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Please please please never stop making "Voices from the past" they are absolutely captivating and I can't get enough of them.And I know they take a long time to produce especially if there's added animation to it.But your channel to me and thousands more of your viewers would agree with me that you've got one of the best channel's on UA-cam.And the extra caveat is you also even give us a "History lesson" and as well..👍😁 Patreon account????
The dude managed to have kids and an active sex life after rolling off a cliff in his sleep and smashing his nuts so bad they got infected. He didn't even seek medical help for them out of sheer embarrassment. This dude has all his stats in luck
@@CosmicDorns Good catch. Considering he was too embarrassed to even tell a doctor, it's unlikely he would tell the whole truth for the history books.
For those that don't know Katsu's background before he started his story. He's a LEGENDARY slacker. He was adopted into his family so his "sister" could marry him without giving up her independence. His "brother" Otani by the time he was 25 was a famous calligrapher and philosopher. His father was a shogunate official. Katsu more or less survived on NEET allowance (43 koku = 43 x $800) for his entire life as a death benefit from his adopted father. Katsu was so notoriously inept that he begged his son at FIFTEEN to take over the entire household because the family was falling apart and Otani couldn't handle it anymore. His son Rintaro would go on to become one of the best naval commanders in Japanese history, driven by his fear of turning into his father and the wise guidance of Otani making him so charismatic he talked the legendarily hardcore ronin rebel Sakamoto Ryoma into quitting his terror campaign and becoming his assistant.
The reality that feeds the stigma of adopted kids persists crossculturally. They tend to have this slacker, lost, centerless quality due to a lack of real mother / father. Sorry to say, surrogates and step parents dont come close most of the time. They can, just not the reality of the norm.
The craziest part of this story is how he had a serious infected untreated testicular injury that lasted months or years, and he was still able to have children just fine. Man is strong.
Feudal people were a different breed they had really strong inmune systems and knew how to survive really well i cant even imagine surviving as a beggar in this modern world and this dude did that shit on feudal japan
@@ChecoM1my great grandfather was a POW in WW2. He survived Bataan. I was told the native american way of life is what saved him. Sadly, Marlboro did what the Japanese couldnt.
@@kellyshea92 Your great grandfather was a Native American and used Indian survival lore to get through Japanese captivity in WWII? That’s wild. Do you know anything specific he did to survive?
This is so cool because it's actually the story of someone's life, open ends and unfinished business, plans that didn't work out, just a mess of ideas and experiences.
I am WHEEZING at that part where as kids his classmates tied him up and strung him above them to eat his lunchbox, so he PISSED ALL OVER THEM AND THE FOOD
This is what real life feels like. There’s not always a solid beginning, middle and end. Just things happening, things being left undone or unsaid, and finally a bit of reflection and maybe even regret before death. We’re just so used to only “outstanding” people having their histories recorded for us, never the common guy.
@@TysonAk-s9eThe common guy is the best idea of what life in a given time was. There may be a handful of exceptional people who give an idea of what an extinct culture valued, but the day laborer, the servant, the slave, the peasant, the cook - these are the cross section of what life was actually like outside the walls of affluence, lineage, privilege. Most surviving cuneiform tablets tend to be receipts of sorts leftover from merchants - this is how we understand their number system.
It was once said “if you can’t do great things, then do small things in a great way” For the common person this can sow the seeds of luck for a lifetime.🍀
His son, Rintaro, better known as Kaishū, would later go on to be the Shōgun's army minister and is considered to be the father of the Japanese Navy. He also negotiated the surrender of Edo castle and the safety of the last Shōgun Yoshinobu (Keiki). While he may have been mediocre, his son became a national hero. Good thing his testicular infection healed.
It's interesting that the son of this samurai was Katsu Kaishu who was one of the foremost and most interesting figures in the Meiji restoration that brought Japan into the western 'modern' era. He helped save Tokyo from destruction in the civil war that ensued among many other accomplishments.
@@WELLbethere I thought his life was rather extraordinary. It seems the samurais those days basically made money like the Italian mafia does, from a protection racket, hinted at in the video when talking about "hustling the market". Probably asking for money or good from merchants in exchange for nothing bad happening to them from anybody.
Meanwhile, his older brother, who was praised for being an exemplary samurai, scholar, calligrapher and administrator in his own day, is largely forgotten now. Funny where being a slacker can get you.
@@erichoepelman7764 haha. Unlikely, given how much digital text is now generated every second. And you know, no one is actively saving what is written either. Bigv technology companies simply periodically delete everything without any thought whatsoever.
No man is mediocre who, after a life filled with wretched failure and strife, comes to terms with his own foolishness and leaves a word to the wise for those who come after him.
This guy must have had a lot of charisma. For all his hardships, people seem to just want to be nice to him. It's amazing to hear about him being robbed and the kindness he received from strangers afterward. It's somehow comforting knowing that human nature has largely remained the same for so long.
yea, thats what i thought too. he must be good looking, clever/smart, or charismatic in some other ways that he goes through life being the center of all that drama (and coming out of it relatively unscathed)
For sure. Not everyone begging in their underwear who gets taken in by a nice family has charisma, but I think it's safe to say most of them do lol@@jazzyj2899
“I got up my courage, and spend my whole day begging” I can only imagine what one must be going thru when they make this mental calculus. Yet I hardly ever consider the lives of the panhandlers on my daily commute. What adventures and misfortunes they must’ve endured up to the decision to start begging on the side of the highway
While I don't recall ever begging during my homeless months the uncertainty of where to sleep each night was a constant source of stress. Many people asked me about this, and I often had no answer.
@Axle-F which is because of prohibition making it so expensive. If it was legal opium would be viewed as one of the least benign addictions one could have. No actual opium for sale its all fake nitazenes and xylazine
@@LuthandoRohamAryaman this is why I wish schools would teach how to construct shelters from wood. And how to make a fire and fish. If you got all those you'll never be homeless. Home is where one thinks of you or where you set up camp! God bless!
@@JIGWIGPIG then the cops come and destroy it. and where do they get the wood? and tools? and where on earth can one fish in the city? obviously most homeless people don't have a car or they would live in that. are we dragging lumber on our back out into a national park? i don't think you have ever been homeless. but you mean well and that's cool. simple building, hunting and fishing are great things to know.
Plain journals like this from average cowboys and samurai are in my opinion the best way to look into history accurately. They don’t dwell on significant events like historians or record keepers do, and I think that makes their perspective less prone to corruption or censorship.
I recently read the autobiography of man named Albert Facey, he was born in 1894 just a few blocks away from where I currently live. There was nothing special about him, he was just a regular working class guy, which is what made it interesting. All the other biographies I’ve read have been about famous historical figures. The only thing of historical significance he was involved in at all was his war service in WW1, he fought at the battle of Gallipoli, but he doesn’t say much about it. Most of the book was focussed on his impoverished childhood and early teen years.
Historiography is the study about WHO/WHAT is chosen as "History" and how that relates in today's society as the "past." More historians have come around to what you state; the common, everyday struggles of average individuals matter as much as the people that are grandiose. A great book about hearing history from the people that aren't in the major education system is Howard Zinn's "A People's History Of The United States: 1492-Present". It deals with American History, but from journals, recollections, and records of the average people that weren't on the winning side of History, the oppressed. It brought a very ample understanding that history is very disgusting and never as clear as some propaganda would have you believe.
@@jamjox9922 that sounds cool man, I’ve seen the court document for my Great Pawpaws mark on hogs. It was something like “two notches on left ear” and I think it’s just neater’n a skeeters peeter to see things like that. Very modern/official looking documents from a time we consider to be very far away. He was born in 1898 and I was born in 1998, almost exactly a century apart.
@@whiteskull1067 you’re prone to the same thing and you think you ain’t, which is even worse than that. A lack of knowledge has more genuine thought behind it than a person who thinks he’s knowledgeable and therefor has nothing to learn.
Honestly I have to imagine this guy was pretty charismatic even if he is not emphasizing it much in his writing. There seems to be an implication that he charmed most people he met and was able to get by living a fairly idle life off of his personality alone
from what i can tell he seemed to make most of his money as something of a merchant, buying and selling in the night markets,so he must have been atleast good at bartering
Don't we all though? Anytime I feel like ending it all there eventually comes a point where I feel like everything is great and figured out, like enlightenment. Only for it to all repeat again soon enough. But I guess that's life, soul crushing lows, soul elevating highs, and then nothing for eternity.
