Samurai Age.
Have a craving to put Samurai armor on your cat? Dog? Child? Partner? That big bottle of Saké? Samurai Age has you covered.
While it’s been over 150 years since the heyday of the samurai class, the fascination with them lives on. The talented craftsmen at SAMURAI AGE are doing their part to honor samurai tradition with handmade, high-quality samurai armor for you and your pets.
One of the selling points of this Fukuoka-based brand’s armor is how lightweight it is. Unlike traditional samurai armor, which could sometimes weigh over 60 pounds, SAMURAI AGE’s pet armor is constructed from light plastic that they claim can be worn for long stretches of time without tiring out its wearer. So although your pet will probably not be protected from any katana strikes, they will at the very least feel both badass and comfortable.
Samurai Age.
Human-sized armor for adults and children is also available for purchase, as well as helmets and bottle covers. All items are made of the same materials as the pet armor. The website suggests wearing the armor for birthdays or special occasions, but given the stylish, lightweight material there’s no reason not to wear it on a regular basis, too.
For those interested in a more “casual” look, SAMURAI AGE offers samurai helmets fashioned from polyester baseball caps. Customers can choose helmet designs based on those worn by famous Japanese historical figures such as Tokugawa Ieyasu, Oda Nobunaga, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
A cap based on Fukuoka daimyo Kuroda Nagamasa’s helmet. Mustache included. Samurai Age.
You can see and read more at Spoon & Tamago.
I’m not sure I should show my brother this. For the sake of his dog -- which goes by the name of Musashi -- if nothing else.
If your brother finds out anyway, he may never forgive you. ;)
I thought the ninja cat was the best outfit.
I dunno, I think armored cat wins.
Honor the Samurai tradition.
With armor for pets. And bottles.
I’m sure the Samurai can’t begin to appreciate the honor so expressed.
Timberwoof:
Samurai are long dead. Pretty sure it doesn’t matter to them, unless you’re going to posit some sort of samurai heaven. I also don’t think you get to tell Japanese people, who have lived in Japan their whole lives what’s okay and what isn’t. These are people who had an epic art scroll of a Fart Battle, in Samurai times. Pretty sure Samurai also enjoyed their sake.
I have one rule here at Affinity: Don’t be an asshole. You might want to put an effort forth in not being so gosh darn good at it.
To be fair there are some problems with lauding Samurai culture, what with its inherent militarism and hierarchical ideals. These were feudal warrior aristocrats of exactly the sort we despise in European history -- the ones at the top demanding respect at the point of a sword and creaming off the money to live comfortable lives themselves.
I would expect that some members of venerable Samurai families today might balk at their medieval heritage being commercialized like this. I’m trying to imagine what the ancient lineages of European aristocrats would say about little suits of dog armour in the style of medieval knights with their family heraldry on it. Then I realised that, no, they’re still the beneficiaries of centuries of societal privilege, so sod what they think.
Cartomancer:
There’s already a fucktonne of such stuff. Go looking sometime. There’s much more of that than there is Samurai stuff. As I said though, I don’t think it’s up to me, a decidedly non-Japanese person to make that call. One thing I’ve noted is that the Japanese people have a very long history of a good sense of humour, and a rather sly one at that. I had thought about posting about The Restaurant of Order Mistakes, but decided not to, because too many people simply wouldn’t get it, or would find cause for outrage, as delineated by the first two comments. I thought about the CoFuFun Plaza, based in an area with ancient tombs, and the design riff on those tombs, but didn’t, for the same reasons.
I think people, especially white people descended from a long line of thieving, murderous colonialists really need to shut the fuck up when it comes to other cultures, and perhaps try to get themselves out of the colonial mindset.
Samurai are not long dead.
Chigau:
I stand corrected. Many samurai are long dead. That okay?
I cannot afford to lose the blood that putting this on any of my cats would cost.
Busterggi:
Long days past, I put one of those silly pet ‘T-shirts’ on my cat. He flattened down and refused to move. Stayed that way until I took it off. Perhaps Japanese cats are more well mannered.