Vector: Well, my girl, you've certainly exceeded my expectations. Killing my champion Grewishka. Most impressive. And turning a selfish creature like Chiren. I didn't see that coming. So, when you walk out of here, the Factory won't stop you. This time.
Alita: I don't need your permission to live.
Alita: I don't need your permission to live.
The Street Samurai is the classic protagonist archetype in Cyberpunk and Post-Cyberpunk, but also shows up on occasion when those genres are mixed with Dungeon Punk, Urban Fantasy or occasionally even a modern Vice City. Hackers, warriors, and anti-authoritarian loners, these characters fight against the dystopian governments, Mega Corps, and crime syndicates that rule their worlds. They are down-on-their-luck souls that Walk the Earth because their own personal codes of honor make them refuse to sell out to authority. Typical goals for this sort of character are Information Wants to Be Free and bringing down the very society in which they live in order to make a better one.
They are the tech-savvy mercenaries, bounty hunters, assassins, bodyguards, and general badasses of the urban jungle. They're far cooler than standard Mooks, often sporting a Badass Longcoat, Cool Shades, and other stylish gear. Edged weapons are common despite being strange for the era, and katanas are recommended, but not mandatory. Street samurai by no means eschew firearms however, and are frequently expert gunslingers who use guns and swords together, but expect weird guns and Abnormal Ammo. In classic Cyberpunk, the samurai would often be heavily augmented with cybernetic parts, but this is no longer mandatory. Hacking, at least at a rudimentary level, or other similar tech skills (creating prosthetics, building custom weapons systems and vehicles, etc.) is required.
Despite the name, these characters have a lot more in common with Rōnin and even more so with Ninja (see also Cyber Ninja) than they do with samurai, being essentially descendants of recognizable types drawn from hard-boiled private-eye literature and Film Noir.
Compare Samurai Cowboy, Corporate Samurai, and Western Samurai. Note, that merely having the toys of a Street Samurai does not make you one if you don't have the personality and skill set. Not to be confused with the Steel Samurai.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Afro Samurai: The eponymous protagonist is a black samurai with considerable skills in the Cyberpunk dystopian future.
Comic Books
- Superheroes in general, particularly those on the sci-fi side, are often Street Samurai, or at least similar enough that they've evolved into this over time as they've adopted many of the tropes of the archetype. Typically, superheroes are often street-based, independent heroes who battle everything from organised crime to corrupt corporations to fascist government entities, utilising superpowers (which may either be the result of cybernetic enhancement or genetic engingeering, or the result of mutations) or advanced gadgets, or both, to do so. Even the most antiheroic heroes often have a moral code they follow, and its not uncommon for heroes to either have some skill with hacking or a friend who's a Playful Hacker they can call up for help.
- 100 Bullets: Most of the individual Minutemen start out this way, being lone master gunmen living in cities or backwater towns overflowing with crime, and fight some worse criminal who is threatening them or their loved ones before having their memories restored, and being brought back into their old organization and seeking to destroy or reform the Ancient Conspiracy dominating America.
- Fray starts out as a freelance cat burglar and saboteur in a cyberpunk future, but one who's fiercely protective of her local community. Then she learns she's also a Slayer.
- Judge Dredd: In the Crapsack World of the stories, the Judges of future Japan dress and act like high-tech Samurai warriors.
Film
- Alita: Battle Angel: The Hunter-Warriors are bounty hunters who are the only ones who fight rampaging cyborgs, often using their own bionic enhancements or other gadgets to do so. Most are Only in It for the Money, but Alita and Iddo try to bring some honor to the profession and security for the innocent.
- Avengers: Endgame: Clint Barton (a.k.a. Hawkeye) goes rogue after his family's disappearance as Ronin, terrorizing Yakuza and other criminals who survived the Snap while innocent people vanished. He even gets a Cool Sword to boot.
- Elysium: The main villain is Kruger, a cyborg for hire who carries a katana.
- Exit Wounds: Tech Bro and apparent Big Bad Leon Rollins is revealed to be this as after The Reveal. He and his two assistants are gathering evidence to bring down a drug ring that has heavily infiltrated the police force while being poised to download incriminating recordings onto the internet. And once he gets found out, he proves to be a capable Genius Bruiser who can gun down or beat up some tough enemies.
- The Fast and the Furious: Dominic Toretto and his street racing crew evolve from petty crooks to globetrotting, tech-savvy rogue crime fighters out to bring down major forces that include the odd crimelord or dictator in the making (whose evil plots often involve some super weapon the drivers need to understand and counter).
- Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai: The main character is a gangster hitman who lives by the code of Bushido and has a number of anachronistic habits, such as communicating by messenger pigeon. RZA has a cameo as another one of these.
- Kill Bill: The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad is a group of assassins, some of whom use katanas. While The Bride is in a coma for several years and Bill is in semi-retirement raising their daughter, the group disbands and the members either retire or work solo, essentially becoming Rōnin.
