History Film / TheTwilightSamurai

* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: The typically submissive and withdrawn Seabee jumps into action to keep Tomoe safe against her ex-husband.

* {{Keigo}}

** There is also [[spoiler:Yogo Zen'emon, due to [[spoiler:the loss of his family]].
* AllOfTheOtherReindeer - Seibei spends all his time after his working hours managing his house and caring for his daughters. He's often mocked by his colleagues, who drink and eat amongst themselves instead. He gets a bit more respect once they realize he MinoredInAsskicking.

* BornInTheWrongCentury - A recurring theme. Because the [[DawnOfAnEra times are changing]] so [[EndOfAnAge quickly]], there's a tremendous feeling of being out of place, although the more thoughtful characters are generally torn between feeling they were born too late and born too early.

* BrokenAce - [[spoiler: Zen'emon.]] For all his outward skill and confidence, he's ultimately a sad, broken man mourning [[spoiler:his dead wife and child]].

* CloserToEarth:How Seibei views his late wife but she's arguably a subversion, if we're to go by Tomoe.

* WideEyedIdealist: Iinuma.

* YankTheDogsChain: Several [[spoiler: including the ending itself]].

* CoolBigSis - Kayano toward Ito. On a more figurative level, Tomoe toward both Kayano and Ito -- although she is perhaps more literally a [[DotingParent doting substitute parent]].
* CrapsackWorld / WorldHalfEmpty - At least according to Yogo Zen'emon. (Not that he doesn't have good reason.)

* DamselInDistress - Tomoe.
* DawnOfAnEra - The times they are a-changin'.
* {{Deconstruction}} - Of samurai movies. In particular, ''The Twilight Samurai'' attempts to debunk a lot of mythologizing and shows samurai as regular people with regular problems, just trying to go about their lives in a gritty and difficult world, rather than as superheroes ever eager for the next glorious battle or duel.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance - A little. It ''is'' a different time, after all.
* TheDitz - Iinuma isn't stupid. He just acts like it. Sometimes.

* DoggedNiceGuy - [[spoiler: Tomoe.]]
* DotingParent - Seibei. Which makes him a freak as far as everyone else is concerned. Everyone, that is, until his unlucky {{childhood friend|Romance}} Tomoe makes her [[SheIsAllGrownUp return]].

* DrivenToSuicide - [[spoiler: Subverted with Yogo Zen'emon, who refuses to commit {{seppuku}} when the clan orders him to.]]

* EarnYourHappyEnding - Whatever happiness Seibei gets, he certainly earns it.
* EndOfAnAge - The time for samurai is over. Almost everyone seems to realize this. Seibei seems to think he'll become a farmer.
* EveryJapaneseSwordIsAKatana - Averted.
* EverythingsBetterWithSamurai - Except that these samurai are generally more like accountants.
* ExtremeDoormat - Cleverly {{subverted|Trope}} with Tomoe. She can be [[PluckyGirl tough as nails when she has to be]], and in some ways she's the most recognizably "modern" major character in the whole movie.

* FirstNameBasis - Inverted when Tomoe tells her ex-husband Captain Koda he's no longer on a FirstNameBasis with her.
* {{Foil}} - Seibei has several, each reflecting different aspects of him. A few include:

* GenkiGirl - Tomoe was almost definitely a GenkiGirl as a child and probably into her teen years. Even now, her character retains genki aspects, although she's sadder and much wiser now.
* GrowingUpSucks - Tomoe embarrasses Seibei by telling his daughters that GrowingUpSucks, especially if you're a girl -- and ''especially'' if you're a {{tomboy}} in an era that expects you to be ladylike. (Nevertheless, Tomoe turned out okay.)
* TheHero - Seibei is the protagonist.
* HeroesGoneFishing - Seibei and Iinuma enjoy fishing together halfway through the film.

* HonorBeforeReason - [[PlayingWithATrope Played with in various ways.]]
* HopeSpot - Implied [[spoiler: in the seconds between when we learn Seibei married Tomoe and when we learn he died soon after in the BoshinWar.]]

* [[InstantDeathBullet Instant Death Sword]] - According to WordOfGod, it was intended as a {{subver|tedTrope}}sion.
* {{Jerkass}} - The most straightforward example is Tomoe's ex-husband, Captain Koda.
* JerkJock - Captain Koda. Or at least the samurai equivalent. See {{Jerkass}}, above.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold - Yogo Zen'emon.
* JidaiGeki - Set during the Edo Period
* JustFriends - Seibei, toward Tomoe. See ObliviousToLove, below.
* KatanasAreJustBetter - {{Subverted|Trope}}. Seibei has sold his katana and must use a stick and a wakizashi to defeat two katana-wielding opponents.

