The Real Miyamoto Musashi Was Nothing Like Vagabond

Almost everything you know about Miyamoto Musashi was written down long after he died. We trace the legend behind Vagabond, Baki and Fate back to its sources, and find a swordsman who was hit by a rock. Miyamoto Musashi claimed more than sixty duels without a single defeat. But who actually wrote down the famous stories, and when? In this documentary we check each one against the historical record: the Yoshioka fights in Kyoto, the duel on Ganryujima, the Battle of Sekigahara, the Shimabara Rebellion, and the Book of Five Rings itself. HOW TO READ THIS VIDEO Every claim carries a label in the corner of the screen, rated by the quality of its source: Green: first-hand record (his own writing, letters, clan registers) Yellow: within a generation of his death Orange: written about a century later Red: fiction CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 2:23 The Evidence 5:42 A Boy from Harima 9:38 The Battle He May Never Have Fought 11:41 Kyoto: The Yoshioka Affair 14:42 The Island 20:33 The Tokugawa Man 22:33 The Stone 24:01 The Painter in Kumamoto 28:58 How a Man Became a Myth 32:16 Outro PRIMARY AND EARLY SOURCES Miyamoto Musashi, Gorin no Sho (The Book of Five Rings), 1643-45 Miyamoto Musashi, Dokkodo, 1645; letter to Arima Naozumi, 1638 Kokura Hibun, the stele raised by Miyamoto Iori, 1654 Numata-ke Kiroku, 1672; Yoshioka-den, 1684 Kuroda, Mizuno and Hosokawa clan records LATER TRADITION Honcho Bugei Shoden, 1714; Bushu Denraiki, 1727; Bukoden, 1755; Nitenki, 1776; Tosakushi, 1815 MODERN SCHOLARSHIP Uozumi Takashi, Miyamoto Musashi: "Heiho no michi" o ikiru (Iwanami, 2008) Kenji Tokitsu, Miyamoto Musashi: His Life and Writings (Shambhala, 2004) William Scott Wilson, The Lone Samurai (Kodansha, 2004) UPI, "Japan's Answer to the Harvard M.B.A.", 28 February 1982 Quotations from the Gorin no Sho and the Dokkodo are paraphrased. IMAGE CREDITS All images are from Wikimedia Commons. Public domain: paintings by Miyamoto Musashi (Kuboso Memorial Museum of Arts, Eisei Bunko, Fukuoka Art Museum, Shimada Museum); woodblock prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Utagawa Yoshifusa and Tsukioka Yoshitoshi; Edo-period folding screens of Sekigahara, Osaka, Shimabara and Kyoto; portraits of Tokugawa Ieyasu, Hosokawa Tadatoshi and Takuan Soho; scans from the National Diet Library of Japan; kabuki print by Arashi Rikan (Rijksmuseum, CC0). Creative Commons (title / author / license): Ganryujima seen from Kaikyo Yume Tower / なしはな / CC BY-SA 4.0 Statue of Musashi & Kojirō battle / RoninjapanWiki / CC BY-SA 4.0 Kokura Hibun stele, Kitakyushu / 速日 / CC BY-SA 4.0 Reigandō / STA3816 / CC BY-SA 3.0 Kumamoto Castle 06s5s4272 / 663highland / CC BY 2.5 Himeji Castle, November 2016 -02 / Martin Falbisoner / CC BY-SA 4.0 Remains of Hara castle as seen from the sea / Chris 73 / CC BY-SA 3.0 Kammon Strait and Hikoshima Island from Hinoyama Station / そらみみ / CC BY-SA 4.0 Sagari-Matsu Pine (Kyoto Sakyō-ku) Miyamoto Musashi hdsr S5 03 / Hyppolyte de Saint-Rambert / CC BY 4.0 Antique jutte / Samuraiantiqueworld / CC BY-SA 3.0 Japan location map / Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa) / CC BY-SA 3.0 Map of Japan recoloured from "Japan location map" by Maximilian Dorrbecker (Chumwa), CC BY-SA 3.0. ABOUT THIS VIDEO Narration is a synthetic voice. Thumbnail artwork is AI-generated. Legend on Trial checks famous stories from Japanese history against the sources. Spotted a mistake? Tell us in the comments and we will correct it. #MiyamotoMusashi #Samurai #JapaneseHistory