Earn points in every activity: myth or fact (10 each), trivia (5 each), armor workshop (40), samurai path test (30, once). Every 25 points unlocks a mystery card. Tap a card to flip it!
The Real History of the Samurai
Myth vs. Fact, side by side
Glossary
Myth or Fact?
Read the statement. Is it a popular myth, or is it real history? Each correct answer earns 10 points.
Trivia Trail
Walk the trail! Every correct answer moves you one step. Every 5 steps earns 25 points (a whole card). A wrong answer sends you back 2 steps.
Armor Workshop
Real samurai armor evolved a lot over a thousand years. Answer 5 questions to build a real historical armor set, piece by piece. Each finished set earns 40 points.
Armor sets built: 0
Samurai Path Test
Every samurai found their own path. Answer 7 questions honestly, and find out which real historical tradition fits you best. (Worth 30 points, once.)
The Way of the Warrior
Samurai were the warrior class of feudal Japan, but fighting was only half the job. For centuries they were also the leaders, judges, tax officials, and record-keepers who ran Japan. After about 1600, during the long Edo peace, most samurai worked in offices and hardly ever fought at all.
Samurai called this balance bunbu ryōdō: "the pen and the sword, in harmony." A great samurai was expected to be good at both.
The Seven Virtues
Remember the myth check: This famous list comes from Bushido: The Soul of Japan, a book Nitobe Inazō wrote in English in 1900. Real samurai didn't carry one official code. But these are still great values to think about.
Haiku Studio
Many samurai wrote poetry. Matsuo Bashō, the most famous haiku poet ever, served a samurai family as a young man. Write your own haiku about nature or peace: 5 syllables, then 7, then 5.
Shodō: Brush Calligraphy
Pick a kanji and trace it with your finger or mouse. Go slowly, like a real brush. Calligraphers usually write strokes top to bottom and left to right.
Paper Katana
How to make it
- Blade: roll one sheet very tightly from one corner to the opposite corner. Tape the end so it stays rolled.
- Press it slightly flat and give it a gentle curve, like a real katana.
- Guard (tsuba): cut a circle from cardstock, poke a hole in the middle, and slide it about a third of the way up.
- Handle (tsuka): cut a long strip from the second sheet and wrap it around the handle in a criss-cross pattern, just like the silk wrapping on a real sword.
- Decorate the guard with your own family crest (mon).
Real craftsmanship: Swordsmiths folded the steel about 8 to 15 times, not 1,000! The famous curve came partly from coating the blade in clay before cooling it in water. Making one great sword could take weeks.
Paper swords are for display and pretend only. No swinging at people.
Go and Shogi
Samurai and their lords played these strategy games to sharpen their minds. Both teach you to think several moves ahead. Play the computer, or play a friend on the same screen.
Go
How to play Go
- Black goes first. Take turns placing one stone on an empty point where the lines cross.
- Stones that touch along the lines are a group. The empty points next to a group are its liberties (breathing room).
- If you fill a group's last liberty, you capture it and it comes off the board.
- You can't place a stone where it would have no liberties, unless it captures something.
- Ko rule: you can't make a move that puts the board right back how it was a turn ago.
- When both players pass in a row, the game ends. You score 1 point for each of your stones plus each empty point you surround. White gets 6.5 bonus points for going second.
- Tip: before passing, capture any enemy stones that are trapped inside your area.
Shogi (Japanese Chess)
How to play Shogi
- You play from the bottom and move first. Tap a piece, then tap a glowing square.
- Goal: trap the enemy King so it can't escape (checkmate).
- King 1 step any way · Rook any distance straight · Bishop any distance diagonally · Gold 1 step any way except diagonally back · Silver 1 step forward or diagonally · Knight jumps 2 forward and 1 sideways · Lance any distance straight forward · Pawn 1 step forward.
- Promotion: when a piece enters the last 3 rows, it can flip over and get stronger. Most promoted pieces move like a Gold.
- Drops: pieces you capture join YOUR side. On your turn, you can drop one onto any empty square instead of moving.
- Drop rules: no two unpromoted pawns of yours in the same column, and you can't checkmate with a pawn drop.