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About kyoto-samurai.com

In Kyoto the word kendo is on a session without kendo armour, and the samurai show is a dance. kyoto-samurai.com exists to sort out that kind of gap: for each bookable samurai, kendo and ninja session we write down what you actually do, from what age and where in the city.

The person behind the comparisons

Patrick Kühne, an independent travel publisher from Markkleeberg near Leipzig in Germany, writes and updates this guide. He also publishes guides to tours and tickets in other cities, each with its own site. The tables, texts and corrections on kyoto-samurai.com come from him, not from a studio or an agency.

What we check on every session

We read the product page of each session in full, including the small print under the photos, and note these points:

  • Armour: kendo bogu, real samurai armour, soft armour for photos, a costume, or none.
  • The sword in your hands: shinai, wooden or training sword, iaito, a prop, or a blowgun and shuriken instead.
  • Cutting: only where the programme lists it. Tameshigiri is not a standard part of any session we compare.
  • Minimum age and the conditions attached to it, such as a parent in the room or martial arts experience.
  • The venue and nearest station, and whether a studio uses more than one address or is about to move.
  • The cancellation deadline, which ranges from 24 hours to 7 days among the sessions here.

Where the commission comes from

Booking links go to GetYourGuide. If you book through one, GetYourGuide pays us a share of its own margin, and your price is the one you would see anyway. No dojo, theatre or museum pays to appear here, and the tables are sorted by how many guests reviewed a session.

How guest reviews are used

Reviews help us spot where a title and a session drift apart, as with guests who expected kendo masks at a class without bogu, or more hammering at the forging class. The quotes on our pages are real reviews from the booking platform, shortened where marked and never reworded, with the critical ones shown next to the rest. Live prices, ratings and review counts are loaded from the same platform; the facts in our tables were last checked against the product pages on 11 October 2026.

Where our knowledge stops

We have not trained at these studios ourselves, and we teach no martial art. When a product page is silent, for example on the minimum age at the forging class, our tables say "not stated". For venue moves, schedules and cancellations, the operator and the booking page are binding.

Tell us what changed

Studios in Kyoto change programmes and addresses, and Waraku moves on 21 October 2026. If you notice a difference between a session and our description, send a short note to the e-mail address in the legal notice, where you also find the postal address and VAT ID.