24 Badass Samurai From 19th Century That Make You Want To Be Like Them

Samurai, member of the Japanese warrior caste. The term samurai was originally used to denote the aristocratic warriors (bushi), but it came to apply to all the members of the warrior class that rose to power in the 12th century and dominated the Japanese government until the Meiji Restoration in 1868.

The ideal samurai was supposed to be a stoic warrior who followed an unwritten code of conduct, later formalized as Bushidō, which held bravery, honour, and personal loyalty above life itself; ritual suicide by disembowelment (seppuku) was institutionalized as a respected alternative to dishonour or defeat.

Samurai were the military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan. These photos of cool Samurai from the 19th century that make you admire.

Oda Nobuyoshi

Sakuzaemon Yamanouchi

Ōkuma Shigenobu

Takasugi Shinsaku

Matsudaira Yoshinaga

Tadataka Mizuno

Enomoto Takeaki

Yamaoka Tesshū

Ōkubo Toshimichi

Fukuzawa Yukichi

Chikaratsunemori Yokoyama

Heikuro Shibusawa

Hidetoshi Egawa

Hijikata Toshizō

Jojiro Ogata

Katsu Kaishū

Matsudaira Katamori

Kogoro Katsura

Masayuki Okudaira

Tokugawa Mochinaga

Ogasawara Nagamichi

Ikeda Nagaoki

Nakaoka Shintarō

Shimazu Nariakira