>>212882827nigger nobody in japan gives a shit about the samurai and bushido anymore.
what preserved the cultural, ethnic and religious identity of japan was a strong central bureaucracy (emperor) that could resist the colonial powers and become a modern nation state themselves, which made taking care of the samurai, who wanted a de-centralized, agrarian, feudal and isolationist society, like they had been in the centuries before.
if the emperor lost and his reforms got stopped in its tracks, japan wouldve become just another colony of the british/french and suffered economically and culturally, likely until the present day like plenty of other ex-colonies in the world.