- Mad Max: Fury Road: Furiosa is a genius mechanic with trust issues and immense skill with various weapons who may act loyal to Immortan Joe and the Wasteland Cities but starts out simply trying to escape that regime and later agrees to help bring it down for a better government.
- The Matrix: Being inspired by Neuromancer, the human protagonists exhibit characteristics of this, especially Trinity. Hacker Neo provides a look at the evolution to such a character when he goes from a He Knows Too Much Action Survivor to a Badass Longcoat-wearing swordsman and gunfighter as he fights everything the virtual illusory world can throw at him, and his mentor and lover while they seek to free humanity from enslavement by the machines.
- RoboCop 3 sees the eponymous character shift in this direction when he directs his energy into fighting the MegaCorp out to gentrify Detroit with lethal prejudice, only to find Robocop and his guns defending the locals they want to slaughter.
- Le Samouraï: Jef Costello. Besides the title, the film gets points for having the protagonist wear a Badass Longcoat. It was an inspiration to John Woo (hence the gun-slinging and Cool Shades elements).
- They Live!: After finding a pair of hi-tech sunglasses that let him see through the Masquerade, homeless laborer Nada gets a gun and goes on a rampage against the hidden aliens who are controlling society and driving the world to disaster.
Literature
- The Cyber Dragons Trilogy: This is an entire profession. Called "Riders" in-universe, they are armed couriers that use their job as cover for other, illegal, work. They're officially licensed by the government to carry weapons and cybernetics but, in practice, are smugglers who also do a lot of other criminal activities. Many of them dabble in hacking, theft, mercenary work, and assassination. Having no other skills after being trained as a Yakuza assassin for a decade, Keiko "Kei" Springs ends up drifting into this line of work despite how obvious a target it makes her.
- The Diamond Age has a Decoy Protagonist, Bud, who behaves a bit like one of these. He's mostly just a street hoodlum who spends his money on bionic weapons. He's messily executed in short order.
- Sri Death from Tais Teng's Memoirs of a Matriarchy and Neon Moon anthologies. Although he is practically invulnerable and possibly immortal by the end of his arc, he still suffers from Badass Decay to make the point that the universe is ruled by forces greater than any single person can control.
- The Dresden Files: Dresden's ally Michael Carpenter is a Knight of the Cross who uses his magic sword to fight vampires, ghouls, and other monsters that menace the helpless of Los Angeles while also having his issues with the White Council that governs (and sometimes mismanages) the war against the vampiric Black Court and other evil forces.
- Snow Crash: Hiro Protagonist is a pizza deliveryman and freelance hacker, but his combat skills, talent for working high-tech espionage, and willingness to take on enemies far larger than himself to do what's right are what make him an example. Raven does work as a mercenary, but he's got his own agenda.
- Sprawl Trilogy: Molly Millions is the Trope Namer and Ur-Example. She's a "razorgirl" with cybernetically enhanced reflexes, lenses grafted over her eyes, and double-edged scalpel blades implanted under her fingernails.
- Star Wars Legends
- Coruscant Nights: Jax Pavan and Mage Marksman Laranth Tarak are officially just edgy-looking private detectives in The City Narrows, but are lightsaber-proficient Order 66 survivors hoping to help achieve the downfall of Palpatine's Empire.
- Ferus Olin from The Last Of The Jedi resigned from the Jedi Order, became a Private Detective, and since Order 66, has become a Knight Errant rescuing enemies of the Empire and protecting their secrets.
- The Upgrade: Criminals routinely find themselves working for corporations in a mercenary capacity in order to intimidate rivals or sabotage their enemies.
- In You Can Be a Cyborg When You're Older, these are called Darksiders. They serve as mercenaries and hackers for the corporations, performing corporate espionage as well as sabotage. It is a very popular and romanticized job by teenagers who dream of using it to escape poverty. Being as she's only fourteen years old, Ms. Understanding the AI is less than pleased at Vanity Rose wanting to become one.
Live-Action TV
- Angel is a brooding vampire detective who defends the people of Los Angeles against supernatural conspiracies with his Ragtag Bunch of Misfits (including Magitek experts Wesley and Fred).
- Babylon 5: One-Shot Character David McIntyre travels the space stations and newly developed worlds to fight against criminals and dictatorships with a sword while believing he is King Arthur.
- Heroes: Future Hiro has the jacket and katana in a Crapsack World and seems to be this type, as well as a Shout-Out to Hiro in Snow Crash.
- Jeremiah: Jeremiah and Kurdy are long coat-wearing nomads of the post-apocalyptic world who seek to learn more about The Virus that killed almost all of the adults fifteen years earlier and keep it from being brought back for a fresh slaughter by whoever created it in the first place. While they are nominally loyal to Hidden Elf Village Thunder Mountain, they have strong independent streaks about helping people and following leads on their own, although by the end of season 2 this begins to fade away as Thunder Mountain morphs into The Alliance and Jeremiah and Kurdy receive promotions that change their attitudes and duties. They typically use guns, but can fight well with a sword and quarterstaff, respectively.
