's time for you to make a move and talk to someone who understands your pain. You can start with consulting your GP. Good luck and best wishes to you.
If this man's life was deemed mediocre, I shudder to think of the lives many of us live today.
It's simple most people's lives can be compared to a boring screenplay or rough draft of a story that gets thrown in the garbage and is never read by anyone.
The man in the story considered himself a mediocre samurai, but at the end of the day he was a samurai in a society where samurai were near the top of the social hierarchy.
He wasn't judging it as a story. He was judging it as an experience and, hopefully, as a chance to contribute to society. Ordinary people contribute to society. Soldiers and paladins CAN contribute to society. This fellow handn't contribued much at 40, but he seemed to have a change of heart and perhaps he ended well.
Apparently he was surrounded by exceptional individuals, making him mediocre by comparison. There's another comment from @BanzaiKen explaining Katsu's backstory which I'll copy here:
"For those that don't know Katsu's background before he started his story. He's a LEGENDARY slacker. He was adopted into his family so his "sister" could marry him without giving up her independence. His "brother" Otani by the time he was 25 was a famous calligrapher and philosopher. His father was a shogunate official. Katsu more or less survived on NEET allowance (43 koku = 43 x $800) for his entire life as a death benefit from his adopted father. Katsu was so notoriously inept that he begged his son at FIFTEEN to take over the entire household because the family was falling apart and Otani couldn't handle it anymore. His son Rintaro would go on to become one of the best naval commanders in Japanese history, driven by his fear of turning into his father and the wise guidance of Otani making him so charismatic he talked the legendarily hardcore ronin rebel Sakamoto Ryoma into quitting his terror campaign and becoming his assistant."
@@faerlabaermarsounds like an entrepreneur to me. Many of the most successful people have the most mishaps. His son went to be great the “traditional” way and thus traditional society respected him more. Both of them are dope depending on what side youre looking at it from. Id rather be this dude than his son. His life was an adventure.
You have to keep in mind that he is being judged by the standards of a samurai, who was expected to attain a position in the government of the shogunate and live up to samurai ideals. In other words, his life was considered a failure by the standards of the samurai class.
His life is not neccesarily mediocre by the standards of other people.
Watching this a few days ago when it came out - popped up in random recommendations - was enough to get me to plunk a few bucks down and buy this guy's book (Musui's Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai by Katsu Kokichi). At times I was wondering if some of this story could possibly be real, or if ol' Katsu was just BSing the reader... but I think it might be real. He had a lot of escapades and adventures, but he does put the bad in with the good. He doesn't just cover himself up in glory, or make himself into some forlorn antihero. It's pretty entertaining, and is a quick and easy read... it is history speaking with a modern, down-to-earth voice.
For whatever it's worth, from some random guy on the internet, I recommend it!
This would make an awesome movie, show, or anime. His life story if great, he isn't perfect, never strived to be perfect, but he still changed in the end. Something about his life story is admirable and inspirational.
Oh yes, this is very smart, thank you friend.
In the midst of “its so over”…he found, within himself, an indomitable “we’re so back”.
Fantastic tale, thnx for the narration.
The samurai has fallen, millions must commit seppuku
it was joever... were barack now
@@ChrisHeart-kr1uq HOOOOOLY
Don't we all though? Anytime I feel like ending it all there eventually comes a point where I feel like everything is great and figured out, like enlightenment. Only for it to all repeat again soon enough. But I guess that's life, soul crushing lows, soul elevating highs, and then nothing for eternity.
Don't forget that Kim Jong Un having a smoke with this banger of a quote as a voiceover.
The title alone is gold. Haven't yet watched the video. I'm already smiling.
Easily amused, are we?
Lolz exactly. It was amazing.
What makes it even crazier is that this is all true, Everyone on here were real people.
This is a very relatable tale, he was clearly spoiled from being born into power without an active tutor. Yet he clearly had skills, be it riding, trading or writting a good tale. I wonder how many of those fights did he actually win, how many of those were his fault and which of them were real. But it's also interesting that his childhood and early adulthood were often him just trying to eat, fuck and sleep. Someone that gave up on fame and power, yet became famous and bore a much accomplished son.
"The friendship between beggars is something special."
Always nice to hear about gold folk like that older samurai and innkeeper. Kokichi sounds like a man who was very skilled at certain things(horseback riding, haggling), but not interested in trying very hard. It's nice he found an even-keel in the end.