The fact he’s self aware enough to criticise his life actually makes him smarter than those others he’s referring to that went missing - who prob had no awareness
feel bad for the couple who briefly adopted him, probably have trouble conceiving their own children so they must've been heartbroken to see him just gone
It says in the book that he was adopted by the Katsu family mainly because they are going to marry him off with their only daughter. Basically he was adopted to ensure the Katsu lineage will not end with the daughter. They eventually had a son.
@@Rodrigo_VegaBy this time in history there simply isn’t much “Samurai”-ing to be done. There was no internal or external conflicts, society in general were prosperous and stable. Being a Samurai back then mean no more than a private security guard or something of that nature to their respective masters. It wasn’t until after a decade of this guy’s death that thing’s started to get interesting again with the arrival of Com. Perry.
In the Edo period, Samurai were essentially bureaucrats with swords. Which was why he was so distraught on not getting a position, he was essentially unemployed. Also, he brought further dishonor on himself by selling swords, he was engaging in activities not appropriate to his social class.@@Rodrigo_Vega
Away from big battles, important dates and superheroes, these are the stories that tell of real life, real people. Struggling with life, a difficult childhood and the harshness of society is of all ages. I take heart from the good people who help us on our way for goodness sake and the lessons we must learn. And how most of us mature and make amends with the mistakes we make. This is history at it’s best: this is about the lives we live.
@@ChrisHeart-kr1uq I have a hunch you are struggling with your mental health as well. Maybe it's time for you to make a move and talk to someone who understands your pain. You can start with consulting your GP. Good luck and best wishes to you.
It's simple most people's lives can be compared to a boring screenplay or rough draft of a story that gets thrown in the garbage and is never read by anyone. The man in the story considered himself a mediocre samurai, but at the end of the day he was a samurai in a society where samurai were near the top of the social hierarchy.
He wasn't judging it as a story. He was judging it as an experience and, hopefully, as a chance to contribute to society. Ordinary people contribute to society. Soldiers and paladins CAN contribute to society. This fellow handn't contribued much at 40, but he seemed to have a change of heart and perhaps he ended well.
Apparently he was surrounded by exceptional individuals, making him mediocre by comparison. There's another comment from @BanzaiKen explaining Katsu's backstory which I'll copy here: "For those that don't know Katsu's background before he started his story. He's a LEGENDARY slacker. He was adopted into his family so his "sister" could marry him without giving up her independence. His "brother" Otani by the time he was 25 was a famous calligrapher and philosopher. His father was a shogunate official. Katsu more or less survived on NEET allowance (43 koku = 43 x $800) for his entire life as a death benefit from his adopted father. Katsu was so notoriously inept that he begged his son at FIFTEEN to take over the entire household because the family was falling apart and Otani couldn't handle it anymore. His son Rintaro would go on to become one of the best naval commanders in Japanese history, driven by his fear of turning into his father and the wise guidance of Otani making him so charismatic he talked the legendarily hardcore ronin rebel Sakamoto Ryoma into quitting his terror campaign and becoming his assistant."
@@faerlabaermarsounds like an entrepreneur to me. Many of the most successful people have the most mishaps. His son went to be great the “traditional” way and thus traditional society respected him more. Both of them are dope depending on what side youre looking at it from. Id rather be this dude than his son. His life was an adventure.
You have to keep in mind that he is being judged by the standards of a samurai, who was expected to attain a position in the government of the shogunate and live up to samurai ideals. In other words, his life was considered a failure by the standards of the samurai class. His life is not neccesarily mediocre by the standards of other people.
I’m gonna be 42 at the end of this year and I can say that this story has been just like my life until now. I’ve done every evil vice this world has to offer and it reduced me to a homeless wretch of a man but bit by bit I’ve clawed my way out of the life of destruction and now I want to live a life worth while and love my family and be the husband my fiancé deserves.
This was a great video. It is important to have what could be considered "ordinary stories" from the past that still resonate with people today and this was definitely one of them.
Always nice to hear about gold folk like that older samurai and innkeeper. Kokichi sounds like a man who was very skilled at certain things(horseback riding, haggling), but not interested in trying very hard. It's nice he found an even-keel in the end.
This diary is remarkable. I was shocked to see that this diary in the original reads like modern Japanese! He wrote in roughly the 1840s (He died around 1850 at slightly less than 50 years of age, so I guess I shouldn't be so surprised in a sense, given the recent period. Yet so many written works are written by elites, which are commonly written either in Sino-Japanese (Kanbun) or classical Japanese, so that may be part of the reason.) He also was active to some degree in mercantile activities, which were obviously "banned" for samurai but suggests such bans, by the late Edo period, were effectively meaningless, as increasingly indebted samurai became desperate. I taught in US universities earlier in my career, and I commonly had students read the translation in the J culture course. What an entertaining narrative! His son became the prominent Meiji figure Katsu Kaishu, but many Japanese unfortunately themselves have little idea about this fellow (father Kokichi), despite the existence of this diary.
I own a copy of this book, the one cited for the video. It is located///somewhere...on my history shelf. It's a fun and interesting story. Dude was a regular samurai living a regular life (more or less) in Edo-era Japan. Since he wrote his life story down as a sort of cautionary tale, we have a great look at Japan in the time right before the Bakamatsu Period and Meiji Restoration.
Best part about this story is how relevant different parts of it are, even if you aren't a 40 something year old mediocre samurai. A lot of it feels like things people today go through whether it's the acquiring and parting of treasured goods, getting your trust taken advantage of, having to grind for money, learning your place in your family, etc.
Refusing to apply yourself, indulging vices, being irresponsible. Dude ends up likeable by the end, but he was a fairly major screw-up for a long time. That he ended up recognizing there was a better way to be...wait, is this guy ME??
Katsu Kokichi (勝 小吉, 1802 - 1850) was born Otani Kokichi in Edo. He was a low-ranking samurai who was adopted by the Katsu family in order to marry the only Katsu daughter, Nobuko. Kokichi's father, Otani Heizo, was a minor official in the shogunate.
@AlkoMH The term Judo was used before Kano, kito ryu, for example, used the term Judo, I think even Jigoro Kano's rank scroll says it is in Kito ryu judo. What we call jujutsu now often went by many different names in the Edo era, and some schools around modern day Tokyo used the term Judo.
To historians its not the recounts of lords, ladies, and the powerful that bring the most clarity of what it was like to live in that time. It is often the commonfolk, the mediocre people who despite their status decided to record their stories.
Everybody is flawed so it's interesting to hear the true stories. In fiction I absolutely love flawed heroes. That's why I liked the hunger games so much. They certainly didn't try to glorify the main character.
"I lived a FULL life and i am ashamed of it..." *-proceeds to tell the most interesting adventure of a man's youth that could totally become a Ghibli film*
Looking back on my life, this mediocre samurai's story resonates with me. Despite my many mistakes & questionabke ethics, I always ended up landing on my feet.
Watching this a few days ago when it came out - popped up in random recommendations - was enough to get me to plunk a few bucks down and buy this guy's book (Musui's Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai by Katsu Kokichi). At times I was wondering if some of this story could possibly be real, or if ol' Katsu was just BSing the reader... but I think it might be real. He had a lot of escapades and adventures, but he does put the bad in with the good. He doesn't just cover himself up in glory, or make himself into some forlorn antihero. It's pretty entertaining, and is a quick and easy read... it is history speaking with a modern, down-to-earth voice. For whatever it's worth, from some random guy on the internet, I recommend it!
I love how he doesn’t even mention courting his wife. The first we know of him having anything at all to do with women is when he refers to having a 5 year-old son. Romance wasn’t too high a priority in feudal Japan.
Yeah his wikipedia page says he was "adopted by the Katsu family in order to marry the only Katsu daughter, Nobuko." so he probably had no choice in the matter, and so really no courting.
Romance became a priority in the 1940s when the slogan “Diamonds are a woman’s best friend” became popular in Broadway. Love then became business when Disney and romance novels started picking up. Cinderella in 1950 etc.. Romance became a priority and now look at the dating market today. Culturally, it’s a western thing. Husband’s obviously cared for their wives in other cultures but this just wasn’t the everyday mindset in eastern cultures.
@@CrownxMe7 Authors in the 18th and 19th centuries churned out romance novels by the hundreds. Romance plays were very popular in Ancient Rome as well.
@@nicholashaney278 the concept has always existed, but it certainly wasn’t the main genre people were reading. There was no mass market for romance until the 1970s and then we have the second wave of feminism. Ancient Romans still didn’t primarily marry for love either.
@@nicholashaney278yes, and that is a good point. Romance, love, passion, these things have always been around and have obviously always been popular themes. But the idea of a gentile courtship and the romance of it being an essential part of marriage came from the culture of Chivalry in Medieval Europe, and the idea marriage itself being centered around that very romance is a very modern thing. Like it or not, marriage is about duty and care, but when done right, can contain a lot of romance. Those things have always been a part of it, but romance and the feeling of being in love is not what's the most important part of it in most cultures.
