We’re all familiar with samurais to some degree. Even if you’re not a history buff, they often feature in films, TV, and video games. My own knowledge of samurai was rather basic. Like most people, I just thought, ‘Hey, cool warriors with swords!’, but after playingLike a Dragon: Ishin, I’ve learned a lot more about these famed warriors.
But how much of Ishin is actually accurate? Though the storyline is fictional, the game is set in the Bakumatsu period and draws inspiration from historical characters and events, and the protagonist is based on one of the most famous samurai in history, Sakamoto Ryōma. We recently spoke with Ōtsuka Ryūnosuke, the seventh sōke (headmaster) of the Hokushin Ittō-ryū Hyōhō, about his role and school, Sakamoto Ryōma, and how Ishin uses real history for inspiration.
Sakamoto Ryōma And The Hokushin Ittō-ryū Hyōhō
The real Sakamoto Ryōma was a student at the Hokushin Ittō-ryū Hyōhō, which translates to ‘The north-star one sword school of strategy’, and teaches a sōgō-bujutsu (comprehensive martial art system) founded by Chiba Shūsaku Taira no Narimasa in the early 19th century, during the Edo period’s most turbulent years. This koryū (traditional Japanese martial arts school) is one of the few schools that has been authentically preserved, and that still actively engages in taryū-jiai (duels with swordsmen from other schools) to this day.
In addition to Sakamoto Ryōma, Ōtsuka tells us other masters of the school can be seen in Ishin. For example, Itō Kashitarō, Tōdō Heisuke, Yamanami Keisuke and Saitō Hajime. “Of course, the game developers took artistic liberties when it came to the character development, but those people really existed and were licensed masters of our ryūha.”
Ōtsuka explains that Ishin took a few creative liberties when designing Sakamoto Ryōma, most likely to spice things up. For example, he never joined the Shinsengumi in real life, and Saitō Hajima was an entirely different person, not his alter ego. However, there were plenty of things the developers kept faithful, such as the Shinsengumi wearing blue haori, which were were based on the uniform that the 47 ronin of Ako are often depicted wearing on historical woodblock prints and believed to ensure the soldiers were “more visible in battle and easier for the troops to distinguish between their own men and enemies”.
“[Sakamoto Ryōma] really used a Smith & Wesson No. 2 Army revolver, which really did save his life during the famous Teradaya incident, at an inn (Teradaya), where he also stays during some parts of the game,” Ōtsuka says. “The Teradaya in the game is significantly larger than the original one which is nowadays a museum in southern Kyōto and can be visited. There the gunshots fired by Sakamoto Ryōma can still be seen in one of the pillars.”
Ōtsuka tells us that one of the things many people don’t realise about samurai is that they have used firearms since the middle of the Sengoku period, with many major battles in the 1500s “dominated by the use of matchlock guns”. He tells us the misconception comes from the regulation of guns and weapons of warfare during the early Edo period, where the Tokugawa shōgunate limited the production of firearms, as well as the number of guns each clan could possess, “This led to the samurai mainly using the daishō (sword pair), which they were required to wear by law as a symbol of their status.”
One thing in particular that is accurately represented in Ishin is the portrayal of the class system in the Tosa clan, with Ōtsuka explaining, “The Tosa clan was famous for distinguishing very much between jo shi (high-ranking samurai) and kashi (low-ranking samurai). Kashi were often treated very badly by jōshi despite being from the same class as the “shi-nōkō-shō. This was not the same in other parts of Japan and a serious problem in Tosa, which was one of the reasons for the formation of the Tosa Kinnō-tō under the leadership of Takechi Hanpeita.”
Ōtsuka particularly likes Ishin’s setting and worldbuilding, with how the town looks and how you may walk down the streets that feel authentic. He doesn’t mind that the game developers took artistic liberties when it came to historical events and characters, as the “general setting of the time period is accurate and does what it should do: bringing the gamers a nice experience and storyline.”
This sentiment was expressed to Ishin chief producer Sakamoto Hiroyuki by Otsuka during a preview event at the Samurai Museum in Berlin, where Ōtsuka performed a swordsmanship demonstration and a history lesson for the journalists involved. “I told him that from my perspective as the seventh sōke of Hokushin Ittō-ryū Hyōhō, I am very happy that he did a great job bringing the Bakumatsu period to life and that his game might inspire more people to study the actual history as the players get fascinated by the historical people and events.”