- Leverage: Stoic One-Man Army Eliot Spencer and Playful Hacker Alec Hardison embody different parts of the formula while being part of a nomadic Just Like Robin Hood crew that brings down one evil MegaCorp after another.
Music
- The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy song "Satanic Reverses" has these verses (in this context, the "Street Samurai" is likely Rono Tse, fellow DHoH bandmate):
Sent Joey to the Supreme Court
Cause he made a statement, they called it
Desecration of the symbol that was meant to represent
The freedom of so-called choice and dissent
They almost had me believin' it, I was bleedin' it
He said, "Burn, baby, burn"
Til the Street Samurai said to my face
That any flag that's worth shit
Was woven from fire in the first place.
Tabletop Games
- Cyberpunk (RPG) has the Solo class, which operate similarly to the Shadowrun counterpart below, but differ in that these characters do not hold a personal sense of moral code and are more ruthless in their pragmatism to get things done.
- Rifts has a number of these and the Corporate versions in the High-tech cities of Japan. Many of whom clash, ideologically or physically, with their traditional counterparts in the anti-technological countries elsewhere.
- Shadowrun: This trope describes the archetypical Shadowrunner, i.e. the Player Character. The title 'Street Samurai' is used in-game for one of the classic runner archetypes, specifically the independent fighting guy who augments his abilities with lots of cyberware, though not so much to the point where they end up killing themselves or worse. Fighters who augment themselves with magic, who augment themselves with corporate backing, or who rely on pure skill rather than augmentation do not legitimately fit this definition.
- The Sprawl, a Powered by the Apocalypse game, has the "Killer" playbook, the only playbook that starts with more than one implant without sacrificing a special move and gets a custom weapon along with multiple "normal" ones. The "Soldier" operates more on the tactical side of things.
Video Games
- Batman as portrayed in the Batman: Arkham Series, more so than other versions of the character. He wages a vigilante crusade against a corrupt society, is bound by a strict personal code of honor, and tends to use fighting techniques originating from medieval Japan against foes using modern weapons and tactics. Given this particular incarnation's constant use of advanced computer tech (his mask's detective mode, the disruptor, the remote hacking device) and the notably cyberpunk-influenced plots of the series (City's focus on government control and surveillance, Knight's focus on drone warfare, the prominent role the Bat-family's resident hacker Oracle has throughout the series), this version of Batman is actually one of the purest examples of the trope.
- Cyberpunk 2077:
- V is this, and is referred to as "Samurai" by Johnny Silverhand on at least one occasion. V is shown in a jacket with "Samurai written on the collar in all promotional material as well... which amusingly turns out to be in-universe merch for Johnny's band.
- V's close friend Jackie Welles is an archetypal Solo, a Boisterous Bruiser who loves a good fight and owes allegiance only to himself and his loved ones.
- E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy: You can choose to play this way if you decide to utilize Sword and Gun style and augment yourself with cybernetics.
- Gotham Knights: As a Spiritual Successor to the above-noted Batman: Arkham Series, Gotham Knights depicts the Bat-Family as a team of these. They utilise advanced gadgets and tools in their battle against crime in an even more Cyberpunky take on Gotham, utilising many of the features in the Arkham series, while each of the characters holds their own strict moral codes, even Jason. A major part of the game is even about them losing their 'master', Bruce, making them effectively four modern-day ronin trying to make due in the world.
- Mass Effect 2 decides to go a bit more cyberpunk, especially on Omega. This is where you can find Archangel, a mysterious vigilante and capable hacker (who is really your old buddy Garrus).
- Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance: Raiden has evolved into this archetype by the time that the game's story rolls around. The Big Bad of his story is a corrupt United States senator that has plans to devolve the entire world into anarchy. Raiden himself exemplifies old-school warrior codes, even taking on giant robots not with guns or missiles, but with an Absurdly Sharp Blade.
- Spider-Man (Insomniac), similar to the Batman Arkham Series, has a more street samurai take on Spider-Man than other versions. In this version, Peter fights crime with far more focus on his use of gadgetry, utilising tech built into his suit for an in-universe AR HUD, more complex web shooters and gadgets (which range from simply alternate fire webbing to electro-shock tasers and anti-gravity weapons), while his villains are shown to often be decked out in their own high tech gear. The plots deal with exposing Oscorp's corrupt practices while fighting against a police state in the form of Sable's mercenaries and dealing with organised crime figures utilising cyber-suits and cyborg conversions, and Peter and Miles engage in a bit of Hollywood Hacking in parts. They're much more jovial and lighthearted than typical examples, but still hold to a very firm moral code, as expected of superheroes.
Webcomics
- Aqua Regia: Daniel, the protagonist, has a little fun with the archetype — he works as a mercenary, and has the weapon of choice, but just in the first chapter, which ends up broken and with him fatally injured. Also, he quickly ascends to Corporate Samurai.