Japanese warriors

right|thumb|The mounted archer represented the quintessential samurai. The were members of the professional warrior class in pre-industrial Japan, who served as retainers to the lords. These men came from warrior families and trained from a young age in military arts through private instruction. Swordsmanship, archery, and horsemanship were the primary martial skills; and often in Japanese history, only samurai had the right to even possess these weapons. These weapons required years of training to master, and this commitment made the samurai superior to conscripts and militia, the latter who

thumb|Drawing of the archetypical ninja from a series of Hokusai Manga|sketches by Hokusai. Woodblock print on paper. Vol. six, 1817.

thumb|right|A woodblock print by ukiyo-e master [[Utagawa Kuniyoshi depicting famous rōnin Miyamoto Musashi having his fortune told]] thumb|right|Ukiyo-e woodblock print by Yoshitoshi depicting Oishi Chikara, one of the forty-seven rōnin In feudal Japan to early modern Japan (1185–1868), a rōnin ( ; , , 'drifter' or 'wandering man', ) was a samurai who had no lord or master and in some cases, had also severed all links with his family or clan. A samurai became a rōnin upon the death of his master, or after the loss of his master's favor or legal privilege.

The was a small secret police organization, an elite group of swordsmen organized by commoners and low-ranking samurai, commissioned by the (military government) during Japan's Bakumatsu period (late Tokugawa shogunate) in 1863. It was active until 1869. It was founded to protect shogunate representatives in Kyoto at a time when a controversial imperial edict to exclude foreign trade from Japan had been made and the Chōshū clan had been forced from the imperial court. They gained considerable fame from events such as the Ikedaya incident and the August 18 coup, among others. The members were d

thumb|Ishi-jo wielding a naginata, woodblock print by [[Utagawa Kuniyoshi, 1848]]

thumb|right|250px|Ashigaru wearing armor and jingasa firing tanegashima (Japanese matchlocks)

were armed military leagues that formed in several regions of Japan in the 15th–16th centuries, composed entirely of members of the Jōdo Shinshū sect of Buddhism. In the early phases, these ikki leagues opposed the rule of local shugo (governors) or daimyō (lords), but over time as their power consolidated and grew, they courted alliances with powerful figures in the waning Ashikaga shogunate until they were crushed by Oda Nobunaga in the 1580s.

thumb|right|The sōhei Benkei with [[Minamoto no Yoshitsune|upright]]

are Japanese mountain ascetic hermits. They are generally part of the syncretic religion, which includes Tantric Buddhism and Shinto.

female samurai warrior of the late 12th and early 13th century

thumb|Woodblock print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi from the series Six Select Heroes depicting [[Kojima Yatarō wearing a sashimono]]

The was a group of around 305 young teenage samurai of the Aizu Domain, who fought in the Boshin War (1868–1869) on the side of the Tokugawa shogunate.

The was a social class in Japan composed of former samurai after the Meiji Restoration from 1869 to 1947. Shizoku was a distinct class between the kazoku (a merger of the former kuge and daimyō classes) and heimin (commoners) with no special class privileges, and the title was solely on the register. The Shizoku were abolished in the revised civil code in 1947 after the Japanese defeat in World War II.

Japanese police force

The , was a group of 234 masterless samurai, founded by Kiyokawa Hachirō in 1862. Loyal to the shogun, they were supposed to act as the protectors of the Tokugawa shōgun, but were disbanded upon their arrival in Kyoto in 1863.

Japanese warrior group of the Sengoku period

Japanese warrior

1st Horikoshi Kubō. daimyo of the late-Muromachi period

The system was an institution developed by the Japanese Imperial court in Nara during the Nara and early Heian periods for the conscription and regulation of local paramilitary or militia forces. The kondei system was divided into regional administrative divisions overseen by .