Countries turned into animated samurai by Japanese artists for Olympics
Many countries like India, the UK, Sri Lanka, Paraguay, Turkey, Spain, and South Africa have been reimagined as Samurai characters.
Hyderabad: With Olympics kick-starting today, Japanese artists decided to create anime samurai based on every participating country’s flag. This is their way of merging a very important part of Japanese culture and the spirit of the Olympics.
Many countries like India, the UK, Sri Lanka, Paraguay, Turkey, Spain, and South Africa have been reimagined as Samurai characters.
Created by Japanese artist Kamaya Yamamoto, each samurai has his own strengths and weaknesses that reveal more details about his personality.
The description of the anime character is very similar to how they appear in video games. In an interview with BBC news, artist Yamamoto says, they start by researching about the country’s flag, culture, significance of colors and design. So far, the group has re imagined over 84 flags of the 200 competing nations.
Samurais have been part of Japanese history since the 12th century. ‘Bushido’ or the way of the warrior which places high value on discipline and honour is part of Japanese culture even today.
The online initiative by the group of 15 artists is not meant to make any money and is being done purely out of passion and in their free time. For many flags, they have also conducted polls on Twitter to find out the most iconic symbols or objects of their country. 
Their Mexican flag-inspired samurai has a snake insignia with an eagle accompanying him since Mexico’s flag has an eagle perched on a cactus.
But, their Sri Lankan seems to be most popular which brings three ethnic groups together – Sinhalese, Tamilians and Muslims. The Sri Lankan samurai is dressed in three colours representing the groups along with a very prominent lion.
The artists hope the samurai will excite people to watch the Olympics online since Japan is still battling rising Covid-19 cases.
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