I guess it is very difficult to compare him to anything, would be unfair to compare him with the current times, also there is no such thing as a comparison chart with the samurais of his era. Think the title of the video is misleading , either clickbait or poor choice. @@lorenzomizushal3980
@@lorenzomizushal3980 modern day normie here, can confirm. Far more interesting than anything I've ever done. Glad my nuts never got smashed on a rock though.
@@lorenzomizushal3980are you thinking about romance samurais? No, dude. Even Musashi was a fairy tale with few things anchored in reality. This “mediocre” dude was probably average in that time
its not exactly "full" though, this story is in the span of 4 decades, pretty sure anyone who live for 4 decade had an interesting story or two with sprinkle of exaggeration, even i could recall some wild thing i experience, i've fap racing for cigarette for example. getting chased by loads of people at plaza for stealing meatballs running away behind a prison only to get chased by guard dogs crash into parked motorcycle because i was distracted by bunch of scantly dressed lady on a graveyard, only to find out they're cross-dresser and they laugh at me because my horny ass was distracted by femboy and crash see? its adventurous, just imagine your story as few surviving records of this century, whole lot of people in the future would find it interesting
Listening to people's thoughts from so long ago is to me why the writing word is a form of magic, while listening to these magical words I am transported back in time where I'm sitting across from someone who was alive hundreds of years ago and I absolutely love it.
What a journey for a young man! For reference, the journey from Tokyo (edo) to Ise takes around 6 hours by car. I can’t imagine walking and riding that distance. I love this! A fascinating look at the life of more everyday flawed human. By the way, ganbaru has the stress on the first syllable with the “ba”being very short.
I always wonder about the life of the average people throughout history. The idea that 99% of people slipped through the cracks and we will never see anything more than maybe their names in records is wild to me. An entire lifetime, maybe in simpler times, but still humans that had dreams, thoughts, beliefs and relationships with the people and world around them. This is such a cool look into the look of not an every day man in a Japanese shogunate, but still of a pretty mediocre guy overall. Love it!
I think Kokichi Katsu (author) spotted it and because he had not achieved anything big worth doocumenting in his life he decided to do documenting himself.
I think about that a lot too. What you said about each one of those people having entire lifetime’s worth of experiences and memories, that we’ll never know about is quite…haunting?
@@watts18269 right? It makes you think of your own mortality. Of course since we live in the information era, our records will exist, but the internet is so flooded that most people will still end up totally forgotten, just another number on a system. I find it so chilling that something complicated as a human being with thoughts, memories, relationships with inside jokes and little things nobody but a few will ever know, that all of that can just... disappear forever. It's hard to comprehend that all those endless rows of seemingly endless names each represent an entire human being not too unlike ourselves.
At that time Samurai held a relatively privilege position in Japanese society compared to the work they did, also Samurai cultural ideals valued Zen Buddhism and introspection so you'd often see older samurai write reflections on their lives. Definitely interesting to hear the different perspectives of samurai living during wartime and in this post-war period.
These sound like the memoirs of an incredibly interesting and skilled man, but one who is depressed and has had a hard life. This is not a mediocre samurai. This is a man who did his best and he did well.
this was so relaxing. the story was pretty all over the place, but such is life…and it also made the story less predictable. the visuals were great and the narration complemented the video well. love this period of history in Japan and this really was a great way to enjoy it. thanks!
Great summary. It definitely was unpredictable. The jumping around part helped with that as well. At one point it was just randomly mentioned that he had a wife and child.
Fun fact. Everybody know the saying about revenge? The one that says to dig two graves? Well, its meaning changed over years and cultures, in fudal japan for example, it did not warn about the the consequences of revenge, only that you have to do it no matter the consequences. It meant pretty much "doesn't matter who ends up in the grave, it will either be your enemy, you if you fail, or both of you, but someone is going to end up dead." I always found that sort of dedication admiring.
I was once reading a book about Japanese business and they explained their confrontational attitude by saying "in China they will defer judgement and avoid things they do not want to face because their warriors could always run away from battles that were too much. Japan is an island, trouble would always find you if you do not deal with it. In some ways this has persisted into modern culture."
This is a very relatable tale, he was clearly spoiled from being born into power without an active tutor. Yet he clearly had skills, be it riding, trading or writting a good tale. I wonder how many of those fights did he actually win, how many of those were his fault and which of them were real. But it's also interesting that his childhood and early adulthood were often him just trying to eat, fuck and sleep. Someone that gave up on fame and power, yet became famous and bore a much accomplished son.
Yeah. By the 19th century japan didn't have any conflict for more than 200 years so samurais were just your regular salary men working for there master. Many of them would sell there armor and sword for money. Of course it was humilaiting for them so they would put rocks in there closet that was for there weapons and pretend they still had armor to guest. There is a movie called 'the twilight samurai' that was released in 2002. It's about a dad samurai that has two kids and have sold his weapons and amor for his dead wife funeral. It probally my favorite potrayal of a samurai.
This would make an awesome movie, show, or anime. His life story if great, he isn't perfect, never strived to be perfect, but he still changed in the end. Something about his life story is admirable and inspirational.
Just s little correction... Judo was systematized in 1882 by master Jigoro Kano. By the time of this story, the existing arts were under the name of Jujutsu, some of them Yawara jutsu and Aikijutsu. Please don't think of this as destructive criticism, I love your work, but I understand you have a lot of work in your hands here to be aware of some of the specifics like martial arts. Great video as always, thanks for sharing!
There were other jujutsu schools that called themselves judo before Kano and Kodokan judo. Same with kenjutsu schools calling themselves kendo. Before the budo/bujutsu dichotomy was well established. But it could just be the translator using a term more well known to English readers.
If you read the source he himself refers to it as Judo so the narration is correct and you are not, there were references to Judo prior to Kano. At the end of the day its all jujitsu
@VoicesofthePast Really can’t say enough how impressed I am by what you do! Having the insight to tell the untold stories, that give us a more grounded, every day perspective of people just like us, from times gone by. Brilliant and important work!
Apparently his son Katsu Kaishu went on to become a famous naval admiral and presided over the surrender of Tokyo to the Meiji restorationists. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he doesn’t mention his father much in his own writings and memoirs.
That was a great story. I know people love to fantasize about living in such a time & place, but I can't imagine how hard it was for most people. I sounds extremely challenging to live a long life that way.
It strikes me as being extremely civilised and every bit as orderly as our society in the present era - perhaps more so. Compared to America's wild west at the same time, Japan seems to be the height of civilised society. Similar to today really.
It was a highly evolved civilization full of amazing artists & craftsmen. The clothing certainly looks more comfortable than that of any other culture. The challenge I was talking about was the technology of the day (like medicine), regardless of location.@@redplanet7163
@@redplanet7163 Sorry to disagree - but those times were not civilized. There was constant fighting & wars and, as always, the common people suffered most.
a tragedy of fathers is that they push upon their young sons lessons that they have only recently learned themselves. the tragedy of young sons is that they are rarely capable of understanding those lessons before adulthood.
I'm 36 and this hit me right in the regrets. I'd give anything to go back in time and unfuck the piece of shit I was. The fact I'm married with two kids is something that everyday I'm reminded of as being something I don't deserve and am truly blessed with the same level of luck the Samurai was born with lol
As someone of nearly the same age, this voice of a man from 200 years ago, completely different culture, resounds so wildly similar with my own personal reality.
He might have been mediocre as a samurai, but he was not at all a mediocre man. Charismatic, persistent and incredibly courageous, he could have been a general had his life gone differently. His biggest issues were falling into self gratification, but that can easily be explained by having incredibly low spirits due to not being wanted whenever he actually tried to apply himself and being subjected to injustices consistently as a child.
@@PaladinMika While he does seem violently unhinged by today's standards, this guy was born into a family of soldiers. He was probably raised with a sense of superiority and taught that violence can be justified. His father was right to punish him for maiming that boy with a rock, but the punishment was to bash his skull in with a wooden clog. And his boss wanted to wipe out his family because one teenager ran away. His society was violent.
@@calamitysangfroid2407 The specific phrasing is "taken measures to end the family line," not that he'd execute the family. More likely, what this would mean is that they'd be side-lined or stripped of their title. That is, the father may be kept in employment, but if there are no heirs, because the prodigal son doesn't come back, then the family line just naturally ends itself. He could adopt a replacement, but the implied statement is that they wouldn't ratify the adoption as a legitimate heir.