* TheLancer - Iinuma, Seibei's best friend.
* LonersAreFreaks - How Seibei's coworkers view him; in fact, that's what the movie's title refers to. Subverted: Seibei is very grounded; he just [[DotingParent values time with his children]] over time with his coworkers and the possibility of advancement.
* LoveHurts - Especially when those you love have a nasty habit of dying.
* ManicPixieDreamGirl - Admittedly, Tomoe but she's an older and wiser ManicPixieDreamGirl.
* MartialPacifist - Seibei. Or at least, Seibei as a young man, before he settled down, got married, had kids.
* MinoredInAsskicking - Seibei is a bookkeeper and a master of the shortsword on the side.
* MissingMom - In the opening seconds of the film, Seibei's daughters, Kayano and Ito, lose their mother to tuberculosis. Actually, because she had been so sick and so infectious, in a way they had already lost her three years earlier.
* MyGreatestFailure - See TheAtoner.
* MySisterIsOffLimits - One of Seibei's concerns, regarding Tomoe, who is the younger sister of his best friend Iinuma.

* {{Narrator}} - Ito, Seibei's younger daughter, presumably from at least half a century after the main events of the film.

* NiceGuy - Seibei.

* ObliviousToLove - Seibei, toward Tomoe. An unusual case, in that it's ''not'' a question of his failing to pay attention. Rather, he's TheStoic, and he doesn't believe he's worthy of Tomoe's love. So it's easier for him to pretend that he and Tomoe are JustFriends rather than reopen himself to another of his {{Tragic Dream}}s.
* {{Ojou}} - Iinuma's wife.

* PerpetualPoverty - Not truly poverty (not for Seibei, at least, although upstream the peasants have been literally starving after a disastrous crop failure). Seibe's family has food, servants, a home, a yard, animals. But they're forever broke, and deep in debt, and Seibei seems to work so much one wonders when (or if) he sleeps.
* ThePhilosopher - Seibei is more of the quiet, contemplative variety.

* PluckyComicRelief - Seibei's friend Iinuma.

* PluckyGirl - Tomoe.
* PointyHairedBoss - Played with. Ultimately, his ''immediate'' superior in the clan turns out to be a decent guy.
* PoliticallyCorrectHistory - A lot of the characters seem way ahead of their time with regards to feminism, classism, and so on. Tomoe most of all.
* PuppyLove - In-universe; it's not seen onscreen, but this is how [[ChildhoodFriendRomance Tomoe speaks of her childhood friendship with Seibei]]. (This scene doubles as present-day ShipTease, as Tomoe embarrasses Seibei in front of his daughters but in doing so begins to draw him out of his shell.)
* RelationshipUpgrade - Several, between Seibei and Tomoe, each of them hard-earned and at least a little bittersweet. [[spoiler: The most crucial of them comes right at the end, off-screen, when Seibei and Tomoe finally become man and wife. [[YankTheDogsChain Then, mere seconds later, we have the rug pulled out from under us when we learn Seibei died only two years later in the Boshin War.]]]]
* ReluctantWarrior - Seibei doesn't really like fighting, and has to be bullied into duelling [[spoiler:Yogo]].
* RescueRomance - {{S|trawFeminist}}ome might see this dynamic at play. More likely exploited, in that [[spoiler: Tomoe already loved Seibei, and his defense of her honor merely gave her the pretext she needed to take a role in his, and his family's, life. A role, not coincidentally, fairly similar to that expected of a good HouseWife of the time -- of course, minus the sexual component]].
* {{Ronin}} - None seen onscreen, but Iinuma complains about their rude and violent behavior in Edo. Part of the theme of how the times are changing; no one really needs samurai anymore.

* {{Samurai}} - Except for a few servants, peasants, villagers, and nobleman -- none of them major characters -- all the males in the film are samurai but the vast majority of them are bureaucrats more than soldiers.

* SelectiveObliviousness - Seibei. See ObliviousToLove, above.

* [[SheIsNotMyGirlfriend She Is Not Going to Be My Wife]] - Played for humor at first but then more and more for [[TearJerker pathos]].

* ShrinkingViolet - [[TheHero Seibei]] is no coward, but he has difficulty opening up.
* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan - Tomoe, toward Seibei. Except Seibei sees himself as unworthy.

* TheSmartGuy - Seibei.

* TheStoic - Seibei.

* TakeAThirdOption - [[spoiler: {{Subverted|Trope}} during the final duel.]]