Ōtsuka Ryūnosuke And The Hokushin Ittō-ryū Hyōhō
Though born a Westerner, Ōtsuka Ryūnosuke was legally adopted into an old buke (samurai family) in Japan, which not only resulted in a legal name change but also in him becoming the successor of his father, Ōtsuka Yōichirō, who was the sixth generation sōke of the Hokushin Ittō-ryū Hyōhō.
Ōtsuka had studied modern Japanese martial arts such as kendō and iaidō, but chose to move to Japan when he was 18 to pursue something “authentic and traditional that was actually used by many famous samurai”. After some research, he learned of the San-Dai-Ryū, the three largest schools of samurai warfare in Japanese history: the Hokushin Ittō-ryū Hyōhō, the Shintō Munen-ryū, and the Kyōshin Meichi-ryū. All three were considered the strongest of all existing schools in the late Edo period when “all schools and their members, no matter when the schools were founded, engaged in duels or on the battlefields of the bloody Bakumatsu period”.
This is the same period that Ishin is set in and Ōtsuka tells us that “many of the characters encountered in the game have studied or mastered one or more of the San-Dai-Ryū.”
Ōtsuka wanted to study in one of these three famous schools, but as the Kyōshin Meichi-ryū ceased to exist in World War 2, he was left with only two options. The Shintō Munen-ryū lost its traditional sparring practice and grading scroll system, but the Hokushin Ittō-ryū Hyōhō was completely preserved in its original form, so Ōtsuka explains the choice was easy to make.
After being accepted as a student, the sixth sōke took Ōtsuka on as an uchi-deshi (private student), and four years later he was legally adopted into this centuries-old samurai family at the age of 22, “That was after I passed the exam for the menkyo-kaiden (scroll of full transmission and mastery) of the Hokushin Ittō-ryū Hyōhō. At that time, I had to take on the name Ōtsuka Ryūnosuke in my passport and drop the name I was born under.”
In 2016, Ōtsuka was officially appointed as the seventh sōke of the Hokushin Ittō-ryū Hyōhō by his adoptive father in a formal public ceremony at the Nakano Sunplaza Hotel in Tōkyō. “It is my responsibility and duty to preserve the teachings and heritage of the Hokushin Ittō-ryū Hyōhō and to pass it down unchanged to the next generation in its entirety. I do so not only by teaching, but also by closely working together with a couple of other old schools in Japan, as well as with cultural institutions, museums and sometimes even with the Japanese government. Through such collaborations, I want to spread the knowledge of feudal Japanese samurai culture to a broader audience.”
Preserving traditions and functions is important, but modern communications make it easier to run the school, with new students being recruited via public seminars, lectures, and marketing through social media, websites, newspapers, and interviews.
The Hokushin Ittō-ryū Hyōhō became famous through fighting and defeating swordsmen of other schools during the Edo period, and this is something that still happens today with Ōtsuka telling us, “Many of our now higher-ranking swordsmen were challengers to our school in the beginning and joined our ranks after they were defeated by myself or other teachers of our school. Hokushin Ittō-ryū Hyōhō follows a strict open-door policy since its founding in 1820, where challengers are always welcome and accepted if they formally apply to test their skills against ours.
“Games like Ishin or TV productions like Shōgun on Disney+ help a lot to generate interest in the samurai arts,” Ōtsuka adds, telling us that over the past few years, a general interest in feudal Japanese culture has led to an influx of students. “In our school, we do not discriminate based on motivation. We have students coming from serious historical research backgrounds as well as students who got interested through video games, novels or anime/manga. They are all treated and educated equally in our school, as what they have in common is a strong interest in our tradition.”
Ōtsuka recommends that if any player is interested in learning more about the Shinsengumi, Sakamoto Ryōma, or this period of Japan’s history, to read the books of Romulus Hillsborough. you’re able to find out more about the Hokushin Ittō-ryū Hyōhō viaits websiteandInstagram, and you can also findŌtsuka on Instagramtoo.
Like a Dragon Week
Like a Dragon Week is TheGamer’s celebration of all things Yakuza/Like a Dragon, with features, interviews, and opinions on Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s massively popular series of action-adventue brawlers.
