Kenjutsu in Transition

Kenjutsu in Transition

The institutional transformation of swordsmanship across the bakumatsu–Meiji transition. Where the Shinkage-ryū History project follows the lineage and its densho, this one steps out to the cross-school setting in which those swordsmen worked — the late-Tokugawa shogunal academy, and the competitive and institutional turn that carried kenjutsu into modern kendō.

The Kōbusho

The late-Tokugawa shogunal martial academy (1856–1867), where instructors of Jikishinkage-ryū, Shingyōtō-ryū, Tamiya-ryū and other schools taught swordsmanship, spear and jūjutsu side by side — with biographical sketches of its kenshi, the schools they came from, and the bakumatsu corps they later founded or joined.

Gekken and the Butōkukai

The Meiji gekken-kōgyō fencing exhibitions, the Dai Nippon Butokukai, and the survival and transformation of kenjutsu into early kendō.