* {{Tomboy}} - Tomoe, when she was a child. She indicates this in the scene where she teases Seibei (and also, subtly, [[ShipTease flirts with him]]) by telling his daughters Kayano and Ito right in front of him how awful it is to be a girl, and how sad she was when she reached Kayano's age and had to give up climbing trees and playing with boys and exchange it for being [[ProperLady ladylike]] and learning to sew UsefulNotes/{{kimono}}. In spite of her faintly mocking tone, she's clearly serious.
* TragicDream - Seibei is filled with them. Some of them [[spoiler: come true, but never in the manner he had hoped]]. See also YankTheDogsChain, below.

* TryNotToDie - A [[TearJerker non-flippant]] version when Tomoe is almost too choked up to bid farewell to [[spoiler: Seibei as he leaves for his final duel against Yogo Zen'emon.]] Possibly just a rare example played for drama rather than laughs.
* TwoTeacherSchool - ''One''-teacher school, in fact. {{Justified|Trope}} in that it's a village schoolhouse with barely a dozen students.
* ValuesDissonance - In-universe example, between the old ways and the new ways.
* WarriorPoet - Seibei. Except he'd [[ReluctantWarrior really rather not be a warrior]]-anything.
* WideEyedIdealist - Iinuma.

* WiseBeyondTheirYears - Seibei's daughters Kayano and Ito. Played up by the narration, which is by Ito looking back from the vantage of a middle-aged or elderly lady. Although Kayano is about ten and Ito is about five, they're aware of, worried about, and even occasionally engaged in, the serious problems facing their family.
* WoodenKatanasAreEvenBetter - {{Subverted|Trope}} when [[spoiler: Yogo Zen'emon learns Seibei's katana is made of wood and decides Seibei is not taking him seriously. You should always take Yogo Zen'emon seriously. Always]].

* TheAce - Yogo Zen'emon, a pleasant, affable MasterSwordsman. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, we later learn that he's something of a BrokenAce]].
* ActionFilmQuietDramaScene - {{Inverted|Trope}}: a samurai film [[{{Deconstruction}} dominated by quiet scenes]] but [[StealthPun punctuated]] with the odd gritty action scene that serves mostly to [[TearJerker heighten the intensity]] of those quiet scenes. Creator/AkiraKurosawa [[JustForFun/XMeetsY meets]] [[Creator/AntonChekhov Chekhov]], if you will.
* ActualPacifist - Seibei would like to be one, but his status (and skill) as a samurai makes this increasingly difficult.
* TheAlcoholic - Tomoe's ex-husband Koda -- a [[{{Jerkass}} brutish]] example.
** Also [[spoiler: Yogo Zen'emon]], due to [[spoiler:the loss of his family]].
* AllOfTheOtherReindeer - Seibei's coworkers. At least until they realize he MinoredInAsskicking. (Alas, after that ... somehow things got worse.)
* AlphaBitch - Arguably Iinuma's wife, at least at times. Not so much how she ''is'' as how we get to ''see'' her -- namely, meddling.

* AlwaysSaveTheGirl - Wouldn't ''you'' save [[{{Moe}} Tomoe]] if you had the chance?
* AlwaysSomeoneBetter - Yogo Zen'emon is a far superior swordsman to Koda.
* AmbiguouslyGay - One of Seibei's coworkers.
* AnachronismStew: Carefully {{averted|Trope}}.
* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove - Seibei gives a particularly [[TearJerker heartbreaking]] one to Tomoe before he heads off to face [[spoiler:Yogo]].
* AnnoyingYoungerSibling - Ito, Seibei's younger daughter, loves to make trouble for his elder daughter Kayano.
* AntiVillain - [[spoiler: Yogo Zen'emon]] isn't remotely evil, just grief-stricken over [[spoiler: his family's death]] and none too keen on the idea of [[spoiler:seppuku]]. Seibei even offers to let him escape rather than fight.
* ArrangedMarriage - This was virtually a given in that time and place and social stratum.
* TheAtoner - Seibei feels he ruined his late wife's life, and possibly even brought about her death. That's one of the reasons he [[spoiler: bankrupts himself and sells his family sword to pay for her lavish funeral]].
** Iinuma, toward his younger sister Tomoe, for marrying her off to a powerful samurai who turned out to be a [[{{Jerkass}} brutal]] [[TheAlcoholic drunk]].
* BadassBookworm - Seibei. But, to everyone's consternation, he'd prefer ''not'' to be a badass.
* BadassPacifist - Seibei. Until [[AlwaysSaveTheGirl events suck him in]].
* BewareTheNiceOnes - Seibei.
* BittersweetEnding - Ito reveals that [[spoiler:after all he'd gone through for his happy ending, Seibei was killed only three years later in battle during the Boshin War. However, Ito insists that her father died a happy man]].
* BloodKnight: An AvertedTrope: for the most part, the samurai are bureaucrats.
* BloodlessCarnage: According to WordOfGod, the movie is intended as a {{subver|tedTrope}}sion.