Humility & honesty in the end always makes for a worthwhile redemption. This was an important voice.
this was so relaxing. the story was pretty all over the place, but such is life…and it also made the story less predictable. the visuals were great and the narration complemented the video well. love this period of history in Japan and this really was a great way to enjoy it. thanks!
Great summary. It definitely was unpredictable. The jumping around part helped with that as well. At one point it was just randomly mentioned that he had a wife and child.
I own a copy of this book, the one cited for the video. It is located///somewhere...on my history shelf. It's a fun and interesting story. Dude was a regular samurai living a regular life (more or less) in Edo-era Japan. Since he wrote his life story down as a sort of cautionary tale, we have a great look at Japan in the time right before the Bakamatsu Period and Meiji Restoration.
@@ChrisHeart-kr1uq Da fuq????
That's the most unique quote I've run across in a while.
@@ChrisHeart-kr1uq lmfao
Best part about this story is how relevant different parts of it are, even if you aren't a 40 something year old mediocre samurai. A lot of it feels like things people today go through whether it's the acquiring and parting of treasured goods, getting your trust taken advantage of, having to grind for money, learning your place in your family, etc.
Refusing to apply yourself, indulging vices, being irresponsible. Dude ends up likeable by the end, but he was a fairly major screw-up for a long time. That he ended up recognizing there was a better way to be...wait, is this guy ME??
I find this channel endlessly fascinating. Listening to real historical primary source accounts is about as close to time travel as we can come.
Brilliantly rendered. The match of image to text is just incredible! Thank you so much :)
This was a great video. It is important to have what could be considered "ordinary stories" from the past that still resonate with people today and this was definitely one of them.
I love a flawed man's story. I always feel like I'm there when I can relate to them. Makes me feel like history isn't so far away.
Everybody is flawed so it's interesting to hear the true stories. In fiction I absolutely love flawed heroes. That's why I liked the hunger games so much. They certainly didn't try to glorify the main character.
History is never far away. You are living in it!
This is beautiful. The self-awareness, honesty, and personal insight is art
To historians its not the recounts of lords, ladies, and the powerful that bring the most clarity of what it was like to live in that time. It is often the commonfolk, the mediocre people who despite their status decided to record their stories.
To people yes, modern historians...no.
I wouldn’t say he want famous, search him up, he’s quite a famous person.
Samurai are not common folk
@@hicknopunkthis is considered a great document by modern historians lol, what’re you even trying to say
@@BirdTurdMemesThe equivalent of a gentleman/minor lord in England at the time
He might've been a mediocre Samurai, but he led an extraordinary life.
I like mine better, and I was a factory worker. But his makes a better story.
@@digitalnomad9985 Factory workers now days aint so bad, factory workers back during the industrial revolution had a short life span of 35
@@epope98 And before that many of the same "class" passed the time starving to death. Let's hear it for progress.
I doubt a mediocre samurai would be able to take down 30 people armed with hooked spears. he is either being humble or outright lying.
Nothing holding back these historical guys from embellishing their lives. They knew it was a great read though.
This was an absolute delight to listen to the thoughts and reflection of a man of Japanese culture from two centuries ago.
Thoroughly enjoyed this edit and reading of a historical journal. Fascinating.
Imagine hurting your balls so bad you have to stay home for two years.
I love how he doesn’t even mention courting his wife. The first we know of him having anything at all to do with women is when he refers to having a 5 year-old son. Romance wasn’t too high a priority in feudal Japan.
Yeah his wikipedia page says he was "adopted by the Katsu family in order to marry the only Katsu daughter, Nobuko." so he probably had no choice in the matter, and so really no courting.
Romance became a priority in the 1940s when the slogan “Diamonds are a woman’s best friend” became popular in Broadway.
Love then became business when Disney and romance novels started picking up. Cinderella in 1950 etc.. Romance became a priority and now look at the dating market today.
Culturally, it’s a western thing. Husband’s obviously cared for their wives in other cultures but this just wasn’t the everyday mindset in eastern cultures.
@@CrownxMe7 Authors in the 18th and 19th centuries churned out romance novels by the hundreds. Romance plays were very popular in Ancient Rome as well.
@@nicholashaney278 the concept has always existed, but it certainly wasn’t the main genre people were reading. There was no mass market for romance until the 1970s and then we have the second wave of feminism.
Ancient Romans still didn’t primarily marry for love either.
