Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

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Musashi is a novel in the best tradition of Japanese story telling. It is a living story, subtle and imaginative, teeming with memorable characters, many of them historical. Interweaving themes of unrequited love, misguided revenge, filial piety and absolute dedication to the Way of the Samurai, it depicts vividly a world Westerners know only vaguely. Full of gusto and humor, it has an epic quality and universal appeal. As with the manga it does sometimes feel like characters are simply walking in a giant circle. Great chunks of this book are just characters looking for each other, catching up, losing each other and starting the cycle all over again. Honestly it's frustrating when you consider the length of this thing.

As he travels the roads and fields of Japan, Musashi takes advantage of every opportunity he can to learn. He is especially keen to gain from the experiences of those he meets who appear to have sounded the depth of a particular art, whether they be a craftsman obsessed with the creation of ceramics, a courtesan versed in the art of music, or an old woman expert in the niceties of the tea ceremony. All who have viewed some aspect of life and art with honesty and rigour can teach him something which he is able to apply to the of the way of the sword. It is this open-mindedness that allows Musashi to avoid being a slave to any one style of martial arts and only in his eagerness to learn from all of his experiences is he able to overcome his many opponents and develop from nameless vagabond to the 'sword-saint' of legend.

Overall, I enjoyed this long novel very much. It was very entertaining, easy to read, with plenty of hilarious moments, and a large cast of eccentric and colourful characters from a variety of walks in life. En este cómic de Sean Michael Wilson conoceremos la vida completa de Musashi, los duelos ganados, si dice que jamás fue derrotado, las batallas libradas, su entrenamiento, sus viajes y todo lo que le llevo a poder escribir su obra relacionado con lar artes marciales, “El libro de los cinco anillos”. I don’t now Japanese literature and culture well enough, but I get the impression that, as a consequence, he also created a new genre of Japanese literature. I see all sorts of familiar tropes here, characters and themes I recognize out of Saturday morning karate movies by way of Kurosawa. In some ways, this is the blueprint for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, complete with the hero who follows the way of the sword, his chaste lover, and the old crone who’s sworn vengeance on him.

Villainous Valor: He may be an arrogant, manipulative sadist, but Sasaki Kojirō is a truly skilled and fearless Master Swordsman. Musashi even notes that Kojirō alone is a more dangerous opponent than the entire Yoshioka school. Instead, I see this as a similarly anti-Modernist work. Tolkien, whatever else he was doing, set out to assert an alternative to the Modernism all around him. If, half a generation earlier, W.B. Yeats had observed that “things fall apart,” Tolkien determined to hold them together – or at least to imagine a world where they would hold together in the face of a defined and recognizable evil. He took many of the conventions of the Romantic era, married them to the method of the Victorian novel, and invented a whole new genre.

This novel contains examples of:

You may read as much as you want. A famous priest of ancient times once said, 'I become immersed in the sacred scriptures and read thousands of volumes. When i come away, I find that heart sees more than before'. Hope Spot: Musashi reunites with Jōtarō and Otsū, allowing the former to resume his training and giving the latter a chance to talk him into being with her. Otsū convinces him that she wouldn't interfere with his training, and Musashi agrees to have a relationship. On top of that, Matahachi meets up with Musashi and is persuaded by him to become a scholar and turn his life around. Of course, it all goes straight to hell. The style reminded me of "Don Quixote" by Cervantes. An epic adventure following the main character as they travel all throughout their native lands. Musashi is full of violence and humor and can often be very deep in terms of life lessons or even Zen ideas. As Musashi learns more about the arts, he learns more about himself. In time he will use this knowledge to develop a two-sword style that was utterly new for the period. As I have already mentioned, the story's unspoken reliance on extraordinary coincidences is probably my biggest problem with Musashi as a whole. With an entire country to explore, the way our protagonist bumps into the same 4 or 5 characters dozens of times throughout the story just led to such a stale overarching sense of progress and development. Being an enormous fan of the manga Vagabond I decided to read Eiji Yoshikawa's version on Musashi, and I have to admit that story-wise the novel is way better than the manga. Of course, one can expect that when comparing a novel to a manga, but still, here the characters and story acquire so many different dimensions it's mind blowing. Adding to the fact that events aren't as exaggerated as in the manga (as the art usually does), this gives the story a much more real, much more serious vibe, actually transporting you in life threatening situations while enveloping you with Japanese culture, morals, and predicaments.

Pen-name of Yoshikawa Hidetsugu. Yoshikawa is well-known for his work as a Japanese historical fiction novelist, and a number of re-makes have been spawned off his work. Ever so slowly it dawns on him that following the Way of the Sword is not simply a matter of finding a target for his brute strength. Continually striving to perfect his technique, which leads him to a unique style of fighting with two swords simultaneously, he travels far and wide, challenging fighters of many disciplines, taking nature to be his ultimate and severest teacher and undergoing the rigorous training of those who follow the Way. He is supremely successful in his encounters, but in the Art of War he perceives the way of peaceful and prosperous governance and disciplines himself to be a real human beingAnd of course, if the science of killing had been Musashi's primary contribution to history, he would not have occupied the place in the culture of modern Japan that rightfully belongs to him, revered as a saint. His opponents could perceive the sword as a murder weapon, as a marker of belonging to a certain privileged stratum, as a noble weapon, as a symbol of strength and skill - for Miyamoto Musashi, the sword was a symbol of the spirit. Very Loosely Based on a True Story. The story is almost entirely a work of fiction, woven around records and legends of the historical Musashi's exploits. Most of the main cast are invented, and even the historical figures who appear are more characters based on or inspired by those people.