British Museum: A step into the world of Gen Z

[MassiveMoonHeh]

For everything that has been said about the Bristish Museum in the run up to its latest exhibition... Samurai.

 

Here is some footage from inside the British Museum's first exhibition of their Samurai collection.

 

It is a visual effects tour deforce. If I was to describe it in terms of fashion I would call it "Samurai - The Retrospective."

 

And I think that is what this is, a fashion show that would make any Parisian Fashion House proud.

 

It is visually stimulating. Introducing Gen Z to the Museum World. Is it meant to be a exhibition that truly explores the history of the Samurai? Probably not. 

 

Does it try to make Samurai Art/Fashion cool and hip to a new generation? I think yes. 

 

I think Gen Z would walk in and say... this is pretty cool. So what if some of the facts may be muddled - they are not reading the boards anyway. This is a selfie moment and it looks cool. And subculture is important. Therefore anything that can be done to break into that is a positive.

 

We need to remember the general theme of museums for Gen Z is... boring. This exhibition is not.

 

Would not be surprised to see strong Japanese themes in the next summer lines coming though Tiktok.

 

The exhibition ends with a Samurai Riding a rubber duckie... this is the high light of the exhibition. Social Media remember. 

 

I am sure if Tokugawa Ieyasu was trying to reach Gen Z to promote his Japan, he would approve. Ok, to be honest I am not sure what he would say...

 

This is not a serious, stuffy exhibition for Japanese sword nerds! But it is a lot of fun! And like Touken Ranbu, this does introduce a new audience to the wonderful world of the Samurai. 

 

And for that... I think we can count this as a win.

 

(If they really love it they will do their own research anyway!)

 

https://youtu.be/Gk8M78g_FXA?si=tBXqAsTvDeQaIwnh

[Jussi Ekholm]

At 1.00 you can see the Yoshikane tachi and Tametsugu katana they have. By quick glance both would seem to be very nicely viewable.

 

I hope it draws in big crowds and gets people excited about Japanese swords 

[Sebuh]

27 minutes ago, MassiveMoonHeh said:

I think Gen Z would walk in and say... this is pretty cool. So what if some of the facts may be muddled - they are not reading the boards anyway. This is a selfie moment and it looks cool. And subculture is important. Therefore anything that can be done to break into that is a positive.

 

We need to remember the general theme of museums for Gen Z is... boring. This exhibition is not.

 

 

Hurts being this generations outlier 

[ROKUJURO]

In the video, it looks as if they have strung the bows on the wrong side and in addition to that, positioned them upside-down. 

[Teimei]

15 hours ago, ROKUJURO said:

In the video, it looks as if they have strung the bows on the wrong side and in addition to that, positioned them upside-down. 

Yup, seems like it. 

[Teimei]

Looks cool to me, as a milennial .

 

The samurai with the rubber ducky is probably made by a quite famous Japanese artist (forgot the name), who is kown for his hyperrealistic samurai statues in quirky situations.

[MassiveMoonHeh]

6 hours ago, Teimei said:

Looks cool to me, as a milennial .

 

The samurai with the rubber ducky is probably made by a quite famous Japanese artist (forgot the name), who is kown for his hyperrealistic samurai statues in quirky situations.

It is... by Tetsuya Noguchi. 

 

I will add, that this artist's work has also been exhibited at other serious Sword Museums including Mori Shusui Museum of Art in Toyama.

 

You can find the instagram post of the sculpture's arrival at the British Museum, here.

Edited February 11 by MassiveMoonHeh

[Lewis B]

Yet another article in the mainstream media, getting the word out to the unwashed masses. 

 

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260210-the-true-story-of-japans-mysterious-samurai

 

There's no doubting the effort to encourage inclusivity referring to historical female samurai characters like Tomoe Gozen.

 

"A Ukiyo-e print from 1852 shows one of these women – Tomoe Gozen, wife of a general of the Minamoto clan. It shows her at the Battle of Awazu in 1184, where she was said to have tracked down the fearsome warrior Hachirō Morishige, knocked him off his horse, and twisted off his head with her bare hands."

[Hector]

1 hour ago, Lewis B said:

It shows her at the Battle of Awazu in 1184, where she was said to have tracked down the fearsome warrior Hachirō Morishige, knocked him off his horse, and twisted off his head with her bare hands."

Taking samurai inclusivity to its next logical step, I suppose we could have the 'Lone Wolf and Cub' movie series reimagined with Okami Ito now being a wronged trans-mother and the baby cart being a deadly Segmart 4-Wheel Mobility Scooter.

[eternal_newbie]

Trans people are a very small segment of the population, whereas women are slightly more than half of it. I suspect the motivation here is less about inclusivity, and more about appealing to an audience that (at least in the West, where Token Ranbu isn't a thing) typically doesn't turn up to museum events involving swords and armour. And if controversy gets the museum and exhibition in the headlines, all the better for them, I imagine the thinking goes.

[Lewis B]

By inclusivity I was not focusing on fringe components of society but primarily those sections, read female, that might otherwise be averse to attending such an event given the obvious preconceptions. There is clearly a place for such an exhibition, duck riding samurai and all. 

[Toki]

On 2/10/2026 at 8:28 PM, MassiveMoonHeh said:

think Gen Z would walk in and say... this is pretty cool. So what if some of the facts may be muddled - they are not reading the boards anyway. This is a selfie moment and it looks cool. And subculture is important. Therefore anything that can be done to break into that is a positive.

As a Gen Z, I would be entertained with less visual effects as well  

I am usually more interested in whats in an exhibition than how it looks visually. After all, I am there to learn something new. 

[sabiji]

On 11.2.2026 at 00:54, ROKUJURO said:

Im Video sieht es so aus, als hätten sie die Bögen auf der falschen Seite aufgespannt und sie zudem auch noch verkehrt herum positioniert. 

It's funny that the yumi are standing upside down.

As a former kyudo practitioner (and still a hunting archer), I'm totally relaxed about the fact that the yumi have been fitted with the tsuru (bowstring) on the wrong side. 

It would hurt my soul to stress an old yumi in order to string a bowstring. You need someone who knows how to string a powerful combat bow. That's quite different from the light training bows.

I wouldn't trust an old, dried-out hemp string either. So you would have to make a synthetic string for a presentation.
But that brings us to the next and actually most important problem: modern bows with glass or carbon layers in the bow arms can be left strung. But bows made exclusively from natural materials fatigue considerably when strung and, in the worst case, warp to the point of being unusable.

 

 

 

 

 

[John Cartwright]

"Despite this, samurai have not left our lives completely. They live on in popular media as heroes of manga and anime, or as the protagonists in videogames."

No mention of collectors such as the esteemed an knowledgeable members here , Kendoka or we Iaidoka.