@@nicholashaney278yes, and that is a good point. Romance, love, passion, these things have always been around and have obviously always been popular themes. But the idea of a gentile courtship and the romance of it being an essential part of marriage came from the culture of Chivalry in Medieval Europe, and the idea marriage itself being centered around that very romance is a very modern thing. Like it or not, marriage is about duty and care, but when done right, can contain a lot of romance. Those things have always been a part of it, but romance and the feeling of being in love is not what's the most important part of it in most cultures.
I'm gonna have to buy the full book to read all of this man's story. What a treasure of a historical book!
I've only just discovered "Voices of the Past" and what a briliant channel it is too. I think these memoir type, first person accounts provide the listener a more intimate understanding of past times, places and events.
Dude sounds like he enjoyed life more and had more introspection than most people in the modern age.
At that time Samurai held a relatively privilege position in Japanese society compared to the work they did, also Samurai cultural ideals valued Zen Buddhism and introspection so you'd often see older samurai write reflections on their lives. Definitely interesting to hear the different perspectives of samurai living during wartime and in this post-war period.
@@greenbrickbox3392 yup, being higher up in the hierarchy certainly made life somewhat more comfortable for them.
He does not seem mediocre at all. Life full of adventure and discovery. More than many can claim
He's a mediocre samurai. Even the most mediocre samurai's life is probably more adventurous than that of modern day normies.
I guess it is very difficult to compare him to anything, would be unfair to compare him with the current times, also there is no such thing as a comparison chart with the samurais of his era. Think the title of the video is misleading , either clickbait or poor choice. @@lorenzomizushal3980
@@lorenzomizushal3980 modern day normie here, can confirm. Far more interesting than anything I've ever done. Glad my nuts never got smashed on a rock though.
@@lorenzomizushal3980are you thinking about romance samurais? No, dude. Even Musashi was a fairy tale with few things anchored in reality. This “mediocre” dude was probably average in that time
its not exactly "full" though, this story is in the span of 4 decades, pretty sure anyone who live for 4 decade had an interesting story or two with sprinkle of exaggeration,
even i could recall some wild thing i experience,
i've fap racing for cigarette for example.
getting chased by loads of people at plaza for stealing meatballs running away behind a prison only to get chased by guard dogs
crash into parked motorcycle because i was distracted by bunch of scantly dressed lady on a graveyard, only to find out they're cross-dresser and they laugh at me because my horny ass was distracted by femboy and crash
see? its adventurous, just imagine your story as few surviving records of this century, whole lot of people in the future would find it interesting
This was wonderful. In some ways, it's more interesting to learn about the more ordinary people than it is about the exalted, because they are more relatable. I loved the illustrations.
That was wonderful. Thanks for making it
Listening to people's thoughts from so long ago is to me why the writing word is a form of magic, while listening to these magical words I am transported back in time where I'm sitting across from someone who was alive hundreds of years ago and I absolutely love it.
In the woods tripping and I highly recommend
Fantastic. Most notable to me is how timeless the emotional life and basic themes are.
It's his best one yet, clearly. So well done.
I thought the title was misspelled at first but then 2 minutes into listening and oh I see now.
What a journey for a young man! For reference, the journey from Tokyo (edo) to Ise takes around 6 hours by car. I can’t imagine walking and riding that distance. I love this! A fascinating look at the life of more everyday flawed human. By the way, ganbaru has the stress on the first syllable with the “ba”being very short.
I love this. Having a full story of someone from this time is so interesting.
I'm loving this. You've got yourself a new subscriber.
Fun fact. Everybody know the saying about revenge? The one that says to dig two graves? Well, its meaning changed over years and cultures, in fudal japan for example, it did not warn about the the consequences of revenge, only that you have to do it no matter the consequences.
It meant pretty much "doesn't matter who ends up in the grave, it will either be your enemy, you if you fail, or both of you, but someone is going to end up dead." I always found that sort of dedication admiring.
I was once reading a book about Japanese business and they explained their confrontational attitude by saying "in China they will defer judgement and avoid things they do not want to face because their warriors could always run away from battles that were too much. Japan is an island, trouble would always find you if you do not deal with it. In some ways this has persisted into modern culture."
Thank you both for these little bits of wisdom.
Middle aged grouchy samurai is a character we need more of in stories.
This was wonderful! Thank you for sharing.
