>>150191895
While a lot of it is because the most famous classical Westerns now are basically just adaptations of Samurai movies, there is a lot of thematic and historical synchronicity between the two that leds itself to those kind of cultural cross-pollination. Both focus on a romanticized, idealized, or just kind of mythic portrayal of a lone warrior. They blow from town to town, almost a tragic figure. Where their martial skills and spirit also make them an outcast, unable to cohabitate with the people they save.

It's more explicit in the Samurai stories, but the sense of one age ending and another dawning is pretty common in both. The end of a major war tends to be the back drop for both, with the heroes having come out the other side of it with their skills. Now existing in a world that has little need for their kind in polite society. Not just socially, but technologically and politically their world is changing and there's a wistful regret to it, even as these stories primarily come from the society these changes created and which is much more palatable to the author and audience than the long lost, never really was era being left behind.

Been kind of hankering for a work that really tackles the parallels here more in depth, but it tends to either be incredibly ridiculous, intentionally so, or just kind of flavor.