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The samurai archetype is as enduring an image worldwide as that of the Wild West gunslinger, embodying an entire genre and romanticized bygone time period. As long as Japan has been making movies, it's been making films featuring samurai characters and tropes. These range from adaptations of classic literary stories and historical accounts to postmodern tales that subvert the established samurai conventions. What remains consistent are largely stoic sword fighters who use their skills with the blade to cut through their enemies, often on a moral quest.

Some of the absolute best in Japanese cinema are samurai movies, taking full advantage of the country's history and cultural backdrop. Whether it's legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa and his extensive work in the samurai genre or 21st century reinventions of the tropes, there are plenty of great samurai movies to check out. Without further ado, here are the 15 best samurai movies of all time ranked.

Studio Bones' popular Bungo Stray Dogs anime series has received a new line of boots from fashion boutique Mayla. The footwear is available for fans to purchase internationally and is inspired by the characters Osamu Dazai, Atsushi Nakajima and more.

Mayla's new boots collection, inspired by the popular Bungo Stray Dogs anime, is dubbed the "Bungo Stray Dogs Iconic Shoes Object Booties." Each pair of boots retails for 29,000 yen (around US$184), with color choices taking clear inspiration from the popular characters Atsushi Nakajima, Osamu Dazai, Ryunosuke Akutagawa and Chuya Nakahara. The boot has a 5 cm heel and comes with a bow with a jewel in its center. Reservations opened on Dec. 26 and will close on Jan. 26, 2025. Readers can check out the official images of the Bungo Stray Dogs boots below.

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This post contains spoilers for "Bungo Stray Dogs."

Kafka Asagiri's "Bungo Stray Dogs" starts off with a note of pathos. An orphaned teenager named Atsushi keels over in hunger after being kicked out of his orphanage, lamenting that he can never belong. Just when these sentiments start to soar, though, the mood shifts as Atsushi accidentally saves an eccentric detective from drowning. This detective, Dazai Osamu (who made /Film's rundown of the strongest anime characters), acts as the conduit to an undiscovered world of special abilities and faction rivalries, exposing an invisible war being fought in the bustling city of Yokohama. However, Asagiri's evolving story about superpowered detectives and mafia bosses is not always about such deathly serious matters, as comedic levity is an integral part of a world plunged into chaos. This bittersweetness elevates "Bungo Stray Dogs" into an experience that one cannot get enough of.

The...

With five seasons and a movie, Bungo Stray Dogs has been running just long enough for anime fans to want to make sure they know what they’re getting into before they start. No worries! Not only can I assure you that Bungo Stray Dogs is worth catching up on, but I’ll also be breaking down the different storylines and even calling out the flashback arcs and episodes you might want to watch first if you want to binge the anime series in chronological order. Stick around to learn more about the different timelines and how to watch Bungo Stray Dogs in order so you can figure out the best way to enjoy the series. How to watch Bungo Stray Dogs in order Bungo Stray Dogs Season 1 Welcome to Yokohama (Episodes 1-7) Facing the Port Mafia (Episodes 8-11) Bungo Stray Dogs Season 2 The Dark Age American Expansion A Day...

Quick Links Edgar Allan Poe Has a Great Power and Pet Sakunosuke Oda May Be the Most Important Posthumous Character in the Series Ouchi Fukuchi is a Villain Straight Out of Metal Gear Solid Kyoka Izumi is a Tragic Character Who Shows the Path to Redemption F. Scott Fitzgerald is a Better Villain Than Fyodor Dostoevsky Ryunosuke Akutagawa is Ever-Evolving Akiko Yosano Has the Most Heartbreaking Backstory Chuuya Nakahara is the Perfect Balance for Dazai Osamu Dazai Might as Well Be the Main Character Ranpo Edogawa is the Heart and Soul of the Detective Agency

Bungo Stray Dogs is an anime that manages to take an incredibly weird premise and turn it into seinen gold. On its face, having a bunch of super-powered characters modeled after famous authors from around the world sounds wild without proper context. However, the show manages to make it work quite nicely in its context.

“Rashomon” is one of Akira Kurosawa's most famous films, and is now considered one of the greatest films ever made. It is a very significant production for the Japanese movie industry since it marked its entrance to the world stage, a move that proved the prowess of Japanese cinema in the best way possible. “Rashomon” went on to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1951, and an Honorary Academy Award at the 24th Academy Awards in 1952, among a plethora of other awards.

The film's success in Japan was also significant, even in financial terms. It was given a Hollywood-like premiere at the Imperial Theater in Tokyo, then considered the best theater in the country, and despite its experimental and intellectual orientation, it earned large box office receipts all over the country. Long before it won the Golden Lion, it had won back its production costs, and...

