Opening Note
Historical Note
Sets the Edo-era and Yagyu lineage context behind this original retelling.
Banzo’s Sword traces its lineage to the oral teaching tales of the Yagyū family, sword instructors to the Tokugawa shoguns in the early Edo period (1600s). The clan’s founder, Yagyū Muneyoshi, and his son Yagyū Munenori (1571 – 1646) refined Yagyū Shinkage-ryū, a style whose lessons on patience and ever-present awareness (zanshin) circulated from dojo to dojo. This work offers an original retelling while honoring those Edo-era roots.