Warriors of Old Japan

By Eiko Ozaki

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.

We learn of 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 Byōdō-in; Minamoto Hachirō 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,  who fulfilled his mother’s dying wish to revenge his murdered father; and Musashibō Benkei, the faithful warrior-monk who joined Yoshitsune’s cause after their epic encounter on Gojō bridge, and helped him vanquish the Taira hegemony once and for all at Dan no Ura.

142 pp, 7.5 x 9.25, soft

67 color Illustrations, maps and charts, glossary, index

Japanese history / Swordsmanship / Martial arts

English paperback ISBN: 978-9492722003