A noble hero always needs a worthy counterpart to challenge them; in anime, this role is often assigned to their rival. Rival dynamics in anime tend to be some of the most compelling, whether it's an antagonist whose begrudging respect for the hero forces them to provoke one another, or one of the protagonist’s allies finding value in disputes and confrontations despite fighting on the same side, or anything in between. The tense, antagonistic relationship between Goku and Vegeta in Dragon Ball is the rivalry trope's archetype and most beloved example.

Humiliated by Goku surpassing him in strength, the Prince of Saiyans made it his goal to match his nemesis, resulting in one of the most riveting rivalries in the history of the shonen genre. However, Goku and Vegeta aren’t the only examples of iconic competitors in anime. Arguably, some of anime’s rivalries even surpass Goku and Vegeta in intensity and drive.

Bungou Stray Dogs is a widely popular manga and anime series. With its fourth season airing, it is bound to attract even more attention for its interesting plot lines, unique tonal shifts, and extraordinary animation. As with many popular works, Bungou Stray Dogs has a very big fandom full of shippers.

Though some may look down on it, shipping can be a fun and creative way to engage with a work. This is especially true with Bungou Stray Dogs. The amazing characterization of the cast can make for great character studies through the lens of shipping. Since the characters bounce off of each other so well, it can make for an entertaining look at all the different relationship dynamics.

Updated on December 13, 2023, by Ajay Aravind: Bungou Stray Dogs is arguably one of the most interesting new anime out there, with incredible character arcs and equally engrossing storylines. The sheer popularity...

New York, NY (11/18/23)— Yen Audio will be releasing three new audiobook adaptations of Yen On novels. With a commitment to bringing popular and compelling stories to life in a different format, Yen Audio will introduce the thrilling adventures and enthralling characters of these stories to a wider audience, giving fans a chance to experience the stories in a whole new way.

Bungo Stray Dogs

Story by Kafka Asagiri

Doppo Kunikida is an idealist and a straitlaced detective at the Armed Detective Agency, an organization that takes on dangerous jobs even the police won't handle. Everything in his life is going just as he's planned…until one day, he's paired up with the agency's newest hire: a suspicious, eccentric, suicide-obsessed man named Osamu Dazai. Their first case together turns out to be far more complicated than Kunikida anticipated—and it looks like the detective agency's sworn enemy, the Port Mafia, is somehow involved,...

Bungou Stray Dogs may be a series that mainly focuses on action and mystery, but that does not mean it has fewer melancholic scenes than other anime. The characters all have arcs that follow their past trauma and experiences, drawing attention to the deep suffering many of them faced before coming together. Bsd quotes that come from these moments are often more than just sad reflections, they resonate in ways fans can relate to.

From Kyouka Izumi to Sakunosuke Oda, many characters have experienced complicated things, such as abandonment, death and murder, throughout their character arcs. Many of these tragic, yet memorable quotes come from the first half of the Season 1 and the darker tone of Season 2.

Updated on July 27, 2023 by Kit Morris and Jennifer Melzer: Though the most tragic moments in the anime came from the first two seasons, there were some sad quotes from the third season that...

Shinji Hamasaki started his career in commercials, directing a number of award-winning ones. In 2014, he directed his first short, “Time Slip Horibe Yasubei” while his feature debut came in 2020, with “Not Quite Dead Yet”. Now he returns to filmmaking with a new short, “Seen”, based on Ryunosuke Akutagawa's short story “The Nose.”

Seen is screening at Short Shorts Film Festival and Asia

In black and white and with music that points towards a horror film, the movie begins showing a man putting on his apron, followed by the image of a woman, drawing manga in exhaustion, while the mirror in her desk that shows her face reveals that she is wearing an eye-patch on her left eye. The initial man works at a convenience store, but his huge nose draws the attention and ire of everyone that comes to the shop. As he reads comments on the web about his presence in the store,...

Even the best anime heroes are nothing without an even better rival to pit themselves against. At the start of the story, no matter how strong or skilled the hero is in their chosen field, there will always be somebody there that surpasses them or threatens to do it. Whether the rival is on the side of good or evil, they are often the most important obstacle the hero must overcome in their journey.

These character types are often cool, collected, and smart as well as stronger than the more hot-blooded hero, and tend to fall into two distinct categories. First is the rival the hero has known since childhood, as either a friend or a bully, and presents a lifelong challenge and motivation. Second is the rival they meet in the course of their journey, often blindsiding them and curing them of any “big fish in a small pond” mindset they may have developed.