@@calamitysangfroid2407I believe he meant the family would not be allowed to keep their official samurai title with no heir to continue. However, all the other things you said are correct. It was a life that was a bit too much of a disheartening struggle, always treated as a black sheep, but he seems to have mellowed and appreciated whatever good fortune he had, especially his family.
Well made video. A quality rarely seen on UA-cam. Well done. It is amazing how many aspects of Japanese life, mentioned in the story, are still part of Japanese life today. Some good, some bad.
Such eloquent and extended personal words from the past strike so fiercely and poignantly. As good or better than the best books written. True treasures of humanity. Heartening that this chap realized his folly and amended his ways.
Boy did I hate it when the other kids made fun of my stipend. "Stipend this", "stipend that", all through elementary school. One guy told me "You're three koku short of a peasant's pig-pen", dunno what that means but I'm in therapy for it to this day.
some people in 3rd world countries have to put family in cages because they have no access to mental health care and they are a danger to themselves and people around them it's sad
What's so interesting about this is that because it's written to be a cautionary tale, he probably omitted all the heroically badass shit he did. He probably didn't want his descendants to look up to him or glorify his misdeeds. But to the 21st century reader, this sounds like the most gangster shit ever. That, or this is the most epic humble brag of all time.
I don't know what kind "heroically badass shit" could samurai achieve at end of 1700s when Tokugawa Clan had ruled Japan easily over a century so there was little need for trained fighters. As much as this story says he was much more of a conman and occasionally lucky fraud.
Im 29, feels good that dude's 100 years ago still didnt k ow wtf they were doing with their life until they were 40+. Definitely identify with this guy, not wanting to conform to what role he's expected to play and just listlessly wandering through life.
I wouldn’t say that, man is pretty famous and practically helped reformed the military of Japan into a modern force during the Meiji restoration period.
If you’re struggling, consider therapy with BetterHelp #ad. Click
betterhelp.com/voicesofthepast for a 10% discount on your first month of therapy with a credentialed professional specific to your needs.
not a great company...
"The same quality as in-office therapy" is just a blatant lie.
Please please please never stop making "Voices from the past" they are absolutely captivating and I can't get enough of them.And I know they take a long time to produce especially if there's added animation to it.But your channel to me and thousands more of your viewers would agree with me that you've got one of the best channel's on UA-cam.And the extra caveat is you also even give us a "History lesson" and as well..👍😁
Patreon account????
If Ieyasu hadn't driven out Christians, this samurai might have received not only mental help, but everlasting life.
Actual scam company.
The dude managed to have kids and an active sex life after rolling off a cliff in his sleep and smashing his nuts so bad they got infected. He didn't even seek medical help for them out of sheer embarrassment. This dude has all his stats in luck
Tbf i doubt the whole cliff story, i think its a cover for a more embarrassing one.
@@CosmicDorns Good catch. Considering he was too embarrassed to even tell a doctor, it's unlikely he would tell the whole truth for the history books.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
God. DAMN. I grabbed for my nuts as I've read this! Fucking hell, that sounded like it hurt extremely bad.
Real incident involved peanut butter and a dog
Bro just casually explains how at 7 years old he lost a fight over some kites and decided he must commit ritual suicide on the spot
This deserves more upvotes
Harsh world to grow up in
Reminds me of my mw2 multiplayer where a certain player told me to hang myself to the ceiling because I had 17 kills lol.
Tbh it be like that sometimes. Especially if you're a kid
Dude was wild. He got in 2 different fights over kites and almost killed 2 people over it: First another child and then himself
For those that don't know Katsu's background before he started his story. He's a LEGENDARY slacker. He was adopted into his family so his "sister" could marry him without giving up her independence. His "brother" Otani by the time he was 25 was a famous calligrapher and philosopher. His father was a shogunate official. Katsu more or less survived on NEET allowance (43 koku = 43 x $800) for his entire life as a death benefit from his adopted father. Katsu was so notoriously inept that he begged his son at FIFTEEN to take over the entire household because the family was falling apart and Otani couldn't handle it anymore. His son Rintaro would go on to become one of the best naval commanders in Japanese history, driven by his fear of turning into his father and the wise guidance of Otani making him so charismatic he talked the legendarily hardcore ronin rebel Sakamoto Ryoma into quitting his terror campaign and becoming his assistant.
very interesting. thanks for commenting this
this adds alot of context, thanks, awesome story.
Guy was the comedic relief character
The reality that feeds the stigma of adopted kids persists crossculturally. They tend to have this slacker, lost, centerless quality due to a lack of real mother / father. Sorry to say, surrogates and step parents dont come close most of the time. They can, just not the reality of the norm.
Good times create weak man. Weak men create harsh times. You know the rest
The craziest part of this story is how he had a serious infected untreated testicular injury that lasted months or years, and he was still able to have children just fine. Man is strong.
Feudal people were a different breed they had really strong inmune systems and knew how to survive really well i cant even imagine surviving as a beggar in this modern world and this dude did that shit on feudal japan
@@ChecoM1my great grandfather was a POW in WW2. He survived Bataan. I was told the native american way of life is what saved him. Sadly, Marlboro did what the Japanese couldnt.
@@kellyshea92 Your great grandfather was a Native American and used Indian survival lore to get through Japanese captivity in WWII? That’s wild. Do you know anything specific he did to survive?
Id go with no paternity tests back then.
The guy consistently fked around and almost never found out
This is so cool because it's actually the story of someone's life, open ends and unfinished business, plans that didn't work out, just a mess of ideas and experiences.
Agreed
I like the way you wrote this.
Very well said.
While I agree in the novelty of the authenticity…eh😅 that sure sucks to have a mess like that.
@christopherjannette5863iiiiuuuuuuuuujjjjjjjjjjju
I am WHEEZING at that part where as kids his classmates tied him up and strung him above them to eat his lunchbox, so he PISSED ALL OVER THEM AND THE FOOD
The best part is no matter what they did: they couldnt stop him once he was up there.
Facing up or facing down, gravity is on his side.
It was planned all along and they fell for it
Right! That was so smart!
If Naruto wasn't for kids, I could see him doing is.
Highly legendary.
The story about the innkeeper helping him after his things are stolen is really wholesome, one man's kindness has survived hundreds of years.
I do wonder if the innkeeper might've been in on it?
@@CamdenKnightly he probably was, real people aren’t that nice. It’s a nice story though
Ah, finally something redeeming from this man's story...
@@CamdenKnightlyNotice there is no mention of any inappropriate adult male attention... Some things do no end up in memoirs.
@@Disappointed739 Yeah, a young boy, alone and destitute on the road? Bad times for him.
This is what real life feels like. There’s not always a solid beginning, middle and end. Just things happening, things being left undone or unsaid, and finally a bit of reflection and maybe even regret before death. We’re just so used to only “outstanding” people having their histories recorded for us, never the common guy.
True and well put.
Because the common guy is common
@@TysonAk-s9eThe common guy is the best idea of what life in a given time was.
There may be a handful of exceptional people who give an idea of what an extinct culture valued, but the day laborer, the servant, the slave, the peasant, the cook - these are the cross section of what life was actually like outside the walls of affluence, lineage, privilege.
Most surviving cuneiform tablets tend to be receipts of sorts leftover from merchants - this is how we understand their number system.
@@Your-Least-Favorite-Stranger But this story is about someone that came from lineage and privilege so your point is kind of moot.
It was once said “if you can’t do great things, then do small things in a great way”
For the common person this can sow the seeds of luck for a lifetime.🍀
His son, Rintaro, better known as Kaishū, would later go on to be the Shōgun's army minister and is considered to be the father of the Japanese Navy. He also negotiated the surrender of Edo castle and the safety of the last Shōgun Yoshinobu (Keiki). While he may have been mediocre, his son became a national hero. Good thing his testicular infection healed.
@Black_Knight15 very very occasional
Katsu Kaishu? I've heard of him.
I suppose that depends on the son more than anything.@@YourHealthNeeds
@Black_Knight15 sometimes. Other times their sons grow up to just smoke meth and steal Harley's with their dad.
@@journeyman5894 yep and the guidance that 'replace' the father
Hey man not everyone can be a Miyamoto Musashi.
not everyone can grind like a champ
Not everyone can survive Better Help.
weeb
A lot of Samurai were Pirates and Bandits.
Lot of them were not honest or honorable.
🎉 Feliz Jueves 🎉
It's interesting that the son of this samurai was Katsu Kaishu who was one of the foremost and most interesting figures in the Meiji restoration that brought Japan into the western 'modern' era. He helped save Tokyo from destruction in the civil war that ensued among many other accomplishments.
