The samurai were the great warriors of feudal Japan who were respected and feared for their gracefulness in peace and brutality in war. Dignified by the strict code of honor that bound them, the samurai were more than ready to give their own life than suffer a harsh existence of dishonor. In the few hundred years that they existed as Japan’s most dominating warriors, they created filled the pages of history with their heroic tales, and for a select few who cast a shadow upon all of Japan, they generated a legend larger than any one man could ever hope to attain. People still marvel centuries after the height of their reign at the innovations in warfare and politics that were born from the minds and hearts of a class of warriors like none other.