I started crying when I realized his chaotic behavior in his adulthood was an attempt to supress grief after his father's death.
He was just born a few hundred years too soon. He would be right at home in the CZcams comment section lol
I also lost my father while trying to better myself after a life of misdeeds.
And, like the rest of us, a less than mediocre samurai.
Same
my brother would’ve been 35 today & he passed 14 years ago. idk why this feels so calming but i’m grateful. thank you
I found this very entertaining. Thank you so much for the work and care you put into this
This guy's story literally reads like the Japanese equivalent of Huckleberry Finn, which is lowkey one of my favorite books. I love it - and it would make for an excellent film, methinks.
YES, all the garbage remakes and sequels being made these days and great original ideas like this just waiting around. Hollywood producers need to take note.
This guy doesn't say the n word once :(
Downvote for saying methinks but agree with everything you said
You couldn't write stories like this today.because of political correctness cancel culture censorship and LGBTQ propaganda in the media
I likes this comment until I read the word lowkey ... like ,super,actually, like, really ...
But low key I lie your comment 😂
a tragedy of fathers is that they push upon their young sons lessons that they have only recently learned themselves. the tragedy of young sons is that they are rarely capable of understanding those lessons before adulthood.
In this case however, the "mediocre" samurai raised a fine future admiral.
These sound like the memoirs of an incredibly interesting and skilled man, but one who is depressed and has had a hard life. This is not a mediocre samurai. This is a man who did his best and he did well.
Man was so rebilious and mischievous, they had to lock him in a cage.
With a bit of writing and editing, this is an academy award winning film.
Mediocre? This lad is legendary.
Always look forward to these. Can learn so much from these people of the past ❤
So good, thank you for making this. It really was useful.
"So I pissed on their heads"
Logical reaction right there, what a chad
I can't get enough of this channel.... I've listened to many VIDEOS multiple times over! Fantastic job and thank you for the great entertainment and knowledge..... AMAZING!!!
This was fantastic - thank you.
@VoicesofthePast Really can’t say enough how impressed I am by what you do! Having the insight to tell the untold stories, that give us a more grounded, every day perspective of people just like us, from times gone by. Brilliant and important work!
Looking back on my life, this mediocre samurai's story resonates with me. Despite my many mistakes & questionabke ethics, I always ended up landing on my feet.
Me too, instead of landing on my feet tho I find myself strapped to ceilings peeing on peoples dinners
white cisgender male? 🤣
@@Davao420Resilient individual.
@@No-bs4um great answer
I always land on my head so as not to damage anything important
As someone of nearly the same age, this voice of a man from 200 years ago, completely different culture, resounds so wildly similar with my own personal reality.
This is an absolutely brilliant channel concept. Subbed.
Why did you have to roast bro like that
He might have been mediocre as a samurai, but he was not at all a mediocre man. Charismatic, persistent and incredibly courageous, he could have been a general had his life gone differently. His biggest issues were falling into self gratification, but that can easily be explained by having incredibly low spirits due to not being wanted whenever he actually tried to apply himself and being subjected to injustices consistently as a child.
"charismatic" is today's equivalent of "sociopath"
@@PaladinMika And you know what neither of those words mean.
@@PaladinMika While he does seem violently unhinged by today's standards, this guy was born into a family of soldiers. He was probably raised with a sense of superiority and taught that violence can be justified. His father was right to punish him for maiming that boy with a rock, but the punishment was to bash his skull in with a wooden clog. And his boss wanted to wipe out his family because one teenager ran away. His society was violent.
@@calamitysangfroid2407
The specific phrasing is "taken measures to end the family line," not that he'd execute the family. More likely, what this would mean is that they'd be side-lined or stripped of their title. That is, the father may be kept in employment, but if there are no heirs, because the prodigal son doesn't come back, then the family line just naturally ends itself. He could adopt a replacement, but the implied statement is that they wouldn't ratify the adoption as a legitimate heir.
@@calamitysangfroid2407I believe he meant the family would not be allowed to keep their official samurai title with no heir to continue. However, all the other things you said are correct. It was a life that was a bit too much of a disheartening struggle, always treated as a black sheep, but he seems to have mellowed and appreciated whatever good fortune he had, especially his family.
Brilliant story selection and narration
This was wonderful
Thank you ❤
So amazing hearing the heart of a person who lived long ago.
FANTASTIC!!! What an insight! Great research, makes "history" more vivid and realistic!