Go to Surfshark.deals/gaijin and use code gaijin to get 83% off a 2 year plan plus 3 extra months for free! HOPE YOU ENJOYED EVERYONE! I didn't expect this video to be THIS long, but holy cow am I finding WAAAAY too much samurai info relevant to MtG!

I actually think the "attack alone" mechanic still fits in with the historical idea of samurai with one simple change to the idea: Those not attacking and just providing benefits are symbolic of the retainers, providing benefits without being directly in the fight... unless necessary for an all out attack. This also fits as most of those effects seem to trigger when a samurai OR WARRIOR attacks alone, a warrior being representative of the lower ranked retainers. "But aren't those soldiers?", no, As Gaijin said these early samurai were basically professional mercenaries, not government armies, so warriors and not soldiers.

11:30 Wait. So you're telling me that Sekiro's Gyoubu Oniwa's charging into combat and shouting his name so loud the heavens could hear was something they legit did? Won't lie. That makes Gyoubu more hardcore.

It would be fun to see either which ninja or samurai on the Yugioh card game. Even just the Legendary Six Samurai archetype, would be cool to see.

I like how Isshin, *Two Heavens as One* makes reference to Miyamoto Musashi's fighting style, Nitten Ichi Ryu (Two Heavens as One) both in name and art

Never was much into MTG, though I do appreciate the work that went into the art on the cards.

I run a Neon Dynasty Samurai deck in MtG Arena and I would say that the retainers are represented in the "when a samurai attacks alone" mechanic as that mechanic applies as long as that card is on the field and *any* samurai present attacks. Essentially what I see happening is the attacking samurai is the lead with the fielded but idle creatures with that effect act as retainers. The way my deck is built supports that interpretation. It's a white/red with average cost around 2/3 mana. I don't use big creatures but instead compounding buffs to situational attackers. It's based on a retinue of Samurai working cooperatively even if there's one (that will switch on the depending on circumstances) that gets the glory.

Another amazing episode, I was looking forward to this✨ Your explanation of Bushido and Ikkiuchi battle is especially super easy to understand and I agree with everything you said! Thank you so much for this video!

5:00 YES! This! This, so much! I'm so happy you covered this. Too many people take the embellishments and romantizations of the Edo period as historically accurate. In fact, Ninja too are affected by this.

A fun thing in Kamigawa: Neon Genesis Evangelion that didn't really come up here is the card Jukai Trainee who effectively has the old Bushido ability, though unnamed. it's not super important or anything, I just think it's neat. 18:48 oh, hi, James.

Hearing about the Twilight days of the samurai makes me want to see a Which Samurai episode on the samurai of Gintama. It'd be interesting to see an episode on how accurate a sci-fi comedy manga/anime depicts the samurai trying to adjust to a society where samurai are losing their role in it (especially with the characters of Gintoki, Shinpachi, the Shinsengumi, Kotaro and Shinsuke) Only if the anime wasn't 300+ episodes

I have been waiting for this since neon dynasty was fully released. They used a cultural consultant for both inspiration and accuracy and neon dynasty has a lot of flavor not just in lore for mtg but for Japan itself

Now I'm wondering if Susanoo from Okami counts as a real samurai, considering his bluster and need for divine aid, I imagine arguments can be made for and against

I think you would like Yugioh's ninjas, six samurai, karakuri, superheavy samurai... and or Yugioh has a lot of Yokai archetypes.(from the ghost girls to mayakashi & more)

Hilariously the new Samurai mechanic also has ties in game to another mechanic from Magic's past called Exalted. In fact I was kind of surprised that the Red/Green commander deck didn't come with a copy of Cathedral of War. 18:49 Hi James of LRR...

I loved this video dude! As a social studies teacher and lover of Japanese culture, this was very enlightening. I do have a video idea too. I'd love to see one done on Admidamaru from Shaman King!

How about episode about Digimon Samurai like Zanbamon, Musyamon or Tactimon?

