Make your own samurai costume

You can make your own samurai warrior costume from a couple of garbage cans and rubber stoppers. As you can see in the photo below, the results are pretty incredible.


However, this does seem pretty involved, so to make it in time for Halloween '08, you might want to get started now.



You have to supply the beard yourself.


—Mellow Monk

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The last women samurai

Depicted in films such as The Last Samurai, Japan's Boshin War was the ultimately losing struggle of the samurai to stop pro-modernization forces with a gun-and-cannon-bearing army from wresting control of the county.

In this struggle, samurai families in the Aizu region mobilized bands of women warriors known as the Joushitai, or Women's Brigade.



She's not here to make tea.


—Mellow Monk

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Samurai sword vs. machine gun

This video shows, in super slow motion, a Japanese sword being slowly decimated by machine-gun fire. (Ladies, it's a guy thing.)

As the film shows later on in super-duper slow motion, the first few rounds are actually sliced in half by the sword's sharp, tough edge.

The movie is in Japanese with no English subtitles, but it's pretty self-explanatory.

—Mellow Monk

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