Samurai armor has the reputation of striking the enemy with an immediate sense of fear and trepidation based on design embellishment. Of particular interest are the display of samurai masks in the Bellagio’s Art of Armor exhibition. Attached to the protective helmets, these masks deliberately distorted facial expressions in a self-conscious attempt to get into the mind or head of their enemy. Amplifying animal-like snarls and grimaces by drawing attention to the fierce fangs and iron teeth on theatrically inspired metal masks, samurai warriors attempted to disrupt their enemy by deliberately injecting primal fears of wild animals and creatures found in myths and literature.
What are your insights or thoughts regarding the samurai warrior-class resorting to monstrous images to strike fear in their enemies?
Art of Armor 
My thought of having monstrous striking fear into the enemies as helmets is a great success at that time period.
The one that gave me the most fear was the Maedate (Frontal Crest). I would like to see the Maedate (Fontal Crest) as a helmet. This object has sharp lifelike teeth with scale-like wings. It is a fish and a ferocious bird-like animal. In my opinion, any helmet would give fear to the enemy when they saw the Samaria warriors riding their horses with full body armor and the fearsome masks.
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Having fearful masks was a very smart strategic move on the warriors part. If I saw someone coming towards me with a snarl or angry face I would fear them highly. I personally might not want a mask of this nature but I do see where they are coming from by picking out what emotion would be portrayed, and choosing something with more fright. Choosing such a daunting mask would be a great way of showing emotion on the battlefield to threaten someone else but it is definitely not my style. I would want something a bit more happy looking and smiling rather than frowing. One of the more terrifying masks to me was the Somen, this mask was basically just a very plain face with three ovals cut out (two for the eyes and one for the mouth). This mask scared me because of how emotionless it felt. I personally need to have some emotion but not a daunting one.
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I believe having these monstrous masks to strike fear into their enemies was a great strategy, placing this fear gave them an advantage to win without taking any loses. The first image above of the demonic mask would strike me as something to be afraid of, snarling with fangs showing and piercing eyes running at you full speed with a 3ft foot sharpest knife from hell, as I say I’d be GHOST!
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Using fear as a tactic is a war strategy that has been employed since the beginning of time. I think that it is only natural that the samurai employed the same tactic when having battle masks created for them. As Bri state above, if I saw something with a scary face coming toward me, I would definitely be intimidated. I might even freeze up and forget how to defend myself. For the samurai, the mission would be accomplished because they would kill me. So using fear is definitely a smart way to conquer an enemy. I also think there is immense power in this especially because there were a lot of superstitions during that time. Having superstitions and being manipulated by them can be incredibly detrimental. If the samurai could utilize these superstitions in their masks (most ideally the ones centered around fear), they would be extremely successful.
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I mean lets be real, there are plenty of things that go bump in the night and while they maybe all in the mind eye or a figment of ones imagination bringing them into existence is exciting and smart. Im sure most of these rough and tough warriors were children once and as children had irrational fears or heard ghost stories of demons and monsters. Now its widely known that Japan has a steadfast belief in the supernatural due to their Shinto religion. Superstition is not only real but damn near a source of ritual. Bring these into a high stress setting and you are sure to cause some knee jerk reaction. Moreover think of the artisans and how much creative license they had to make this. I for one would have so much fun making these since no one can tell you thats NOT what they looked like. Full creative freedom and the opportunity to make people get sweaty palms, sign me up!
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