Nojiri Kazutoshi (1590-1680), a rônin who served two different daimyo but found himself masterless at the time of Banzan’s birth, three years after the passing of Tokugawa Ieyasu, was the father of Banzan when he was born in Kyoto (1543–1616). The daimyos Sakuma Jinkurô and Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582) were served by Banzan’s grandfather (1556–1631). His …
During the Tenpô era (1830–1843), a period of famine and political upheaval that many historians believe to represent the start of the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate, Kido Kôin, a samurai from Chôshû, was born. He was a staunch supporter of the imperial dynasty who made a significant contribution to overthrowing the Tokugawa regime. He …
The Kakizaki family, a Matsumae collateral family that functioned as house councilors (karô), adopted Kakizaki Hirotoshi, the fifth son of the Matsumae daimyo (better known by his studio name, Hakyô). At the age of nine, the Ka-kizaki house head brought him to Edo, where he spent the next ten years living in the Matsumae domain …
You can almost probably find anything in nature if you can think of it. Some species pretend to be other species, live inside or on other species, survive in hot sulfur springs, the deep cold, inside snow, inside other species, and even hunt and store other species for later use. At least 45 species of …
Itô Hirobumi (then known as Hayashi Risuke) was raised as a samurai after being adopted from a farming family in the village of Tsukari in the Chôshû domain (modern-day Yamaguchi prefecture). He studied under the late Tokugawa loyalist scholar Yoshida Shôin and was a key figure in the Meiji Restoration and the early development of …
Koryûsai, one of the few samurai who also created ukiyoe (woodblock prints), was active from 1769 until his death in 1790. Suzuki Harunobu and Torii Kiyonaga had a better reputation as artists than him, although art historians have recently given his innovative contributions a more favorable evaluation. Koryûsai was a talented artist who created more …
During the Tokugawa era, samurai were expected to balance their study of martial techniques and literary (civil) subjects. This idea was known as bunbu. Early in the seventeenth century, maintaining a state of readiness for battle was essential because, under the Tokugawa shogun’s new leadership, the nation faced political instability and, in 1614–1615, conflict broke …
The two southernmost main islands of Japan, Kyushu and Shikoku, have warmer weather than either Honshu or Hokkaido. Shikoku and Honshu are divided by the Setonaikai, or Inland Sea of Japan, which has more than 3,000 islands and was created from an old rift valley. Today, Japan is unique in that its climate is distinctly …
Around 1716, Yamamoto Tsunetomo (1659–1719), a ward of the Saga domain in Kyushu, finished writing Hagakure (In the Shadow of Leaves). With 1,300 brief anecdotes and reflections on life, it was designed as a sort of samurai guidebook. It is incorrectly regarded as one of the essential writings that define the “way of the samurai” …
Although the issue itself extends back millennia, awareness of the effects of invasive alien species on Japan’s biodiversity has grown over the last few decades. However, introduced insects, plants, parasites of food crops and trees, and pathogens cause far greater harm to the environment than do animals such as the North American Raccoon, Bluegill and …