The battleship CSS Stonewall took part in a civil war, but it wasn't the one that makes sense.
Mediocre samurai, top tier parent.
@@WELLbethere I thought his life was rather extraordinary. It seems the samurais those days basically made money like the Italian mafia does, from a protection racket, hinted at in the video when talking about "hustling the market". Probably asking for money or good from merchants in exchange for nothing bad happening to them from anybody.
It's a wonder he could even have kids after hearing this story lmao
@@Mslc727 Apparently his testicles recovered.
i bet he’d never imagine that people hundreds of years later would be watching a video about him. crazy how life and history works
In a thousand years this post you wrote my be in a museum
Meanwhile, his older brother, who was praised for being an exemplary samurai, scholar, calligrapher and administrator in his own day, is largely forgotten now. Funny where being a slacker can get you.
You can thank a couple pioneering historians for that.
@@erichoepelman7764 haha. Unlikely, given how much digital text is now generated every second. And you know, no one is actively saving what is written either. Bigv technology companies simply periodically delete everything without any thought whatsoever.
@@erichoepelman7764this comment too
No man is mediocre who, after a life filled with wretched failure and strife, comes to terms with his own foolishness and leaves a word to the wise for those who come after him.
So true
Yeap. He wised up in the end. So many never do
Mediocre just means average.
Yeah, word to the wise, remember Pearl Harbor
The first step to being wise is to know you have much to learn and far to go.
This guy must have had a lot of charisma. For all his hardships, people seem to just want to be nice to him. It's amazing to hear about him being robbed and the kindness he received from strangers afterward. It's somehow comforting knowing that human nature has largely remained the same for so long.
yea, thats what i thought too. he must be good looking, clever/smart, or charismatic in some other ways that he goes through life being the center of all that drama (and coming out of it relatively unscathed)
For sure. Not everyone begging in their underwear who gets taken in by a nice family has charisma, but I think it's safe to say most of them do lol@@jazzyj2899
Its cause HE is telling the story. Of course, embellished to his advantage
It has remained the same and WILL remain the same because it is our NATURE, we can not help ourselves.
This was hardly 200 years ago. Thats only a handful of generations
“I got up my courage, and spend my whole day begging” I can only imagine what one must be going thru when they make this mental calculus. Yet I hardly ever consider the lives of the panhandlers on my daily commute. What adventures and misfortunes they must’ve endured up to the decision to start begging on the side of the highway
Unfortunately for most of them it’s a simple but sad case of substance abuse.
While I don't recall ever begging during my homeless months the uncertainty of where to sleep each night was a constant source of stress. Many people asked me about this, and I often had no answer.
@Axle-F which is because of prohibition making it so expensive. If it was legal opium would be viewed as one of the least benign addictions one could have. No actual opium for sale its all fake nitazenes and xylazine
@@LuthandoRohamAryaman this is why I wish schools would teach how to construct shelters from wood. And how to make a fire and fish. If you got all those you'll never be homeless. Home is where one thinks of you or where you set up camp! God bless!
@@JIGWIGPIG then the cops come and destroy it. and where do they get the wood? and tools? and where on earth can one fish in the city? obviously most homeless people don't have a car or they would live in that. are we dragging lumber on our back out into a national park? i don't think you have ever been homeless. but you mean well and that's cool. simple building, hunting and fishing are great things to know.
As another less than mediocre samurai, this related to me a lot.
Does 2023 shock you or is it just more Waring States?
As a homeless teen I related a lot, up until he met the Samurai and his wife. His poor nads!
Well, I'm somewhat of a mediocre samurai myself. 😅
Who is your lord?
@@0therun1t21 "I must admit there is something special in the friendship of beggars."
Plain journals like this from average cowboys and samurai are in my opinion the best way to look into history accurately. They don’t dwell on significant events like historians or record keepers do, and I think that makes their perspective less prone to corruption or censorship.
I recently read the autobiography of man named Albert Facey, he was born in 1894 just a few blocks away from where I currently live. There was nothing special about him, he was just a regular working class guy, which is what made it interesting. All the other biographies I’ve read have been about famous historical figures.
The only thing of historical significance he was involved in at all was his war service in WW1, he fought at the battle of Gallipoli, but he doesn’t say much about it. Most of the book was focussed on his impoverished childhood and early teen years.
Historiography is the study about WHO/WHAT is chosen as "History" and how that relates in today's society as the "past."
More historians have come around to what you state; the common, everyday struggles of average individuals matter as much as the people that are grandiose.
A great book about hearing history from the people that aren't in the major education system is Howard Zinn's "A People's History Of The United States: 1492-Present".
It deals with American History, but from journals, recollections, and records of the average people that weren't on the winning side of History, the oppressed. It brought a very ample understanding that history is very disgusting and never as clear as some propaganda would have you believe.
They are prone to ignorance, which is much worse.
@@jamjox9922 that sounds cool man, I’ve seen the court document for my Great Pawpaws mark on hogs. It was something like “two notches on left ear” and I think it’s just neater’n a skeeters peeter to see things like that. Very modern/official looking documents from a time we consider to be very far away. He was born in 1898 and I was born in 1998, almost exactly a century apart.
@@whiteskull1067 you’re prone to the same thing and you think you ain’t, which is even worse than that. A lack of knowledge has more genuine thought behind it than a person who thinks he’s knowledgeable and therefor has nothing to learn.
Honestly I have to imagine this guy was pretty charismatic even if he is not emphasizing it much in his writing. There seems to be an implication that he charmed most people he met and was able to get by living a fairly idle life off of his personality alone
Dude was a DnD bard
from what i can tell he seemed to make most of his money as something of a merchant, buying and selling in the night markets,so he must have been atleast good at bartering
He's clearly very self deprecating, hinting at a more impressive figure in real life.
This guy is the main character in a comedy adventure
In the midst of “its so over”…he found, within himself, an indomitable “we’re so back”.
Fantastic tale, thnx for the narration.
The samurai has fallen, millions must commit seppuku
it was joever... were barack now
@@ChrisHeart-kr1uq HOOOOOLY
Don't we all though? Anytime I feel like ending it all there eventually comes a point where I feel like everything is great and figured out, like enlightenment. Only for it to all repeat again soon enough. But I guess that's life, soul crushing lows, soul elevating highs, and then nothing for eternity.
Don't forget that Kim Jong Un having a smoke with this banger of a quote as a voiceover.
The fact he’s self aware enough to criticise his life actually makes him smarter than those others he’s referring to that went missing - who prob had no awareness
"you've got to admit, the friendship between beggers os something special"
It's not because the poverty, but the absence of greediness and jealousy that people nowadays lack more than ever.
The pissing while hanging animation... Best UA-cam content I've seen in the past year. Your animators are true artists .👏
Time stamp please.
@@fifthofascalante7311 6:21
@@fifthofascalante7311 6:35
@@fifthofascalante73116:27
@@fifthofascalante7311 6.40
"My body has no scars"
BUT WHAT ABOUT YOUR BALLS
And the one on his head that he cuts every time he shaved
Child
It’s crazy to think that even across so much time, ppl really are just kinda the same still
Yeah
Humans never change no matter what time period
feel bad for the couple who briefly adopted him, probably have trouble conceiving their own children so they must've been heartbroken to see him just gone
It says in the book that he was adopted by the Katsu family mainly because they are going to marry him off with their only daughter. Basically he was adopted to ensure the Katsu lineage will not end with the daughter. They eventually had a son.
勝 小吉の息子、勝海舟には沢山の子供が産まれました。
その内の１人は、アメリカ人の女性と結婚しました。
その女性と子供達はアメリカに戻ったという記録があります。
勝 小吉の子孫は、今もアメリカにいる可能性が高いと思います。
@@GRA5S I think he meant the couple who brought him to their place when they discovered he run away from home.
They are better off without him. He is a handful, a disappointment (from a parent's perspective), and unloyal.
Takes one to know one
Doesn’t sound mediocre at all. What an interesting, determined guy, and a good story teller.
The mediocre nature of the story is what makes it great. Who cares about how the entitled lived or felt?
From what I got he didn't do much samurai-ing, did he? Other than getting into some brawls.
At least he descrives himself as an above-average rider.
@@Rodrigo_VegaBy this time in history there simply isn’t much “Samurai”-ing to be done. There was no internal or external conflicts, society in general were prosperous and stable. Being a Samurai back then mean no more than a private security guard or something of that nature to their respective masters. It wasn’t until after a decade of this guy’s death that thing’s started to get interesting again with the arrival of Com. Perry.
