Kenjutsu in Transition
When writing my book on Kashima-shinden Jikishinkage-ryū heihō kenjutsu, I became intrigued by the lives of the swordsmen that made that tradition famous. Men like Odani, Sakakibara and Shimada played important roles in the late Tokugawa Bakumatsu efforts to teach swordsmanship as part of military instruction and leverage gekiken (inter school fencing) as a means to build martial spirit in an institutional setting. After the Meiji Restoration, Sakakibara and others worked to preserve the swordsmanship of the past, and in doing so adapted their methods to changing times. This work is about the late Edo and early modern institutions surrounding Japanese swordsmanship and the schools and swordsmen that inhabited them. Derived from Japanese language sources, it hopes to provide a view of the people and organizations that led to both modern kendō and the kobudō groups that survived through all these changes.
Swordsmen
Akaishi Gunjibei Fusuke · Amano Hachirō · Amano Shōshō · Chiba Shūsaku · Chūjō Kinnosuke [中條金之助] · Danno Gennoshin · Fujikawa Yashirōemon Chikayoshi · Fujita Taiichirō · Fukuda Hachinosuke · Hakomori Yosaburo · Henmi Sōsuke · Honme Yarijirō · Iba Sōtarō · Imahori [Chiiozō] · Inoue Hachirō · Kagawa Zenjirō · Kajikawa Yoshimasa · Kawaji Toshiyoshi · Kawashima Takashi · Kobayashi Sadayuki (小林定之) · Kondō Yanosuke · Matsudaira Chikaranosuke · Matsuoka Katsunosuke [松岡克之助] · Matsuoka Yorozu [松岡万] · Matsushita Seiichirō · Mitsuhashi Kan'ichirō · Mitsuhashi Torazō · Mochida Moriji · Momoi Naoyoshi · Momoi Shunzō Naokazu · Momoi Shunzō Naomasa · Monna Tadashi (門奈正) · Naitō Takaharu · Nakayama Tatsusaburō · Namiki Yasushi · Odani Seiichirō · Okumura Sakonta · Saimura Gorō · Sakakibara Kenkichi · Shibata Emori · Shimada Toranosuke · Shimoe Hidetarō · Shingai Tadaatsu · Takahashi Deishū · Takano Sasaburō · Takayama Minesaburō · Toda Hachirōzaemon · Tokunō Sekishirō · Ueda Umanosuke · Umezaki Yaichirō · Yamada Jirokichi · Yamaoka Tesshū · Ōnishi Hidetaka · 〔Momoi Shunzō Naoo〕
Institutions
The Police Swordsmanship of the Keihōkan and Keishichō · The Battōtai · The Dai Nippon Butokukai · The Budō Senmon Gakkō (Busen)
Research Articles
October 2025: We examine some features of armed and unarmed grappling and small weapon styles from the medieval period to modernity and draw some parallels and distinctions between them, especially as related to combat sport and contemporary military practices.
June 2026: The Kōbusho was the late Tokugawa martial academy that operated between 1856 and 1867 just before the disestablishment of the samurai (haitōrei 廃刀令, 1876; chitsuroku shobun 秩禄処分) when kenjutsu nearly died. Its senior teachers were instrumentlal in the later survival of Japanese swordsmanship, which persisted through two separate channels, one civil and one martial, that then later converged: Gekken-kōgyō and the Battōtai.
June 2026: Gekken-kōgyō (撃剣興行; exhibition matches), which Sakakibara Kenkichi began in 1873 (Meiji 6) at Asakusa Saemon-gashi, modeled themselves on sumo promotion and were at first approved by the Tokyo governor Ōkubo Ichiō. These matches were eventually banned due to their popularity causing public disorder, possibly much like football (soccer) sports fans at times do today.
June 2026: The state channel of the preservation of swordsmanship opens when the Battōtai (抜刀隊; drawn-sword corps) performance at Tabaruzaka in the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion made the police reassess the swordsmanship that had lapsed after the Restoration, after which Kawaji Toshiyoshi wrote the Gekken saikō-ron. This was the catalyst that turned kenjutsu from a dying art into a matter of state.
June 2026: The commercial and government channels join at the 1879 Keishichō established the gekken sewakari (撃剣世話掛), hiring Kajikawa Yoshimasa, Ueda Umanosuke, and Henmi Sōsuke first, then Shinkai Tadaatsu, Shimoe Hidetarō, and others, who codified the Keishi-ryū kata. Shimoe Hidetarō is a clear human bridge through it all, from the Genbukan to the Keishichō and introduces Naitō and Monna, who are instrumental in the rise of institutional kendō.
