Japanese history is littered with characters whose resumes are flooded with Herculean tasks so impressive and numerous that they force you to raise an eyebrow and ask the question ‘Were they real?’. In the case of Yamamoto Kansuke, tempting as it is to believe his accolades, the evidence supporting them is underwhelming to say the least. Arguably the second most famous general in all of…
Some samurai need no introduction. Oda Nobunaga, for example, is one of the most famous people dead or alive in Japan, and I would expect anyone reading this article to at the very least have heard his name. Other samurai need a considerable introduction. One such warrior is Oda Ujiharu, the man attributed with the title of weakest samurai of all of Sengoku. That’s right……
Japan loves a sword master. Of the many who made a name for themselves during the Muromachi era, the most influential has to be Kamīzumi Nobutsuna, founder of the Shinkage style, which went on to influence countless schools throughout the Edo era. One such school run by the Yagyū clan popularised the Yagyū Shinkage style, created by legendary sword master Yagyū Munemori, whose descendants went…
Close to 2,000 years ago, China left Japan with one of the most complicated jigsaw puzzles of all time. Most of the pieces are missing, the visible parts of the picture are ambiguous, and there are no clues whatsoever as to how the pieces fit together. Some of those pieces may even belong to a different puzzle entirely! The puzzle’s name is ‘Yamataikoku’. Japan has…