@@sio2ch.168 right, still under that definition it sounds more like a guy that needed to be samurai-ed more often that he had the chance to samurai xD
In the Edo period, Samurai were essentially bureaucrats with swords. Which was why he was so distraught on not getting a position, he was essentially unemployed. Also, he brought further dishonor on himself by selling swords, he was engaging in activities not appropriate to his social class.@@Rodrigo_Vega
"Ever since my father died I've had no one to turn to"... I toally felt that part. Miss you pops.
May he be at peace.
I totally feel you man. Mine passed away in 2020 and I miss him a lot too. I hope you stay strong and I wish you the best.
Realizing youre the adult in the house and people rely on you now...I'm glad I'm not there yet
Away from big battles, important dates and superheroes, these are the stories that tell of real life, real people. Struggling with life, a difficult childhood and the harshness of society is of all ages. I take heart from the good people who help us on our way for goodness sake and the lessons we must learn. And how most of us mature and make amends with the mistakes we make. This is history at it’s best: this is about the lives we live.
@@ChrisHeart-kr1uqI had a stroke trying to understand who you are talking to
@@ChrisHeart-kr1uq I have a hunch you are struggling with your mental health as well. Maybe it's time for you to make a move and talk to someone who understands your pain. You can start with consulting your GP. Good luck and best wishes to you.
If this man's life was deemed mediocre, I shudder to think of the lives many of us live today.
It's simple most people's lives can be compared to a boring screenplay or rough draft of a story that gets thrown in the garbage and is never read by anyone.
The man in the story considered himself a mediocre samurai, but at the end of the day he was a samurai in a society where samurai were near the top of the social hierarchy.
He wasn't judging it as a story. He was judging it as an experience and, hopefully, as a chance to contribute to society. Ordinary people contribute to society. Soldiers and paladins CAN contribute to society. This fellow handn't contribued much at 40, but he seemed to have a change of heart and perhaps he ended well.
Apparently he was surrounded by exceptional individuals, making him mediocre by comparison. There's another comment from @BanzaiKen explaining Katsu's backstory which I'll copy here:
"For those that don't know Katsu's background before he started his story. He's a LEGENDARY slacker. He was adopted into his family so his "sister" could marry him without giving up her independence. His "brother" Otani by the time he was 25 was a famous calligrapher and philosopher. His father was a shogunate official. Katsu more or less survived on NEET allowance (43 koku = 43 x $800) for his entire life as a death benefit from his adopted father. Katsu was so notoriously inept that he begged his son at FIFTEEN to take over the entire household because the family was falling apart and Otani couldn't handle it anymore. His son Rintaro would go on to become one of the best naval commanders in Japanese history, driven by his fear of turning into his father and the wise guidance of Otani making him so charismatic he talked the legendarily hardcore ronin rebel Sakamoto Ryoma into quitting his terror campaign and becoming his assistant."
@@faerlabaermarsounds like an entrepreneur to me. Many of the most successful people have the most mishaps. His son went to be great the “traditional” way and thus traditional society respected him more. Both of them are dope depending on what side youre looking at it from. Id rather be this dude than his son. His life was an adventure.
You have to keep in mind that he is being judged by the standards of a samurai, who was expected to attain a position in the government of the shogunate and live up to samurai ideals. In other words, his life was considered a failure by the standards of the samurai class.
His life is not neccesarily mediocre by the standards of other people.
Humility & honesty in the end always makes for a worthwhile redemption. This was an important voice.
As a 40 year old man, it felt good having a conversation with this man.
I enjoyed this conversation...in english.
@@magnusdiridianNice Ken Watanabe / Last Samurai reference
you did not have a conversation with anyone
@@Teo-uw7mh He did, actually. He used a time machine. Obviously.
@Teo-uw7mh thanks, buzz Killington von capitan obvious
The title alone is gold. Haven't yet watched the video. I'm already smiling.
Easily amused, are we?
Lolz exactly. It was amazing.
I’m gonna be 42 at the end of this year and I can say that this story has been just like my life until now. I’ve done every evil vice this world has to offer and it reduced me to a homeless wretch of a man but bit by bit I’ve clawed my way out of the life of destruction and now I want to live a life worth while and love my family and be the husband my fiancé deserves.
Your latter will be greater than your beginning 🙏
@ Amen sister and thank you for your kind words and I believe it ☺️
This was a great video. It is important to have what could be considered "ordinary stories" from the past that still resonate with people today and this was definitely one of them.
Always nice to hear about gold folk like that older samurai and innkeeper. Kokichi sounds like a man who was very skilled at certain things(horseback riding, haggling), but not interested in trying very hard. It's nice he found an even-keel in the end.
This diary is remarkable. I was shocked to see that this diary in the original reads like modern Japanese! He wrote in roughly the 1840s (He died around 1850 at slightly less than 50 years of age, so I guess I shouldn't be so surprised in a sense, given the recent period. Yet so many written works are written by elites, which are commonly written either in Sino-Japanese (Kanbun) or classical Japanese, so that may be part of the reason.) He also was active to some degree in mercantile activities, which were obviously "banned" for samurai but suggests such bans, by the late Edo period, were effectively meaningless, as increasingly indebted samurai became desperate. I taught in US universities earlier in my career, and I commonly had students read the translation in the J culture course. What an entertaining narrative! His son became the prominent Meiji figure Katsu Kaishu, but many Japanese unfortunately themselves have little idea about this fellow (father Kokichi), despite the existence of this diary.
How did he die?
I own a copy of this book, the one cited for the video. It is located///somewhere...on my history shelf. It's a fun and interesting story. Dude was a regular samurai living a regular life (more or less) in Edo-era Japan. Since he wrote his life story down as a sort of cautionary tale, we have a great look at Japan in the time right before the Bakamatsu Period and Meiji Restoration.
@@ChrisHeart-kr1uq Da fuq????
That's the most unique quote I've run across in a while.
@@ChrisHeart-kr1uq lmfao
Best part about this story is how relevant different parts of it are, even if you aren't a 40 something year old mediocre samurai. A lot of it feels like things people today go through whether it's the acquiring and parting of treasured goods, getting your trust taken advantage of, having to grind for money, learning your place in your family, etc.
Refusing to apply yourself, indulging vices, being irresponsible. Dude ends up likeable by the end, but he was a fairly major screw-up for a long time. That he ended up recognizing there was a better way to be...wait, is this guy ME??
Katsu Kokichi (勝 小吉, 1802 - 1850) was born Otani Kokichi in Edo. He was a low-ranking samurai who was adopted by the Katsu family in order to marry the only Katsu daughter, Nobuko. Kokichi's father, Otani Heizo, was a minor official in the shogunate.
@@MauricePasteurHe also had a GameCube
@@methanedirigible That's sick! Playing Samurai Jack probably..
@@MauricePasteurthought something similar, it may have been jujitsu and this is a translation error
Very different characters but the translator may have felt they are the same thing?? haha@@MauricePasteur
@AlkoMH The term Judo was used before Kano, kito ryu, for example, used the term Judo, I think even Jigoro Kano's rank scroll says it is in Kito ryu judo. What we call jujutsu now often went by many different names in the Edo era, and some schools around modern day Tokyo used the term Judo.
To historians its not the recounts of lords, ladies, and the powerful that bring the most clarity of what it was like to live in that time. It is often the commonfolk, the mediocre people who despite their status decided to record their stories.
To people yes, modern historians...no.
I wouldn’t say he want famous, search him up, he’s quite a famous person.
Samurai are not common folk
@@hicknopunkthis is considered a great document by modern historians lol, what’re you even trying to say
@@BirdTurdMemesThe equivalent of a gentleman/minor lord in England at the time
"The friendship between beggars is something special."
It's honestly sad that he lied to such kind benefactors. They would have supported him regardless given his circumstances
I love a flawed man's story. I always feel like I'm there when I can relate to them. Makes me feel like history isn't so far away.
Everybody is flawed so it's interesting to hear the true stories. In fiction I absolutely love flawed heroes. That's why I liked the hunger games so much. They certainly didn't try to glorify the main character.
History is never far away. You are living in it!
Imagine going down in history as the ''Mediocre Samurai''
Xd
Imagine ‘going down in history’ PERIOD
@@fifthofascalante7311Yea, atleast he made it into history unlike most people could ever nowdays.
That would be over 99% of all samurai. This one just happened to also be a mediocre wordsmith, and his journal somehow survived the age.
Beats being a Good Samurai who doesn't live to 25
my brother would’ve been 35 today & he passed 14 years ago. idk why this feels so calming but i’m grateful. thank you
"I lived a FULL life and i am ashamed of it..." *-proceeds to tell the most interesting adventure of a man's youth that could totally become a Ghibli film*
Where was the animal companion?