By the end of the 1940s, director Akira Kurosawa had established himself as a dependable worker for several movie studios, including Daei, who had already produced “The Quiet Duel” in 1949 and who would approach him with the proposal of adapting “In a Grove”, a short story by writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa. At the end of the same year, and despite a fire in the studio, Kurosawa and his team managed to finish “Rashomon”, which would be released in Japan to moderate success, but ultimately to some international attention, such as Giuliana Stramigioli, the president of Venice Film Festival. The rest, as they say, is history, with “Rashomon” becoming a major success for its creator and the Japanese film industry as a whole, whose reputation, even today, relies to some extent on Kurosawa’s works. Despite its role for Japanese culture, “Rashomon” regularly attracts many cinephiles and scholars for its approach to storytelling,...

The ruined gate of Rashōmon in Kyoto, which acts as the central setting in Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's short story "Rashōmon," had an unsavory reputation during the 12th century. A frequent hideout for thieves and hooligans, the Rashōmon gate came to be known as a symbol of moral degradation, which Akutagawa incorporated in his short to great effect. When filmmaker Akira Kurosawa wove together aspects of two Akutagawa shorts — "Rashōmon" and "In A Grove" — in his 1950 Jidaigeki drama "Rashomon," he transformed the ruined gate into a site of subjective retelling, a sort of moral crossroads where despair and hope coexist. Kurosawa opens "Rashomon" with three men seeking shelter from torrential rain under the ruined gate, which leads to the recounting of a murder mystery with no definite ending. Four eyewitnesses recall a singular incident in the forest in wildly different ways, making the truth impossible to arrive at. What does this all mean?...

By the end of the 1940s, director Akira Kurosawa had established himself as a dependable worker for several movie studios, including Daei, who had already produced “The Quiet Duel” in 1949 and who would approach him with the proposal of adapting “In a Grove”, a short story by writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa. At the end of the same year, and despite a fire in the studio, Kurosawa and his team managed to finish “Rashomon”, which would be released in Japan to moderate success, but ultimately to some international attention, such as Giuliana Stramigioli, the president of Venice Film Festival. The rest, as they say, is history, with “Rashomon” becoming a major success for its creator and the Japanese film industry as a whole, whose reputation, even today, relies to some extent on Kurosawa’s works. Despite its role for Japanese culture, “Rashomon” regularly attracts many cinephiles and scholars for its approach to storytelling,...

Today is the 100th birthday of Japanese master filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. He died back in 1998, but his films carry on his legacy in many ways. First, obviously, there are the literal titles that continue to be watched and studied religiously (13 of them are being aired on Turner Classic Movies today). Second, there are the upcoming remakes of "Seven Samurai," "High and Low," "Rashomon" and "Ikiru" in development. And third, there are those films directly inspired by Kurosawa's films.

Kurosawa himself had many influences, and a number of his films were loose remakes or direct adaptations of everything from Westerns to Dostoyevsky to films noir to Shakespeare. So it's unlikely he'd be upset about the idea that his work has gone on to influence some of today's most notable filmmakers. He might even be enjoying some of the following blockbuster movies, all owing much to his work, from beyond the grave:...

Oh how we have waited with bated breath for the return of Japanese director Hiroyuki Nakano to return with another film. I am a mighty fan of both Samurai Fiction and Stereo Future. I gave Red Shadow a miss and I haven’t been able to see any of the short film work he has done in recent years so his record is pretty much unblemished in my opinion. And it has been long enough since he last did a feature film perhaps all this short film work in the meantime has put him back on track to deliver us another gem. We hope Tajomaru is that film, Nakano’s adaptation of the short story “In a Grove” by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. I’m a bit mixed about the new trailer, some parts seem a bit silly and Jpop gets me every time, but final judgment is reserved for when I...

Warner Japan has released a first teaser trailer for Hiroyuki Nakano’s Tajomaru. The film is based on the short story ‘In a Grove’ by Ryunosuke Akutagawa which Akira Kurosawa also based his 1950 Rashomon on.

Luckily, this won’t be another remake but rather a new backstory for the bandit Tajomaru that takes place before the crime discussed in Kurosawa’s classic.

[See post to watch Flash video] [via Nippon Cinema]

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The first New York revival of Michael John Lachiusa's musical See What I Wanna See is being presented this weekend on February 27th and 28th. The original production premiered at the Public Theatre in the fall of 2005, and this limited engagement is being presented by 5th Floor Productions. See What I Wanna See is based on a collection of short stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, with original music and lyrics by Michael John Lachiusa. Spanning from feudal Japan to present day New York City, the contemporary musical examines the nature of truth in a post 9/11 world through the eyes of several distinct and unique characters.