This post is published on behalf of Setouchi City Council (Okayama Prefecture). The city is running a campaign via Kickstarter from Tuesday 20th November–Saturday 22nd December as part of our efforts to raise the 5,000,000USD in capital needed to buy the National Treasure art sword, the ‘Yamatorige’, for their leading sword gallery, the Bizen Osafune Japanese Sword Museum.

This 13th century tachi is considered the most significant extant masterpiece from the Bizen area, where modern Setouchi now stands. This feat is all the more impressive as, of the 2.8 million registered blades in Japan, half were made in this one small region, including an impressive 47 of the 111 designated as National Treasures. Not only is it an exquisite work of art, but the sword is also of great historical importance, having been the favoured blade of Uesugi Kenshin, among the most powerful warlords of the 16th century and national traditional icons.

While many Bizen masterworks currently reside in prominent museums such as the USA’s Metropolitan Museum and the UK’s British Museum, not one is presently in the very museum that bears the area’s name. As such, and due to its singular cultural significance, the city jumped on the chance to purchase the sword when, in January 2018, the sword’s owner gave the city a once-in-a-lifetime sales offer.

Dear Members and Friends of Nihonto Club,

There has been a number of changes to Nihonto Club website over weekend:

• NihontoClub.com moved to a new European cloud platform. This transition helped us to upgrade server software, improve performance and secure around $50 savings per month
• NihontoClub.com and Nihonto.Club are now secure websites operating over HTTPS protocol. There's no action required on your side but any old links pointing at http://nihontoclub.com will be automatically redirected to https://nihontoclub.com. This update is a must-have in the modern world. It gives you a safer experience and significantly reduces the chances of getting your login credentials stolen.

Kind regards,
Nihonto Club

First Meeting

Dear Friends,

First meeting of To-Ken Society of Ireland will be held on Wed, May 4th 2016 in Belfast. This is a somewhat historical event for Irish Nihonto enthusiasts, please come along! Contact Peter McCafferty for more information.

Kind Regards,
Stan

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I am hosting our 4th annual Japanese Sword Show in Orlando Fla. June 17th, 18th and 19th. Please see www.japaneswordshow.com/orlando. Any questions or information needed please contact me at toyamabob@gmail.com.

It's my pleasure to present a new educational website dedicated to the Grandmaster swordsmith Sengo Muramasa:

http://www.muramasa.us/

Don't forget to browse through carefully compiled examples of Muramasa's works.

Dear Members and Visitors,

You may now access Nihonto Club using a new, shorter address: http://nihonto.club

http://nihontoclub.com will still remain our main website address.

Regards,
Stan

Hi All,

While going through the smiths of Aoe school in Swordsmith Index I once again was reminded of noisy/wrong/questionable smith ratings (Fujishiro/Toko Taikan) which still exist in the database. It was always in my list of things to clean up and now it's time. I'm going to archive and remove the following information:

• Fujishiro ratings for smiths which don't have references to Fujishiro's Nihon Toko Jiten populated.
• Toko Taikan ratings for smiths which don't have references to Toko Taikan populated.

This data was a part of initial database upload, I don't know/remember where it came from and hence this data can't be verified. Moreover, I noticed on numerous occasions that these values are not in line with the original books, with no traceability as of why these ratings were changed. Data quality is one of my highest priorities while working on Nihonto Club resources and I believe it's a step in the right direction.

Once this is done, eventually someone can go through the books and confirm/fix the remaining ratings (Hawley ratings are 99% correct, even though they are the least useful ones).

I would appreciate your feedback on this matter.

Regards,
Stan

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Thank you to Stan for allowing me this opportunity to say a little about my training group based in Dundrum, the Bujinkan Shugyō Dōjō.

We are a branch of the Bujinkan, a martial arts organization which was founded in the 1970's. Masaaki Hatsumi, who leads the Bujinkan, is the head or ‘Sōke’ of an array of Japanese martial arts schools, most notably those he inherited from his teacher Toshitsugu Takamatsu, which include:

Togakure Ryū Ninpō
Kotō Ryū Koppōjutsu
Gyokko Ryū Kosshijutsu
Kukishin Ryū Bujutsu
Takagi Yoshin Ryū Jūtaijutsu
Shinden Fudō Ryū Dakentaijutsu
Gyokushin Ryū Ninpō
Gikan Ryū Koppōjutsu
Kumogakure Ryū Ninpō

The martial art taught in Bujinkan is Budō Taijutsu (also know as Bujinkan Dōjō Kobudō or Bujinkan Dōjō Happōbiken), but the material taught in Budō Taijutsu is drawn from these aforementioned schools or 'ryūha'. In general Bujinkan students are licensed in Budō Taijutsu, although very occasionally traditional licenses are issued in the schools themselves, or more recently, specific areas of study. The most widely disseminated and studied information is that of the unarmed techniques of Togakure Ryū Ninpō, Kotō Ryū Koppōjutsu, Gyokko Ryū Kosshijutsu, Kukishinden Ryū Dakentaijutsu, Takagi Yoshin Ryū Jūtaijutsu and Shinden Fudō Ryū Dakentaijutsu. In addition the various weapons of Kukishinden Ryū Happō Biken and sword system of Togakure Ryū Ninpō are also commonly practiced.

I have published New Member's Guide to Nihonto Club. It's a brief introduction to Nihonto Club resources. Your feedback is welcome!