47 Ronin or Chushingura is one of the most famous samurai stories in Japan. On December 14th, 1702 47 masterless samurai (ronin) attacked and killed their late lord’s enemy. This caused quite a controversy because on the one hand they were seen as upholding their samurai code of loyalty but on the other they had broken the law and had killed a government official. Eventually it was decided they would have to die but instead of being killed as common criminals they would be allowed the honor of seppuku – ritual suicide.
Ako in Hyogo prefecture holds a festival every December 14th honoring their hometown heroes with a 3-hour long parade with marching bands, dancers, chanbara sword performance, and taiko drumming.
For a lengthy historical discussion on the 47 Ronin:
12 Comments
Sugoi 😮
Thanks for the hard work traveling there and puttin gthe film together.
My all time favorite Samurai story. One of my "bucket" list items is to go to the 47 Ronin shrine
that is one epic parade. holy christ. lol the chanbara. pretty well done for a street performance. aint easy to remember all the stuff. people might mock it but hats off to those gents.
That is a spectacular festival and I enjoyed every element of it, from the sword fight, the geishas in rickshaws, to the monkey on stilts. The whole video fills me with New Years joy.
Ako and Sakoshi are 2 of my favourite places in Japan. I have quite a few friends who live there. In fact, the man banging the drum in front of the parade is my friend Hideki-san! Thank you for the video. Arigato gozaimasu!
I learned about the 47 ronin from the movie. I really enjoyed the story. It was such a sad story at the end of it. I wanted the 47 ronin to live. I really liked them.
This was great to watch , great work. Learned more about my bloodline, arigatou kyodai.
Ronin means unemployed samurai. Fired samurai. Or samurai under collapsed lord.
There were so many unemployed samurai in old Edo-era. They opend private school in their home to teach writing and mathematics and poem or chinese confucius for casual home kids. etc.
This is awesome. Hope to make it this year 🙏🏽
I love samurai this video is very cooolll👏👏👏👍👌
This is real honor! And an honor to see that the locals still hold traditional samurai roots and respect for the fallen ronin. I bet you can feel the spirits of the ronin there!