There is no way to understand modern Japan without knowledge of Bakumatsu-Meiji Restoration history, and the men who made that history. Which is why I’ve spent the past 30 years or so writing about this subject.

When I decided to write Ryoma, my first book, in late 1986, I had no idea that I would continue with this endeavor for so long.

Among the first nonfiction Bakumatsu history books that I read and studied are these two classics of the life and times of Sakamoto Ryoma, both by Tosa historian Hirao Michio: Sakamoto Ryoma: Kaientai Shimatsuki (坂本龍馬  海援隊始末記) AND Ryoma no Subete (坂本龍馬のすべて).

The copy of Shimatsuki shown here is the original copy that I have read and re-read many times. The copy of Subete I bought at a bookstore in Kochi in 1999. (I had lost my first copy during my move from Tokyo to San Francisco some years before that.)

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He Called Me an “American Ryoma”

I’ve written in other posts about my inspiration in writing about Bakumatsu history – which I call “the samurai revolution at the dawn of modern Japan.” Ryoma was my first book on the subject. I was inspired to write it by certain authors, but mostly by Ryoma’s personality, as is summed up nicely, I think, in this famous poem by Sakamoto Ryoma:

世の人はわれをなにともゆはゞいへわがなすことはわれのみぞしる

It matters not what people say of me, I am the only one who knows what I must do. [my translation]

Also see this related post.

[This tablet inscribed with the poem is from the Ryozen Museum in Higashiyama, Kyoto, near Ryoma’s gravesite.]

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Sakuma Shozan, teacher of Katsu Kaishu, Sakamoto Ryoma, Yoshida Shoin and many others, was one of the most important figures in Bakumatsu history. He was assassinated in Kyoto in the summer of 1864. His journal of the last four months of his life (公務日記), most of which was spent in Kyoto, is important reading for students of the era. It is published in 象山全集 (Shozan Zenshu), available in Japan’s National Diet Library’s digital collection.

[This photo of Sakuma Shozan appears in Samurai Revolution, courtesy of National Diet Library of Japan.]

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I had the honor of speaking at the 11^th annual national gathering of “Ryoma fans”  (全国龍馬ファンの集い高知大会) in Kochi in October 1999, the year Ryoma was published. That was when I first met my very good friend Mr. Kunitake Hashimoto, chairman of the national organization that oversees all of the nearly 200 (I’ve lost count) “Ryoma Societies” around Japan. (This photo of Mr. Hashimoto and me, at the Sakamoto Ryoma Memorial Museum, was taken at that time.) I owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Hashimoto for his friendship and support throughout these many years.

On the night of the event in Kochi, I attended the banquet on the beach at Katsurahama, near the famous statue of Sakamoto Ryoma. I talked to a reporter from the national newspaper Asahi Shinbun. The article was published on November 10, 1999.