These clips are from a popular TV series about the Byakkotai tragedy. When the program was first broadcast in Aizu Wakamatsu , about 85% of the people there watched it. The history itself is known by almost all Japanese. I cannot understand myself why this story has had such an impact here. After all, we are talking about the mass suicide of a group of 19 teenagers ( some were 15 years old) who mistakenly believed their feudal lord's castle had been destroyed. From my point of view they died in vain..... I guess I would never make a good samurai........

The tragic end.

The Byakkōtai ("White Tiger Company") was a group of young, predominantly teenage, samurai who committed seppuku (a form of ritual suicide) on a hillside overlooking the castle after seeing its defenses breached, during the Battle of Aizu, in the 1868-1869 Boshin war. However the Byakkōtai were sadly mistaken in their assessment of defeat, as the castle defenses had not actually been breached.