I don't know man, hitting boys with rocks and pissing on them is not something I expect to see in a Ghibli movie
Looking back on my life, this mediocre samurai's story resonates with me. Despite my many mistakes & questionabke ethics, I always ended up landing on my feet.
Me too, instead of landing on my feet tho I find myself strapped to ceilings peeing on peoples dinners
white cisgender male? 🤣
@@Davao420Resilient individual.
@@No-bs4um great answer
I always land on my head so as not to damage anything important
Watching this a few days ago when it came out - popped up in random recommendations - was enough to get me to plunk a few bucks down and buy this guy's book (Musui's Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai by Katsu Kokichi). At times I was wondering if some of this story could possibly be real, or if ol' Katsu was just BSing the reader... but I think it might be real. He had a lot of escapades and adventures, but he does put the bad in with the good. He doesn't just cover himself up in glory, or make himself into some forlorn antihero. It's pretty entertaining, and is a quick and easy read... it is history speaking with a modern, down-to-earth voice.
For whatever it's worth, from some random guy on the internet, I recommend it!
I love how he doesn’t even mention courting his wife. The first we know of him having anything at all to do with women is when he refers to having a 5 year-old son. Romance wasn’t too high a priority in feudal Japan.
Yeah his wikipedia page says he was "adopted by the Katsu family in order to marry the only Katsu daughter, Nobuko." so he probably had no choice in the matter, and so really no courting.
Romance became a priority in the 1940s when the slogan “Diamonds are a woman’s best friend” became popular in Broadway.
Love then became business when Disney and romance novels started picking up. Cinderella in 1950 etc.. Romance became a priority and now look at the dating market today.
Culturally, it’s a western thing. Husband’s obviously cared for their wives in other cultures but this just wasn’t the everyday mindset in eastern cultures.
@@CrownxMe7 Authors in the 18th and 19th centuries churned out romance novels by the hundreds. Romance plays were very popular in Ancient Rome as well.
@@nicholashaney278 the concept has always existed, but it certainly wasn’t the main genre people were reading. There was no mass market for romance until the 1970s and then we have the second wave of feminism.
Ancient Romans still didn’t primarily marry for love either.
@@nicholashaney278yes, and that is a good point. Romance, love, passion, these things have always been around and have obviously always been popular themes. But the idea of a gentile courtship and the romance of it being an essential part of marriage came from the culture of Chivalry in Medieval Europe, and the idea marriage itself being centered around that very romance is a very modern thing. Like it or not, marriage is about duty and care, but when done right, can contain a lot of romance. Those things have always been a part of it, but romance and the feeling of being in love is not what's the most important part of it in most cultures.
He does not seem mediocre at all. Life full of adventure and discovery. More than many can claim
He's a mediocre samurai. Even the most mediocre samurai's life is probably more adventurous than that of modern day normies.
I guess it is very difficult to compare him to anything, would be unfair to compare him with the current times, also there is no such thing as a comparison chart with the samurais of his era. Think the title of the video is misleading , either clickbait or poor choice. @@lorenzomizushal3980
@@lorenzomizushal3980 modern day normie here, can confirm. Far more interesting than anything I've ever done. Glad my nuts never got smashed on a rock though.
@@lorenzomizushal3980are you thinking about romance samurais? No, dude. Even Musashi was a fairy tale with few things anchored in reality. This “mediocre” dude was probably average in that time
its not exactly "full" though, this story is in the span of 4 decades, pretty sure anyone who live for 4 decade had an interesting story or two with sprinkle of exaggeration,
even i could recall some wild thing i experience,
i've fap racing for cigarette for example.
getting chased by loads of people at plaza for stealing meatballs running away behind a prison only to get chased by guard dogs
crash into parked motorcycle because i was distracted by bunch of scantly dressed lady on a graveyard, only to find out they're cross-dresser and they laugh at me because my horny ass was distracted by femboy and crash
see? its adventurous, just imagine your story as few surviving records of this century, whole lot of people in the future would find it interesting
This is beautiful. The self-awareness, honesty, and personal insight is art
I thought the title was misspelled at first but then 2 minutes into listening and oh I see now.
Listening to people's thoughts from so long ago is to me why the writing word is a form of magic, while listening to these magical words I am transported back in time where I'm sitting across from someone who was alive hundreds of years ago and I absolutely love it.
In the woods tripping and I highly recommend
I would watch that as a movie or an anime. It's so relatable, everybody know people with the same kind of troubled lives.
What a journey for a young man! For reference, the journey from Tokyo (edo) to Ise takes around 6 hours by car. I can’t imagine walking and riding that distance. I love this! A fascinating look at the life of more everyday flawed human. By the way, ganbaru has the stress on the first syllable with the “ba”being very short.
I always wonder about the life of the average people throughout history. The idea that 99% of people slipped through the cracks and we will never see anything more than maybe their names in records is wild to me. An entire lifetime, maybe in simpler times, but still humans that had dreams, thoughts, beliefs and relationships with the people and world around them. This is such a cool look into the look of not an every day man in a Japanese shogunate, but still of a pretty mediocre guy overall. Love it!
Not 99% more something like 99.999%
I think Kokichi Katsu (author) spotted it and because he had not achieved anything big worth doocumenting in his life he decided to do documenting himself.
I think about that a lot too. What you said about each one of those people having entire lifetime’s worth of experiences and memories, that we’ll never know about is quite…haunting?
@@watts18269 right? It makes you think of your own mortality. Of course since we live in the information era, our records will exist, but the internet is so flooded that most people will still end up totally forgotten, just another number on a system.
I find it so chilling that something complicated as a human being with thoughts, memories, relationships with inside jokes and little things nobody but a few will ever know, that all of that can just... disappear forever. It's hard to comprehend that all those endless rows of seemingly endless names each represent an entire human being not too unlike ourselves.
We dont need to know them.
This was an absolute delight to listen to the thoughts and reflection of a man of Japanese culture from two centuries ago.
Dude sounds like he enjoyed life more and had more introspection than most people in the modern age.
At that time Samurai held a relatively privilege position in Japanese society compared to the work they did, also Samurai cultural ideals valued Zen Buddhism and introspection so you'd often see older samurai write reflections on their lives. Definitely interesting to hear the different perspectives of samurai living during wartime and in this post-war period.
@@greenbrickbox3392 yup, being higher up in the hierarchy certainly made life somewhat more comfortable for them.
He was just born a few hundred years too soon. He would be right at home in the UA-cam comment section lol
These sound like the memoirs of an incredibly interesting and skilled man, but one who is depressed and has had a hard life. This is not a mediocre samurai. This is a man who did his best and he did well.
this was so relaxing. the story was pretty all over the place, but such is life…and it also made the story less predictable. the visuals were great and the narration complemented the video well. love this period of history in Japan and this really was a great way to enjoy it. thanks!
Great summary. It definitely was unpredictable. The jumping around part helped with that as well. At one point it was just randomly mentioned that he had a wife and child.
Fun fact. Everybody know the saying about revenge? The one that says to dig two graves? Well, its meaning changed over years and cultures, in fudal japan for example, it did not warn about the the consequences of revenge, only that you have to do it no matter the consequences.
It meant pretty much "doesn't matter who ends up in the grave, it will either be your enemy, you if you fail, or both of you, but someone is going to end up dead." I always found that sort of dedication admiring.
I was once reading a book about Japanese business and they explained their confrontational attitude by saying "in China they will defer judgement and avoid things they do not want to face because their warriors could always run away from battles that were too much. Japan is an island, trouble would always find you if you do not deal with it. In some ways this has persisted into modern culture."
Thank you both for these little bits of wisdom.
This is a very relatable tale, he was clearly spoiled from being born into power without an active tutor. Yet he clearly had skills, be it riding, trading or writting a good tale. I wonder how many of those fights did he actually win, how many of those were his fault and which of them were real. But it's also interesting that his childhood and early adulthood were often him just trying to eat, fuck and sleep. Someone that gave up on fame and power, yet became famous and bore a much accomplished son.
Yeah. By the 19th century japan didn't have any conflict for more than 200 years so samurais were just your regular salary men working for there master. Many of them would sell there armor and sword for money. Of course it was humilaiting for them so they would put rocks in there closet that was for there weapons and pretend they still had armor to guest. There is a movie called 'the twilight samurai' that was released in 2002. It's about a dad samurai that has two kids and have sold his weapons and amor for his dead wife funeral. It probally my favorite potrayal of a samurai.
There= their
*Their
Thanks, I'll ck that out
Hana (2006) is another similar samurai film
This would make an awesome movie, show, or anime. His life story if great, he isn't perfect, never strived to be perfect, but he still changed in the end. Something about his life story is admirable and inspirational.