June 2026: The Dai Nippon Butokukai (大日本武徳会), founded in 1895, is where the two survival channels of the preceding sections — the commercial gekken-kōgyō andthe state police-gekken — terminate in a single standardized kendō, and where the office, not license, logic traced through the Kōbusho and the Keishichō reaches its institutional form as a national shōgō (称号) system of grades and titles that led to modern budō.
June 2026: We discuss details surrounding the martial arts and competitive practices of Matsuzaki Namishirō [松崎浪四郎], master of Katōda Shinkage-ryū kenjutsu.
June 2026: The Budō Senmon Gakkō (Busen) was the Butokukai's teacher-training school, where the centre of gravity of kendō instruction passed from the Keishichō to a formal academy under Naitō Takaharu, and where the interwar generation of masters was formed.
June 2026: One thread that affects multiple articles here, whether on kobudō or Japanese religion, is the early Edo importance of Ming Dynasty culture in Japan as being desirable as an influence and the mid-to-late Edo scorn for Qing Dynasty China. This is only amplified in Meiji and beyond.
June 2026: How the nativist undertow inside Edo Sinophilia grew through kokugaku — Motoori Norinaga and Hirata Atsutane — into the kokutai/Kōdō ideology of Imaizumi Sadasuke and the early-Shōwa nationalist milieu of the Ketsumeidan Incident that the budō world brushed against.
June 2026: Examining the Kashima Shin-ryū of Kunii Zen'ya. Early influences, Shintō education, military contributions, martial reputation and memorial tributes provide a rich view of this important budōka.
June 2026: A brief discourse on the jūjutsu associated or affiliated with different branches of Shinkage-ryū.
July 2026: Social cohesion played an important role in motivating older factions of martial arts to continue despite the rapid social changes leading up to the mid-twentieth century, especially after the conquest and occupation of Japan.
July 2026: Tenjin Shin'yo-ryu and Totsuka-ha Yoshin-ryu Jūjutsu are not two branches of one school. Despite the shared 楊心 element, Totsuka-ha Yōshin-ryū and Tenjin Shin'yō-ryū descend from separate lineages. We examine the similarities and differences between the arts to round out our earlier discussion of the two independently, along with Kito-ryu.
Further reading
This time period is very well attested and I encourage those interested to consult English language resources by practitioners and scholars of kendō. I am not a kendōka or kendō researcher, but wanted to put a sketch in place here detailing some of the transitional aspects after the end of the Edo period, beyond simply saying there was gekken and then kendō.
This section is a summary and catalogue: it collates and connects material that is, for the most part, already available in the accessible English-language literature on kendō history, rather than offering novel findings. Readers who want fuller treatments — or simply pointers into the field — will find the standard works below.
- Benesch, Oleg. Inventing the Way of the Samurai: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushidō in Modern Japan (opens in a new tab). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. On the invention of bushidō and “martial tradition” across the same Meiji-to-Shōwa span — the ideological backdrop to the institutions traced here.
- Bennett, Alexander C. Kendo: Culture of the Sword (opens in a new tab). Oakland: University of California Press, 2015. The standard English-language history of kendō from medieval swordsmanship to modern sport; its middle chapters treat the police, the Butokukai, and the Busen directly.
- Friday, Karl F., with Seki Humitake. Legacies of the Sword: The Kashima-Shinryū and Samurai Martial Culture (opens in a new tab). Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997. For the koryū side — the Kashima-Shinryū and the classical warrior culture from which these lineages descend.
- Gainty, Denis. Martial Arts and the Body Politic in Meiji Japan (opens in a new tab). London: Routledge, 2013. The English-language monograph on the Dai Nippon Butokukai and its place in the Meiji state.
- Hurst, G. Cameron, III. Armed Martial Arts of Japan: Swordsmanship and Archery (opens in a new tab). New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. The foundational scholarly account of the transformation of kenjutsu — and kyūjutsu — into modern arts.
Some online resources include:
- McCall, George. Kenshi 24/7 (opens in a new tab). Translated primary sources and essays covering much of this Meiji-to-Shōwa police, Butokukai, and Busen territory.
- Bennett, Alexander C., ed. Kendo World (opens in a new tab). The English-language kendō journal; back issues carry relevant historical articles.
