Most powerful Japanese Samurai or Assasin

[lancelot]

Miyamoto Mushashi (sp?) was allegedly the best (he wrote the book of five rings BTW)

Started at a ridiculously young age and apparently never lost a duel (I think like 60 odd IIRC)

Basically, he was double-hard

The book is easy enough to come by anyway...

I think a comparison of samurai and assasins would be largely pointless though. Assasins would not stick around to duel, (the sensible ones anyway) It is simply not their mission to engage in ritual combat.

And honour (despite what PS2 games would have us believe) was not up on their list of priorities..money and influence was an assasin clans primary motivations..

Hope the info helped.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Yes, honour was nothing to an assasin. Completing the job meant everything. An assasin also wouldn't be stupid enough to fight a samurai face-to-face, so you can't really compare the two.

[Byzantine Prince]

Not sure what makes someone an assasin, but I agree that for the most part they had no honour. Now about the (let's call them)"warriors", who are some more with excellent talent.

[Byzantine Prince]

Just found out something lreally interesting. Have you guys ever heard of the four hitokiri of the Bakumatsu. Amazing. Look at this link
The funny part is that at first glance he actually looked like a girl.

Have you ever seen the anime Samurai X, or the dark Rurouni Kenshin OVAS(masterpeace IMO)? It's actually based on this fella. Really good historical anime.