(Voice actor) Mr.Akira Daniel Duncan

There is a Japanese word called, bunbu-ryodo. When the sports team of a prep school gets through to a national championship, it may be described as “bunbu-ryodo” by newspapers and TV. Today, the word “bunbu-ryodo” means excelling both in sports and study. But in the time of samurai, it originally referred to the martial arts, such as sword, spear and archery, and academics. To gain the respect of others as a first-class man, one had to master both academics and martial arts. It was thought to be the way samurai should pursue. In fact, Dokan Ota, a samurai known as a great shogun in the 1400’s, excelled not only in martial arts but also at waka (*Japanese poetry). The master swordsman, Musashi Miyamoto, also was talented in various fields, such as calligraphy and painting, besides the sword. Furthermore he wrote The Book of Five Rings, a text on martial arts. In the latter half of the 1500’s there were more samurai who went on the battlefield, but also learned the manners of tea ceremony. Wielding the pen and sword had long been considered essential to elite samurai. In the 1800s there were three master swordsmen in Edo: Yakuro Saito, Shunzo Momonoi and Shusaku Chiba. One of them, Shusaku Chiba, started a school of swordsmanship called Hokushin Itto-ryu, and taught samurai and townsmen. He had a dojo in Nihonbashi. Many, not only from Edo but from all over Japan, came to his dojo seeking to learn swordsmanship from him. There was a reason for the popularity of his dojo. Until then, beginners were mostly taught kata practice. Kata is the practice of choreographed patterns of swinging and guarding which are the basis of fighting. They usually spent a lot of time in kata practice. That was because they used wooden swords in practice matches. The damage was great when you were hit with them since they were made of hard wood, like oak. If used by someone who had not learned the basics, it could result in death. However, Shusaku Chiba focused more on practice matches rather than kata practice. So he introduced bamboo swords to eliminate the deadliness in practice matches. That allowed more people to build their skills in actual matches and shortened the time required to master swordsmanship. This made his school popular and attracted so many students that his dojo in Nihonbashi started to get cramped. So he planned a relocation of his dojo. The place he picked then was Kanda Otamagaike. Why did he chose this area to move his dojo to? Find out what the idea behind his decision was.