This should be fun. I’d personally like a video on the samurai of final fantasy like Cyan and Auron

Also check out the story from the old Kamigawa. It's a war between humans and kami started by a Samurai lord kidnaping a kami for immortality.

Finally! Neon Dynasty was amazing, and I have been waiting for this wonderful video for forever! Thanks Gaijin.

Since may is just around the corner, could you make a which samurai about the Jedi?

Well, you just convinced me to make a Neon Dynasty deck. Also, major props to MtG's team for the dedication to research

I actually think Bushido was a fine mechanic, but the creatures it was attached to were priced like bushido was part of their base stat line, making them overall punch below their price. This was true of most of Kamigawa's cards and mechanics. Cool in concept, way too expensive due to the set generally being a huge power drop from the out of control Mirrodin sets. As just an ability that made blocking worse, it should have been priced more like Menace, which is a fairly standard evasion mechanic in more modern cards. The rare Kentaro the Smiling Cat was a 2 mana 2/1 with bushido 1. With his extra ability being pretty meaningless, he's about comparable to the uncommon Deranged Whelp who is a 2 mana 2/1 with Menace. Meanwhile Kamigawa had uncommons like Indebted Samurai stuck at 4 mana for a 2/3 with bushido 1 and a minor effect. Most stuff in the set was just 1-3 mana overcosted even for the time.

Still remember from that time of the Kamigawa packs! It’s been years since I’ve heard of those cards…..I’m actually interested of these new cards!!

Awesome video cant wait for you to look at the kami

Great videos. I would like to see a video about some of the yugioh cards like, Shien Being Oda Nobunaga or how the flower cardian play style reflects Hanafuda.

Quick question. Would Usagi Yojimbo be considered a smaurai?

The new Samurai theme ability actually reminds me of another ability from MtGs past: "Exalted" from the Alara block. Basically the same, but for any creature type and only gives +1/+1 power. It's the signature ability of the Shard of Bant in the world of Alara, a place governed by white mana and its allied colors blue and green. It's a place all about knights, chivalry and recognition in battle where any dispute was resolved via a ritualistic confrontation of champions representing each conflicting party. Perhaps new Kamigawa Samurai were designed using the more romanticized idea of "chivalrous Samurai" and made their signature move to be similar to the old "Exalted".

Glad you did this! Kamigawa was my favourite set and the characters are just awesome! Keep up the awesome work!

Hey, that's James from Loading Ready Run as the generic player near the end! Always fun to see LRR get referenced

Is it just me, or does anyone else keep hearing "Kamigawa Nyan Dynasty"? I haven't played Magic since early Ravnica, but I might be tempted to come back for that.

This may well be the earliest I’ve been on a video: 40 seconds after being uploaded. Looking forward to watching!

Talking about Samurai in card games makes me think an episode covering Legend of the Five Rings might be neat.

This video made me want to play MTG again. I aesthetically like samurai, and even though I blame Power Rangers for that, MTG has some cool samurai cards art-wise.

One of the things I have always thought "lacked" in terms of samurai cards were the bushido ability. But once I realised my own play style, bushido is actually a darn good combat trick especially when you are coming in swinging and giving the samurai "tools" for victory. By tools I mean buffs

the culture in this video was amazing and as an old magic player who actually owns some of the old cards in the kamigawa set I might look into this new one and start making new decks again some of these abilities sound so good and the prospect of having them activate all at once when one creature attacks tickles a side of me I haven't indulged in a while thanks for the heads up

I think one kind of media samurai you should check out is the Burning Blade Blademaster Orcs from Warcraft. They're an Orc clan of blade wielding warriors that fight with quick precision and brutal ferocity, have their own code of honor, and are also the only known Orcs in the Warcraft universe to use swords instead of the typical axes that Orcs are known for in that universe. Plus, their armor and weaponry is very much inspired by samurai with the hakama pants and war banners they wear on their backs. I dunno how much else they'd have in the lore, but I would love to know what cultural similarities you could find from those Orcish masters of the blade!

