Banzai Charge - Origin

Origin

Banzai Charge is considered as one method of Gyokusai (Japanese: 玉砕, literally "jade shards"; honorable suicide). It is a word used to describe the suicide attack, or the suicide before being captured by the enemy such as seppuku (Japanese: 切腹). The origin of such belief is the Central Chinese text in 7th century called Book of Northern Qi, which states "大丈夫寧可玉砕何能瓦全". The literal translation is "A man would rather be a shattered jade than be a complete roof tile". In Japan, since the Sengoku period, samurai made the rule called Bushido (Japanese: 武士道, literally "Warrior path"; the path of warrior) to set their behaviors and keep them loyal and honourable. Among the rules samurais needed to follow, there existed an "honour" (Japanese: 名誉, pronounced as meiyo) that was later misused by Japanese military governments.

With the revolutionary change in the Meiji Restoration and frequent wars against China and Russia, the militarist government of Japan adopted the concepts of Bushido to condition the country's population to be ideologically obedient to the emperor. Impressed with how samurai were trained to commit suicide when a great humiliation was about to befall them, the government educated troops that it was a greater humiliation to surrender to the enemy than to die. The suicide of Saigo Takamori (Japanese: 西郷隆盛), the leader of old samurai during the Meiji Restoration, also inspired the nation to idealize and romanticize death in battle and to consider suicide as an honorable final action.