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This fully illustrated volume, including an eight-page colour-plate section, is the first in-depth study in English to examine the warrior and shamanic characteristics and significance of tengu in the martial art culture (bugei) of Muromachi Japan (1336-1573). According to Roald Knutsen, who is widely known for his writings on the samurai tradition, prompting his life-long study of tengu - the part-human, part-animal creatures - was the early discovery that the tengu of the Muromachi period were interacting with the deadly serious bugei masters teaching the...

This book will be widely welcomed by more serious Budo practitioners who are concerned more about substance rather than style and will thereby gain valuable insight into the mindset of Japan's unique warrior culture.

For the first time, this study examines in depth how the medieval Japanese masters of Heiho - the Art of War - sought to interpret, illustrate and transmit the principles of China's time-honoured military strategist Sun-Tzu during possibly the most turbulent period of Japanese history, the war-torn Muromachi period (c. 1350 - 1575). In these two centuries a number of gifted warriors, steeped in the teachings of Sun-Tzu and the Chinese Military Classics, developed their own concepts of the arts of warfare, expressed in personal combat, to heights of formidable effectiveness. Rather than...

The son of a high-ranking warrior in the late-fifteenth century and a skilled swordsman, Torii Enshin joined the priesthood and intended to devote his life to the poor. But he soon finds himself having to use his samurai skills once again. These short stories, drawn from Enshin's own accounts, follow him and his faithful companions as they wander across Japan, their adventures presenting a fascinating picture of life in the centuries of unrest before the Tokugawa subjected the country to their iron grip.

This is the first book in English to provide a fully illustrated guide to the use of polearms - ranging from the earliest halberds and spears reaching Japan from the Asian mainland to the sophisticated naginata, nagamaki and various forms of yari used by the Japanese samurai through the medieval period. While the sword remains the best known of Japanese weapons, it was the halberd (naginata) and then the yari that dominated the battlefields up to the early seventeenth century, and thereafter the yari became an important status symbol to many warrior families. Additionally, the authors focus...