Overview

Eiko Ozaki's unforgettable portraits of Japan's greatest medieval warriors, presented here for the first time in a newly edited text, along with the many stunning woodprints they and their heroic stories inspired. - Minamoto Monjumaru Yorimitsu and his four loyal retainers, who slew the Giant of Oeyama and confronted the Monster Spider. - Minamoto Sanmi Yorimasa, the archer who vanquished the Monster of the Black Cloud, went on to win the beautiful Lady Ayame, only to lay down his life in the garden of the Byôdô-in. - Minamoto Hachirô Tametomo, the wild and reckless youth who joined Emperor Sutoku's cause, yet was ultimately thwarted and had to flee to the strangely inhabited world of Oshima Island. - Minamoto Uchiwakamaru Yoshitsune, the young warrior raised by his clan's greatest enemy, the hated Taira Kiyomori, and who fulfilled his mother's dying wish to revenge his murdered father. - Musashibô Benkei, the faithful warrior-monk who joined Yoshitsune's cause after their epic encounter on Gojô bridge, and helped him vanquish the Taira hegemony once and for all at Dan no Ura.

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To study the warriors of old Japan, then, is, in a sense, to study the secret of the Japanese spirit, which to the Westerner must often appear hopelessly baffling. What a pity that in these latter days of commercialism those noble warriors of yore are almost forgotten in the tumult of traffic and the greed for money! -- New York TimesThe accounts of the doings of the Warriors of old Japan will find an echo in the heart of every reader. The Oxford and Cambridge Review

To study the warriors of old Japan, then, is, in a sense, to study the secret of the Japanese spirit, which to the Westerner must often appear hopelessly baffling. What a pity that in these latter days of commercialism those noble warriors of yore are almost forgotten in the tumult of traffic and the greed for money! -- New York Times The accounts of the doings of the Warriors of old Japan will find an echo in the heart of every reader. The Oxford and Cambridge Review

Author Information

William de Lange was born in 1964 in Naarden, the Netherlands to Dutch and English parents. In the late 1980s, he traveled to Japan, where he supported himself by making traditional Japanese scrolls, working as a carpenter, and writing articles for the Japan Times Weekly. Having studied at Leiden and Waseda universities during the nineties, he lived in Japan for the next decade, studying the art of Japanese fencing under Akita Moriji sensei, eighth dan master of the Shinkage-Ryu. Since then, he has written a large number of books on Japanese history, culture, and art. More recently, he has appeared in the Netflix documentary Age of Samurai. His many books include Samurai Battles, Samurai Sieges, An Encyclopedia of Japanese Castles, and The Siege of Osaka Castle. He is perhaps best known for his epic history of the Yagyu clan, and his acclaimed biography of Miyamoto Musashi.

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