been looking forward to this video for a while and its awesome to continue to explore how well MTG has translated things from different cultures in to mechanics

I love this video! And I just built my samurai deck as a brawl deck! This is so cool! I love the deck!

my very first set that I played with in MTG was Kamigawa. I took a long hiatus from the game and just came back with Neon Dynasty. I must have been one of the few players who used a Samurai Red/White Bushido deck back in the day and I play a Red/White Samurai deck now, you showed the card, but my favorite is Raiyuu, Storm's Edge. Love that card! My favorite deck from Kamigawa though was my Orochi deck, my friends HATED me for using that deck lol. Thanks for the video, It's pretty cool knowing some of the history behind the cards.

The fact that it's been 20 years since the initial Kamigawa block came out, I swear Takeno is riding the Old Age Horse and trampling my rear with it...

The exchanging of name and ranks as well as exploits finally made Gyobu the demons intro in sekiro make sense to me "MY NAME IS GYOBU MASATAKAONIWA I STOOD WITH THE ASHINA WHEN THEY CLAIMED THIS LAND" on horse back with Polarm in hand and everything

Who got there GM (Monty Glu) to let them play a race from Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica? You did 🤣🤪

Your gonna have to do a Pokémon episode for this series. Samurott, both OG and Hisui, would make a good video. I think Emboar, would also make a good video, especially since you could talk about how sumo started as a samurai sport.

I was just wishing for a gaijin video over the new neon dynasty set! Amazing 🤩

Could you do a culture shock on the video game Blasphemous? I love the Spaniard culture influences and references of the paintings of Goya.

We can't forget the instances of Samurai taking the heads from already dead troops and/or samurai and presenting those for pay and glory without actually participating in the battles, rare, most likely, but almost assuredly happened.

I'm that guy from patron who usually doesn't leave comments because I feel like I have nothing to add, here to take my first step to tell you: cool video, G. It put me in a good headspace to face tomorrow's challenges. Keep doing your good work, you got this.

I am so happy that there's another episode of this so soon if there's any relevance to samurai and table top trading card games I hope you can cover the Six Samurai Archetype in yu-gi-oh weather the cards are are based on historical samurai figures, or actions either way I'm taking notes

Are we not going to talk about how Yoshinaka’s three detachments used a stampede of angry oxen with FLAMES TIED TO THEIR HORNS to defeat the Taita?

I have literally no knowledge on Samurai (other than from your Eldin Ring episode) or magic the gathering, but after learning all my ninja facts from you, it’s fun learning about Samurai from you too😄 Also, if you’re ever looking for another ninja to talk about, I’ve looking back at Randy Cunningham: 9th grade ninja, and there were a lot of interesting ways they handled ninjas. Sure, there were some weird mystical bits in it, like using ninja energy to create a disguise, but there was also a lot of things I caught that were ninja accurate, like a joke the science dude made about pairing navy blue with red. I thought you might find it interesting. Anyway, thanks for making these videos man. It’s really cool learning about Japanese culture!😄

I personally like the Neon Dynasty set because the showcase version of the basic land cards look gorgeous and the showcase version of the Mechtitan Core is drawn by Naochika Morishita who is one of the main artists for Gunpla Box Art (I really want this card).

Thank. You. SO. MUCH! I loved the original Kamigawa block(collected it in it's entirety and still run a White Samurai/Kitsune deck) and love Neon Dynasty(didn't go AS ham on this block, but collected ALOT of cards and plan to modify my original Samurai deck with it). So this one, as a HUGE fan of Samurai and a big believer in Budo this video pleased me a great deal, both for historical accuracies and inaccuracies you laid out. Thank you a million times over. *deep bow*

I love that jumonji Yari on the background You don't see a lot of complex Yari representation nowadays

Love this new series. A potential idea for a future episode could be on Myamoto Usagi (Usagi Yojimbo)

I love the vid, and have a suggestion for your next Which Ninja: Origami Cyclone from Tiger and Bunny, i recently watched through the first season and think he’d be a cool topic for a Which Ninja (tho he isn’t a huge part of season 1, always in the background)