Oh yes, this is very smart, thank you friend.
Just s little correction... Judo was systematized in 1882 by master Jigoro Kano. By the time of this story, the existing arts were under the name of Jujutsu, some of them Yawara jutsu and Aikijutsu. Please don't think of this as destructive criticism, I love your work, but I understand you have a lot of work in your hands here to be aware of some of the specifics like martial arts. Great video as always, thanks for sharing!
Yeah, that detail seemed a bit off to me.
Now you have crushed his soul. He is humiliated and will never make another video. Seppuku is now the only way out for him 😁
I think it's a modern, simplified term for easy translation. It's easily understood by everyone. Seen it used in place of martial arts of that era.
There were other jujutsu schools that called themselves judo before Kano and Kodokan judo. Same with kenjutsu schools calling themselves kendo. Before the budo/bujutsu dichotomy was well established.
But it could just be the translator using a term more well known to English readers.
If you read the source he himself refers to it as Judo so the narration is correct and you are not, there were references to Judo prior to Kano. At the end of the day its all jujitsu
I also lost my father while trying to better myself after a life of misdeeds.
And, like the rest of us, a less than mediocre samurai.
Same
I started crying when I realized his chaotic behavior in his adulthood was an attempt to supress grief after his father's death.
@VoicesofthePast Really can’t say enough how impressed I am by what you do! Having the insight to tell the untold stories, that give us a more grounded, every day perspective of people just like us, from times gone by. Brilliant and important work!
Middle aged grouchy samurai is a character we need more of in stories.
I'm gonna have to buy the full book to read all of this man's story. What a treasure of a historical book!
He might've been a mediocre Samurai, but he led an extraordinary life.
I like mine better, and I was a factory worker. But his makes a better story.
@@digitalnomad9985 Factory workers now days aint so bad, factory workers back during the industrial revolution had a short life span of 35
@@epope98 And before that many of the same "class" passed the time starving to death. Let's hear it for progress.
I doubt a mediocre samurai would be able to take down 30 people armed with hooked spears. he is either being humble or outright lying.
Nothing holding back these historical guys from embellishing their lives. They knew it was a great read though.
That's probably a more exciting life then most samurai had, especially in the edo period.
Apparently his son Katsu Kaishu went on to become a famous naval admiral and presided over the surrender of Tokyo to the Meiji restorationists. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he doesn’t mention his father much in his own writings and memoirs.
That was a great story. I know people love to fantasize about living in such a time & place, but I can't imagine how hard it was for most people. I sounds extremely challenging to live a long life that way.
It strikes me as being extremely civilised and every bit as orderly as our society in the present era - perhaps more so. Compared to America's wild west at the same time, Japan seems to be the height of civilised society. Similar to today really.
It was a highly evolved civilization full of amazing artists & craftsmen. The clothing certainly looks more comfortable than that of any other culture. The challenge I was talking about was the technology of the day (like medicine), regardless of location.@@redplanet7163
@@redplanet7163 Sorry to disagree - but those times were not civilized. There was constant fighting & wars and, as always, the common people suffered most.
a tragedy of fathers is that they push upon their young sons lessons that they have only recently learned themselves. the tragedy of young sons is that they are rarely capable of understanding those lessons before adulthood.
In this case however, the "mediocre" samurai raised a fine future admiral.
Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort.
I'm 36 and this hit me right in the regrets. I'd give anything to go back in time and unfuck the piece of shit I was. The fact I'm married with two kids is something that everyday I'm reminded of as being something I don't deserve and am truly blessed with the same level of luck the Samurai was born with lol
Ok, well i never stole from my mother so I'm feeling a bit better about how much of a shit head I was lol
@@tiggytheimpaler5483 I'm sure we all would have loved to piss on the snacks of our young rivals.
What would you change?
Everyday you get a chance to do better
Just work at being better than you were yesterday. It's never too late to improve yourself.
Well what a wild ride this was, thank you guys for narrating this interesting bio.
Everyone needs to teach their children that suicide is not a solution to losing kite fights
As someone of nearly the same age, this voice of a man from 200 years ago, completely different culture, resounds so wildly similar with my own personal reality.
He might have been mediocre as a samurai, but he was not at all a mediocre man. Charismatic, persistent and incredibly courageous, he could have been a general had his life gone differently. His biggest issues were falling into self gratification, but that can easily be explained by having incredibly low spirits due to not being wanted whenever he actually tried to apply himself and being subjected to injustices consistently as a child.
"charismatic" is today's equivalent of "sociopath"
@@PaladinMika And you know what neither of those words mean.
@@PaladinMika While he does seem violently unhinged by today's standards, this guy was born into a family of soldiers. He was probably raised with a sense of superiority and taught that violence can be justified. His father was right to punish him for maiming that boy with a rock, but the punishment was to bash his skull in with a wooden clog. And his boss wanted to wipe out his family because one teenager ran away. His society was violent.
@@calamitysangfroid2407
The specific phrasing is "taken measures to end the family line," not that he'd execute the family. More likely, what this would mean is that they'd be side-lined or stripped of their title. That is, the father may be kept in employment, but if there are no heirs, because the prodigal son doesn't come back, then the family line just naturally ends itself. He could adopt a replacement, but the implied statement is that they wouldn't ratify the adoption as a legitimate heir.
@@calamitysangfroid2407I believe he meant the family would not be allowed to keep their official samurai title with no heir to continue. However, all the other things you said are correct. It was a life that was a bit too much of a disheartening struggle, always treated as a black sheep, but he seems to have mellowed and appreciated whatever good fortune he had, especially his family.
Well made video. A quality rarely seen on UA-cam. Well done. It is amazing how many aspects of Japanese life, mentioned in the story, are still part of Japanese life today. Some good, some bad.
Such eloquent and extended personal words from the past strike so fiercely and poignantly. As good or better than the best books written. True treasures of humanity. Heartening that this chap realized his folly and amended his ways.
Glad he stood up to bullies
He was the bully...
So amazing hearing the heart of a person who lived long ago.
Boy did I hate it when the other kids made fun of my stipend. "Stipend this", "stipend that", all through elementary school. One guy told me "You're three koku short of a peasant's pig-pen", dunno what that means but I'm in therapy for it to this day.
With a bit of writing and editing, this is an academy award winning film.
He was so lucky being sorrounded by some very kind and understanding people.
I was not expecting this to be so hilarious. What a guy! I wish I could sit down and buy him a beer or two
Dionysus
How common was it to just like, build a cage for family members?
some people in 3rd world countries have to put family in cages because they have no access to mental health care and they are a danger to themselves and people around them it's sad
That's old school rehab.
In a way, unruly relatives who are just given a guest room/shed in the house to recide in would be the modern day version of that.
the sons of concubines, nephews with machinations, and the insane or unruly often would have experienced this in feudal societies
I was also so surprised that his response to being told he was to be locked in a cage by his brother was to examine the cage and deem it well made 😯
I have this book on my shelf and have enjoyed reading it a few times over the years. Your presentation really brings these stories to life, thanks!
ما اسم الكتاب فضلاً
@@عليالمحمداوي-س7ش It's called "Musui's Story" by Katsu Kokichi.
What's so interesting about this is that because it's written to be a cautionary tale, he probably omitted all the heroically badass shit he did. He probably didn't want his descendants to look up to him or glorify his misdeeds. But to the 21st century reader, this sounds like the most gangster shit ever.
That, or this is the most epic humble brag of all time.
I don't know what kind "heroically badass shit" could samurai achieve at end of 1700s when Tokugawa Clan had ruled Japan easily over a century so there was little need for trained fighters. As much as this story says he was much more of a conman and occasionally lucky fraud.
Im 29, feels good that dude's 100 years ago still didnt k ow wtf they were doing with their life until they were 40+. Definitely identify with this guy, not wanting to conform to what role he's expected to play and just listlessly wandering through life.
Maybe because at the age of 40 we are adults in the culture where I live, aged below 40 are still called youth, 40 and over are then called adults
Yeah he died at 48 though.
This is so soothing, almost like an audiobook but with visuals. Subscribed :)
What an amazing guy... He might have lived a rough life, but in the end he learned his lessons and made his story as a precautionary tale. 👏👏👏👏
"So I pissed on their heads"
Logical reaction right there, what a chad
the guy obviously had brain trauma after the bopping he got from the first kite fight
I wouldn’t say that, man is pretty famous and practically helped reformed the military of Japan into a modern force during the Meiji restoration period.
What makes it even crazier is that this is all true, Everyone on here were real people.