Japanese concept of chivalry Bushido, which means “Way of the Warrior”, is a Japanese code of conduct and a way of life. It originates from the samurai moral code and stresses frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery and honor unto death. Bushido expanded and formalized the earlier code of the samurai. According, to the Bushido ideal, if a samurai failed to uphold his honor he could regain it by performing seppuku. It was a detailed ritual of suicide, that was committed voluntarily by the samurai.

But not many Westerners, know that there was another form of seppuku. Unlike the the seppuku that we saw in Kurosawa movies, in practice the most common form of seppuku was obligatory. It was a form of capital punishment for disgraced samurai, who committed a serious offense such as unprovoked murder, robbery, corruption, or treason.

In obligatory seppuku the samurai in question were generally told of their offense in full and given a set time, usually before sunset on a given day, to end the life. If the sentenced refused to “cooperate”, it was not unheard of for them to be restrained. Then the actual execution to be carried out by decapitation while retaining only the trappings of seppuku - even the short sword laid out in front of the victim could be replaced with a fan. Unlike voluntary seppuku, the obligatory one did not necessarily absolve the victim’s family of the crime. Depending on the severity of the crime, half or all of the deceased property could be confiscated, and the family stripped of rank.