Overview
- Running February 3 to May 4, the exhibition traces roughly 1,000 years of samurai history through around 280 artefacts drawn from the museum and 29 lenders worldwide.
- The show challenges the idea of a purely martial elite, presenting the samurai for long periods as a privileged social tier that helped administer the state, especially during Tokugawa peace.
- At their peak there were an estimated 1–3 million samurai, about half women, with figures such as Hōjō Masako and Tomoe Gozen highlighted and civic roles evidenced by silk firefighting uniforms from Edo.
- Material culture and records emphasize highly developed mounted archery as the core battlefield skill, with swords often serving as status symbols alongside polearms and, later, firearms introduced by Europeans.
- Displays explore Christian conversions and diplomacy through figures like Itō Mancio, and examine how a modern, romanticized Bushidō shaped global portrayals from fine art to Star Wars and contemporary media.