I was not much into MTG but seeing the art from Kamigawa Neon Dynasty was single-handedly got me into it. I loved the art and theme of the set

Speaking of samurai accuracy in Wizards of the Coast games, perhaps one day you could do a video on how to build a historically accurate samurai in D&D like you did for ninjas? Since you brought up in another video how D&D's dedicated samurai subclass reflects more the pop culture idea of a samurai than the real thing, it would be interesting to learn what character build would reflect the real thing. Personally, I think a cavalier fighter with the archery fighting style and the noble background's knight variant would do the trick, but I'd love to see how you'd do it. :)

Honestly, I Love Upriser Renegade. Base art, too. +2/0 for each modified creature you control. It's got so much flavour of leading an army of low level dudes who've geared up. And he looks like the 80s biker delinquent and I love him.

excellent video. always love a deep dive of a game to it's real life counterpart

Now how about a little Yokai rundown of Kamigawa Neon Dynasty. 😇

Fans of the old Alara block know the "when a creature attacks alone" skill as "Exalted". Alara lives on in Kamigawa's samurai!

Here I am hoping for you to cover any Ninja, Samurai or Yokai that are in Yugioh.... we got entire archetypes for all of them.

Drifters would definitely be an interesting thing for you to analyze

I been waiting for this episode for do long. I love my Samurai Commander Deck.

Well this has got me wanting to make a samurai deck to pair with my ninja deck

Great video, as usual. I only played MTG: Arena, and only for a few weeks before I got bored, but it's still interesting to see all the stuff. Anyway, I recently found an anime called Konohana Kitan, and decided to give it a try. It's cute, it's funny, and above all else, almost every episode feels like getting smacked in the face with the mythology/folklore segment of one of your videos. The main premise is that it's set in a hot spring hotel, the Konohanatei, which is run by kitsune, and somewhere between the mortal world and the realm of the gods, so all kinds of spirits and other entities come by from time to time. Even the occasional god. I'd really appreciate it if you could give it a try, and maybe make a video or two about it.

I love all of these videos about uncovering the inspiration in card games, but as a Yu-Gi-Oh player, I'd love to see what you can find in the game's Ninja archetype, Six Samurai archetype, or even the Super Heavy Samurai archetype, cuz deciphering the source of inspiration for those groups would be awesome

I'm really enjoying the series good job dude it's fun to learn

The Kamigawa Neon Dynasty set had somewhere between 5 and 12 cultural advisors to make the set be super close to real life as possible without relying on tropes or being offensive. There is a video on some of the process on magic the gathering's youtube channel. So this mechanic having cultural roots makes complete sense.

Idea for the future: Take a look at the Onimusha series. Not only is it a fun series, it has a lot of samurai, yokai and, yes, even ninja tropes.

I can agree with what is presented, but surprised that there was no mention of the fact there's Samurai with effects that involve Samurai *and* Warriors in Neon Dynasty. Hearing that Samurai existed solely for the battlefield *really* highlights that the creature types listed actually have a connection to each other.

You could call the "Samurai or Warrior attacking alone" mechanic a variant of Exalted by the way.

"When given a choice between life and death, always choose death." --The Hagakure (paraphrased)

that first kamigawa run got me into mtg, so good. the novels that went along with them were also awesome, tho not as awesome as ravnica.

I still have my Samurai deck from the old Kamigawa set, but for the new one I went with mechs... And hilariously there are a few Viking ships, picture that battlefield.

Great video! Here's some suggestions: Usagi (TMNT) Silver Samurai (Marvel Comics) Roronoa Zoro (One Piece) Mugen and Jin (Samurai Champloo) Katana (DC Comics) The Seven Samurai (Kurosawa film) The Jedi (Star Wars) Jetstream Sam (Metal Gear Rising)

So when samurais went one and one they might've given speeches and screamed as they fought? That explains a lot. Specially if they yelled their special attacks

Actually, bushido strangely synergizes well with ninjutsu. If your opponent doesn't block you can ninjutsu out your samurai for a ninja card to hit for better effect. So lulling you opponent into a false sense of security with cheap lowcost samurai who buff when blocked, thus making them not want to block them, works well with the ninjutsu mechanic of most ninja cards.