* BrattyHalfPint - Ito, Seibei's younger daughter, at times.

* CannotSpitItOut - Seibei, toward Tomoe. Even when Iinuma gives him an ultimatum.
** Tomoe herself is an unusual example, or perhaps a {{subver|tedTrope}}sion: [[spoiler: she'd probably confess her feelings to Seibei immediately if that were a socially permissible thing for a woman to do in that time period.]]
* ChasteHero - Seibei. He avoids the {{geisha}}s his coworkers hang out with, and he refuses to consider remarrying. [[spoiler: Or at least he puts on a brave face until he's confronted with the likelihood of his own proximate death -- and simultaneously presented with his chance to redeem his family from financial ruin. Then he wastes no time proposing to Tomoe in an [[TearJerker anguishing]] and AnguishedDeclarationOfLove]].
* ChekhovsGun- Notice the small look [[spoiler: Zen'emon gives the doorframe]] before the duel. Also the fact that Seibei is very good at [[spoiler: using a ''short'' sword]].
* CherryTapping - Seibei's duel with Koda.
* ChildhoodFriendRomance - Tomoe. (Or Seibei, depending on how you look at it.)
* ChildhoodMarriagePromise - Not stated outright, but hinted at. At any rate, from his childhood, Seibei dreamed of marrying Tomoe, and somehow [[TragicDream that dream didn't truly die even after they each got married to other people]].
* ChildrenAreInnocent - Yes, with some reservations. They're WiseBeyondTheirYears, and they've had more than their fair share of [[TheWoobie suffering]], but they're ''morally'' innocent.
** "We knew somehow, in our naive child hearts, something had happened between [[spoiler: Father and Tomoe]], but we could not bring ourselves to ask it."
* CloserToEarth - How Seibei views his late wife but she's arguably a {{subver|tedTrope}}sion, if we're to go by Tomoe.
** Tomoe herself might be an example played straight.

* ContemplateOurNavels - When Seibei meets Yogo Zen'emon [[spoiler: in Yogo's house, before their final duel. Seibei is just there to do his job, and his job happens to be to kill Yogo. Yogo wants ''answers'' before he dies. But whether there ''are'' answers to his questions -- aside from trite ones along the lines of "well, life isn't fair" -- is open to debate]].

* ChristmasCake: An AvertedTrope. Presumably Tomoe must be at least in her mid-to-late twenties by the time the film opens, since she seems to have gotten married not that long after Seibei, and Seibei's older daughter Kayano is about ten, meaning Tomoe was presumably married for eleven years or more. And Tomoe has another strike against her: she's a "returned bride" (i.e., divorced). Nevertheless, Tomoe's brother Iinuma is fighting off suitors left and right. Or at least, he fends them off [[TheAtoner until he offers Seibei a chance]]. ([[CannotSpitItOut Seibei]] [[SheIsNotMyGirlFriend blows]] [[OnceDoneNeverForgotten it.]])

* ChasteHero - Seibei. He avoids the {{geisha}}s his coworkers hang out with, and he refuses to consider remarrying. [[spoiler: Or at least he puts on a brave face until he's confronted with the likelihood of his own proximate death -- and simultaneously presented with his chance to redeem his family from financial ruin. Then he wastes no time proposing to Tomoe in an [[TearJerker anguishing]] and AnguishedDeclarationOfLove.

* FaceFramedInShadow: Yogo Zen'emon, all the time.

* MissingMom - In the opening seconds of the film, Seibei's daughters, Kayano and Ito, lose their mother to tuberculosis. Actually, [[IllGirl because she had been so sick and so infectious]], in a way they had already lost her three years earlier.

* ChasteHero - Seibei. He avoids the {{geisha}}s his coworkers hang out with, and he refuses to consider remarrying. [[spoiler: Or at least he puts on a brave face until he's confronted with the likelihood of his own proximate death -- and simultaneously presented with his chance to redeem his family from financial ruin. Then he wastes no time proposing to Tomoe in an [[TearJerker anguishing]] and AnguishedDeclarationOfLove. (Hey, he's chaste, not {{Asexual|ity}}.)]]

* NotSoDifferent - Part of the BreakingLecture delivered by [[spoiler: Yogo Zen'emon before the final duel]].

* RealityEnsues: A theme throughout the story. Especially when [[spoiler: Zen'emon gets his katana stuck]].