Samurais are one of those Japanese cultural exports that foreigners can’t get enough of.  The hair style, swords, and that bad-ass armor that makes a European knight look like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz.

Samurais are also responsible with that Japanese form of ritual suicide that equally fascinates and horrifies people around the world, seppuku.  Equally well-known as Harakiri (but often horribly mispronounced to sound like MLB sportscaster Harry Caray) it evokes darkly romantic images of opting for gory self-disembowelment over losing one’s honor.

A recent posting of an instructional diagram teaching how to perform seppuku has caught further caught the attention of people in countries around the world.  Even on the internet, home of some of the most disturbing sights imaginable this age-old ritual retains its shock value.

The diagram outlines four different ways of cutting yourself up.  Of course there’s the left-to-right straight cut that we’ve seen in so many movies or mimic during a boring lecture known as the Belly Line.

However, we are also presented with the options of the Belly Cross cut which goes top-to-bottom and is considered to be the “proper cut”, or perhaps the Belly Cross Variation [T-Shape] which you can probably imagine. Last but not least, there’s the Southern Belly which is just a single top-to-bottom slice.

According to the instructions, you should “make one clean cut only through the peritoneum [the membrane that lines the abdominal cavity]” which makes you wonder how they practiced this.  It probably doesn’t matter how far past your peritoneum you go, it’s still going to hurt like a mother effer.

There are some other helpful hints like holding the blade with a piece of paper or your sleeve to avoid cutting your hand while you’re cutting your abdomen open.

It’s a continuing testament to how hardcore those who followed bushido were.  It has to take balls of titanium to keep a straight face while committing seppuku.

Source: Tumblr error88
translation of illustration from Japanese into English:rocketnews24


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