Samurai

Samurai (侍) were the military-nobility and officer-caste of medieval and early-modern Japan.

In Japanese, they are usually referred to as bushi (武士, [bu.ɕi]) or buke (武家). According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning "to wait upon" or "accompany persons" in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau. In both countries the terms were nominalized to mean "those who serve in close attendance to the nobility", the pronunciation in Japanese changing to saburai. According to Wilson, an early reference to the word "samurai" appears in the Kokin Wakashū (905–914), the first imperial anthology of poems, completed in the first part of the 10th century.

By the end of the 12th century, samurai became almost entirely synonymous with bushi, and the word was closely associated with the middle and upper echelons of the warrior class. The samurai were usually associated with a clan and their lord, were trained as officers in military tactics and grand strategy, and they followed a set of rules that later came to be known as the bushidō. While the samurai numbered less than 10% of then Japan's population, their teachings can still be found today in both everyday life and in modern Japanese martial arts.

Warrior

A warrior is a person specializing in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based warrior culture society that recognizes a separate warrior class or caste.

Warrior classes in tribal culture

In tribal societies engaging in endemic warfare, warriors often form a caste or class of their own. In feudalism, the vassals essentially form a military or warrior class, even if in actual warfare, peasants may be called to fight as well. In some societies, warfare may be so central that the entire people (or, more often, large parts of the male population) may be considered warriors, for example in the Iron Age Germanic tribes and Indian clans like the Rajputs.

Women as warriors

While the warrior class in tribal societies is typically all-male, there are some exceptions on record where women (typically unmarried, young women) formed part of the warrior class, particularly in pre-modern Japan.

A purported group of fighting women is the legendary Amazons, recorded in Classical Greek mythology. Similarly, the Valkyrie are depicted in Norse mythology, particularly the Icelandic Etta.

War Doctor

The War Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the BBC science fiction television programme Doctor Who. He is portrayed by English actor John Hurt. Although he precedes Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor in the show's fictional chronology, his first onscreen appearance came eight years after Eccleston's; the War Doctor was retroactively created by showrunner Steven Moffat for productions celebrating the show's 50th anniversary, owing to Moffat's desire to tell the story of the last day of the Last Great Time War in the special after Eccleston declined to appear.

Within the programme's narrative, the Doctor is a centuries-old alien, a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, who travels in time and space in his TARDIS, frequently with companions. When the Doctor is critically injured, he can regenerate his body, but in doing so, gains a new physical appearance and with it, a distinct new personality. This plot device has allowed a number of actors to portray different incarnations of the Doctor over the show's long run. The War Doctor, not so named within the episodes in which he appears, is introduced as the incarnation of the Doctor who fought in the Time War of the show's modern-day backstory. He was created as a result of a conscious decision of the Eighth Doctor, played by Paul McGann, to take up arms and become a warrior; in accepting this duty, the War Doctor disowned the title of "Doctor," and after the war's end is viewed with disdain by his subsequent incarnations, who reclaim the title that the character is known by. In the 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor", however, the Eleventh Doctor played by Matt Smith revises his opinion of this incarnation after revisiting the final moments of the war.

Warrior (arcade game)

Warrior is a 1979 arcade fighting game. It is considered one of the first fighting games, though predated by Sega's Heavyweight Champ, released in 1976.

Developed by Tim Skelly while working at Cinematronics, it was released under the Vectorbeam company name shortly before Cinematronics closed Vectorbeam down; they had purchased the company in 1978. The game featured two dueling knights rendered in monochrome vector graphics and based on crude motion capture techniques. Due to the limitations of the hardware used, the processor could not render the characters and gaming environment at the same time and backgrounds were printed, with the characters projected on the top.

Controls

Originally Skelly planned for a two-player system with each player using two joysticks, one to control the movement of the player and the other controlling the player's weapon. However, financial constraints restricted the cabinet to one stick for each player and a button to switch between character and weapon modes. The sticks were produced in house and installed in cabinets in a way that players found unresponsive and difficult to use.

Bushi

Bushi and similar can refer to:

Bushi (music)

Bushi (節, bushi) is a type of Japanese folk music genre.

The Japanese term fushi (節), originally used in Buddhist folk music in Japan, simply means "melody". Like the generic term ondo, bushi, the voiced form of fushi, is used as a suffix for Japanese folk songs.

It is found in many Japanese traditional and folk songs, usually shamisen or sanshin songs. Some examples include: Ringo bushi, Tsugaru yosare bushi, Tsugaru aiya bushi, Tsugaru jongara bushi, Yasaburō bushi (弥三郎節), Hōnen bushi and Itokuri bushi. Yasaborō bushi is one of the most well known, and dates back over 300 years. These folk songs are most commonly heard at local festivals in Japan.

References

See also