About the samurai:

• Back when they were real warriors they were mostly mounted archers
• Then there was a period where they oversaw land but it was more administrative at-the-pleasure-of-the-Emperor than Western feudalism in a lot of ways
• A LOT of the romantic stuff about them as honorable poet-duelist swordsmen was backwards-projected legend made up in the later period when they were really a superfluous class mostly known for causing trouble in the bar district