Ok, I saw the image of The Wandering Emperor and thought it might somehow come up. Was kinda disappointed, but the video did give me a few ideas for a commander deck I was thinking about building around samurais.

Would be very curious as to your take on the story of the Wanderer/The Wandering Emperor of Kamigawa (the thumbnail character), as well as her design.

Wait, so Gyuobo Oniwa yelling out his name while charging you at the start of his boss battle in sekiro was not only lore but historically accurate? That's sick, I thought the just did that for the memes

Beautiful work. I know the cards have their own lore but this is a really cool way to view it because in the end real history is more important.

Magic the Gathering always goes above and beyond for their themes, I swear.

My Kamigawa Samurai deck is actually my favorite. While the Bushido mechanic on it's own is not super great, you have to keep in mind that those decks were designed to be used with the equipment artifact cards. As such, if you beef up a low level creature even slightly, then your opponent is more likely to block, letting that mechanic come into effect. Plus, a lot of the high power or Legendary samurai in that set gave other Samurai bonuses based on those Bushido points. Strangely enough, I've actually caught a lot of people off guard in combat rounds because they disregarded Bushido until suddenly my creature has a +2/+2 and their blocker is dead and my attacker lives.

I'd like to request that you take a look at Pathfinder 2E's Kitsune and Tengu ancestries. Alternatively, their 3rd Bestiary has quite a few yokai. I'd be interested in your evaluation of their accuracy. Thank you for your hard work and amazing content!

Odd little tidbit, it is interesting that the samurai ability of attacking alone in Neon Dynasty, is essentially the same as the exalted mechanic of Bant from Alara, a demi plane known for honorary combat by knights to settle disputes.

Greatly enjoy your videos as always dude. Also this may sound stupid but if you feel like an aprils fools edition of which ninja down the line, I might suggest velociraptor and combination of its scientific AND pop culture representation. Got the idea from the ninja episode of dinosaur king

I thought the samurai mechanics would have been just straight wrong but I'm pleasantly surprised that it's not.

LOL Love James getting to represent "The Player"

Waiting for "How Ninja was the Quaker Oats Guy?"

I used to have a mono-white samurai deck in high school until my Konda, Lord of Eiganjo was stolen. And yeah, I'm still sour over that (even though the character is a total jerk who started the Kami War in the fiction).

Fun Fact: There is technically a named "when this creature attacks alone" mechanic. That mechanic is called "Exalted." While this particular mechanic isn't exactly what the new Samurai and Warriors of Neon Dynasty have, it's so similar that it may as well be the same thing. And considering the lore of both real world and in-game samurai, I'd say it fits them despite not being what they actually have.

*Lillie steal herself some samurai armor* My lord is myself… I’m ready to fight for myself and pokemon.

can we get a six samurai episode of this I would love to see that there is so much stuff to dig through.

I kinda want to see your take on the Six Samurai from the Yugioh card game. Negate before dishonor!

Good morning, Gaijin. I was curious if you ever heard of the Usagi Yojimbo series? It seems pretty accurate to Japanese culture and the plot is pretty good read. If you ever have the time, I’d suggest giving it a shot.

Funny enough, fake out attacks are a good strategy for the powerful effects on the samurai, since it's just on attack. So you can attack, even deal damage, and hten use some trickery to reset the character or avoid damage. More ambush stuff, at least when the battlefield is too busy. Samurai are probably quite powerful if they can actually fight one on one, otherwise they needs tricks in magic :P

I love the neon Dynasty packing all the Japanese Coker for in the pack I really hope they do this again someday maybe you can do another video about this for the ninja or the Yokai

I like this Which Samurai more and more.