Amber Books Hagakure Illustrated (Chinese Bound Illustrated).

by Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Melanie Clegg (translator)

Amber Books Hagakure Illustrated (Chinese Bound Illustrated) ABISBOOK Amber Books.

Genres: Japan

160 pages, Hardcover

Published August 14, 2024

About the author

Yamamoto Tsunetomo (山本 常朝), also read Yamamoto Jōchō (June 11, 1659 – November 30, 1719), was a samurai of the Saga Domain in Hizen Province under his lord Nabeshima Mitsushige.

For thirty years Yamamoto devoted his life to the service of his lord and clan. When Nabeshima died in 1700, Yamamoto did not choose to follow his master in death in junshi because the master had expressed a dislike of the practice in his life. After some disagreements with Nabeshima's successor, Yamamoto renounced the world and retired to a hermitage in the mountains. Later in life (between 1709 and 1716), he narrated many of his thoughts to a fellow samurai, Tashiro Tsuramoto. Many of these aphorisms concerned his lord's father and grandfather Naoshige and the failing ways of the samurai caste. These commentaries were compiled and published in 1716 under the title of Hagakure, a word that can be translated as either In the Shadow of Leaves or Hidden Leaves.

The Hagakure was not widely known during the years following Tsunetomo's death, but by the 1930s it had become one of the most famous representatives of bushido taught in Japan. In 2011 a manga/comic book version was published Hagakure: The Manga Edition, translated by William Scott Wilson, adapted by Sean Michael Wilson and Chie Kutsuwada.

Tsunetomo believed that becoming one with death in one's thoughts, even in life, was the highest attainment of purity and focus. He felt that a resolution to die gives rise to a higher state of life, infused with beauty and grace beyond the reach of those concerned with self-preservation. Some viewed him as a man of immediate action due to some of his quotes, and in the Hagakure he criticized the carefully planned Akō vendetta of the Forty-seven rōnin (a major event in his lifetime) for its delayed response.

Yamamoto Tsunetomo is also known as Yamamoto Jōchō, the name he took after retiring and becoming a monk.

Reviews

[Hit No · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yamamoto Tsunetomo’s Hagakure (literally “Hidden by the Leaves”) is one of the most enigmatic and often misunderstood texts in Japanese literature. Written in the early 18th century (around 1716), it distills the reflections of a retired samurai turned monk who sought to capture the essence of Bushidō—the “way of the warrior”—in a time when the samurai class was losing its martial function under Tokugawa peace.

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1. Historical and Cultural Context

Tsunetomo lived during the Edo period, when the sword was more a symbol than a weapon. Samurai had become bureaucrats, and their warrior ethos risked dilution by comfort and intellectualism. Hagakure arose as a nostalgic lament and a moral revival: it exhorts readers to embody absolute loyalty, simplicity, and readiness for death.

Unlike The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi, which offers pragmatic martial philosophy, Hagakure is moralistic and introspective—a code for living when combat is no longer central to life. It belongs as much to the realm of Zen and Confucian ethics as to that of military doctrine.

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2. Core Themes
• Death as Enlightenment: Its most famous line, “The way of the samurai is found in death,” encapsulates Tsunetomo’s paradoxical belief that embracing death liberates the samurai from fear and ego, allowing perfect service. This is not nihilism but a mystical devotion to duty.
• Loyalty and Service: Tsunetomo exalts absolute fidelity to one’s lord, even at the cost of reason or self-preservation. His ideal of loyalty borders on fanaticism, emphasizing obedience as a sacred act.
• Action over Contemplation: He condemns indecision and overthinking; virtue lies in decisive action rather than prudence.
• Simplicity and Sincerity: Echoing Zen principles, Tsunetomo advocates purity of heart and the stripping away of deceit, vanity, and hesitation.

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3. Style and Form

The book is a collection of aphorisms, anecdotes, and reflections rather than a systematic treatise. Its tone fluctuates between serene wisdom and austere zealotry. The style is direct, almost ascetic—reflecting Tsunetomo’s monastic life—but occasionally lyrical when describing nature or sincerity.

The result is a text that can seem contradictory: alternately spiritual and martial, compassionate and ruthless. Its aphoristic brevity makes it timeless yet open to misinterpretation—particularly when lifted from its historical and moral context.

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4. Modern Reception and Misinterpretation

In modern Japan, Hagakure was rediscovered in the early 20th century and controversially invoked to support militarist nationalism. Its emphasis on self-sacrifice resonated during wartime propaganda, though Tsunetomo’s original intent was moral rather than political.

In the West, Hagakure gained fame through Yukio Mishima, who saw in it a blueprint for aestheticized death and authenticity in a disenchanted world. This reinterpretation—while philosophically rich—also amplifies the text’s more extreme elements.

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5. Evaluation

Hagakure is not a manual for combat or governance; it is a meditation on mortality, service, and inner discipline. Its beauty lies in its contradictions: serene yet fierce, pragmatic yet mystical. Reading it demands historical empathy and philosophical subtlety. To a modern mind, it can appear both noble and dangerously absolutist—a mirror reflecting both the virtue and peril of total devotion.

In essence, Hagakure is a book about integrity in an age of decline: how to live meaningfully when one’s role in society has vanished.

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Verdict:
⭐ Rating: 4/5

Austere, poetic, and troublingly pure—Hagakure remains one of the most profound reflections on duty, mortality, and the psychology of honor ever written.

Great printing and publishing job. Bought it as a gift but ended up reading it and enjoyed it very much.
Easy read and it should be read to understand the world.