Samurai Sketches: From the Bloody Final Years of the Shogun

by Romulus Hillsborough

The overthrow of the Shogun in 1867 was one of the great events in Asian history. As The Wall Street Journal has reported, Sakamoto Ryoma, a leader of the revolution, is the idol of the financial and governmental elite in today's Japan. Ryoma and his contemporaries are the substance of Samurai Sketches.

The final years of the samurai were an age of unprecedented turmoil and bloodletting in Japan. They heralded the end of nearly three centuries of rule under the Shogun. The rule of law was deteriorating, assassination and murder were rampant, and inner-fighting among the samurai embroiled the nation.

Samurai Sketches are, to quote the author, "accurate portrayals of the heart and soul of the samurai, the social and political systems of whom have, like the Japanese sword, become relics of a distant age, but the likes of whose nobility shall never again be seen in this world." The book is a collection of historical sketches from the bloody final years of the Shogun, never before depicted in English.

"While these sketches are indeed authentic accounts of historical figures and events, Hillsborough has written them in a literary style similar to the short story," writes distinguished Japanese historian Kiyoharu Omino in the Introduction to Samurai Sketches. "Accordingly, the reader's perception of them will greatly depend on his or her imagination, and each reader will certainly perceive these sketches differently, depending on the subtle intricacies of his or her mind's eye. Similarly, just as the world created by Akira Kurosawa belongs distinctly to that famous director of samurai films, the world depicted by the author of Samurai Sketches is uniquely his own."

In recounting what he terms "the great epic which was the dawn of modern Japan," Hillsborough applies his long years of research and keen perception of things Japanese to delve deeply into the psyche of the men of the samurai class. Brought to life are not merely warriors of a distant age and culture, but also "human beings, both good and bad, who suffer the same pangs of body and mind as all of us.

Hillsborough spent 16 years in Japan, studying the language, history and culture. His extensive research includes 80 books about this period of Japanese history. He has traveled extensively in those areas of Japan where the revolution unfolded, including the historical cities of Kyoto, Nagasaki, Kagoshima, Kochi, and the picturesque fishing village of Tomo-no-Ura on the Inland Sea.

Genres: Japan, Nonfiction, History

236 pages, Hardcover

First published November 7, 2000

About the author

Romulus Hillsborough is a leading Western authority on the political upheaval and samurai active in the Meiji Restoration of 19th-century Japan. His fascination with this history has spanned over four decades, including sixteen years living in Japan, where he conducted original research and interviews with descendants of samurai.

He is the author of several acclaimed books, including Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai, Samurai Revolution, and Samurai Assassins. His work has been praised for its narrative style, historical accuracy, and deep cultural insight.

Hillsborough holds a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Humanities. A longtime practitioner of traditional Japanese martial arts, he has trained in Shotokan karate over five decades under Tsutomu Ohshima — founder of Shotokan Karate of America and direct student of Gichin Funakoshi, the father of modern karate — bringing a rare, lived connection to the samurai spirit and its enduring legacy.

Reviews

[Madeline · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. The “narrative” approach in telling the stories was interesting, but IMO it loses all credit by not having a bibliography (the author mentions they intentionally left them out because the book was written for English audiences and nearly all of the sources are in Japanese). I’d be slightly less annoyed by this if the accounts of the events in the book were translated & included, rather than including only a single account of each event, with all other viewpoints described narratively. There are very deliberate descriptive words used, and I would have liked to know if those were choices made by the original writers, or by the author in his quest to present these events narratively.

TLDR; no bibliography means your credibility is “just trust me, bro”

[Lydia Smedry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okita should have been mentioned but I did like it.

[Dani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, interesting, poignant. Sometimes the stories got loaded down with too much unnecessary detail, but still an interesting read about samurais and shogunates.