Daimyo of 1867

     

A while back I got an email out of the blue from someone requesting use of one of my castle photos for a book. How cool is that? Fast-forward to the present day, this morning in fact, and waiting in my in-box was an email informing me that the book containing the requested photo had just been published. It isn’t the National Geographic, but I for one am pretty thrilled.

I should point out that what follows isn’t a critical review, the book is neither sitting in front of me, nor did pay enough attention during class in high school if it were.

What I do know is that this isn’t your average book of the samurai of the Edo-period. Yes, it is filled with all the important names, dates, places, events & background information that should be there, but it is actually targeted toward people wanting to use the Edo period as the setting of their creative masterpieces.

I might just leave it there because there’s no point to me just repeating everything that’s in the press release or on the publisher’s home page. But, I suggest you click on those links if you’d like to get a better idea of what the book has to offer & to see some selected pages.

What is well worth mentioning is the fact that Tadashi Ehara, the book’s author, has made the offer of a 33% discount exclusively to JCE blog readers (that’s you guys!) Just get in contact by commenting below, by email (kyushudan [at] yahoo.com.au) or direct message on Twitter for those who are interested. Thank you Tadashi.

For the sake of transparency, I’d just like to say that I won’t be receiving any commission or reward if you decide to buy this book. One more thing. The photo I provided it that of Hirado castle.

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  • http://toshogu.blogspot.com Tornadoes28

    Seems like it might be an interesting book. Interesting that they chose 1867 seeing as that was the year that the Tokugawa finally collapsed.

    There press release has a few unfortunate typos such as “New” release rather than “News” and “Daimyo of “1967″ rather than “1867. Pretty sure there were no more daimyo in 1967. :)

  • http://chaari.wordpress.com Toranosuke

    It is interesting that they’d choose 1867. Things weren’t really the same back then as they were in the “high” Edo that I think most people would want to run their games in. By which I mean to say, simply, that bakumatsu is a different creature from, say, the Bunka-Bunsei period, when sakoku maritime restrictions were still in effect, and geisha and ukiyo-e and kabuki and all that were at their height.

    Of course, on the other hand, for conflict and such, and in order to include the Shinsengumi, I guess I can understand the attraction of the bakumatsu. There’s no Ryoma in the Bunka-Bunsei…

    Anyway, this sounds like it could be a great fun book; could be quite helpful towards finally running a game set in real actual Japan (rather than in Rokugan), and depending on how detailed the book is, towards adding to S-A Wiki entries ^_^

  • admin

    There are a couple of things I find odd too, such as the “Samurai warlords of Shogun Japan” below the title. Also I wonder if Daimyo in power at the begining of the Edo period who were later stripped of their titles/entitlements feature in the book. I hope they do.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if Samurai-archives-forums regulars were critical of this book. The way I see it though, is that this book isn’t for scholars. It’s for people wishing to be creative in the universe of “Tokugawa Japan.” It just needs to be accurate (which goes without saying) & accessible to the target audience.

  • http://toshogu.blogspot.com Tornadoes28

    They mention daimyo such as Oda Nobunaga on the book website so I am not certain why they put 1867 on the book.

  • http://www.diffworlds.com Tadashi Ehara

    Thank you for the first criticisms of my book. I have corrected the year on the press release, but it is meant to say “New Release Announcement,” as in “New Book Announcement.”

    The introduction to Daimyo of 1867 answers many of the questions so far. The daimyo list is from E. Papinot’s Historical and Geographical Dictionary of Japan (Tuttle 1972), the only list I have found that is complete for any year in the English language. As this is towards of the end of the samurai era, it does include most all of the direct ancestors of each clan listed. Much of the action indeed occurs during the Sengoku Period, but a lot of background information is for the Edo Period.

    Note that it does not include clans that expired or were dispossessed prior to 1867, such as Toyotomi or Takeda. That is for another project.

    Daimyo of 1867 is not a scholarly work. I did not use the Samurai Archives very much as a resource for this book, although I plan to for future projects. The book is meant to be a handy guide for creating more realistic fictional works that take place in or make reference to the samurai era.

    Again, my thanks to Daniel O’Grady. I feel like I have made a new friend. I look forward to meeting him someday, and perhaps assisting me with future projects.

  • RJ

    Looks like the samurai archives blog just reviewed this. Looks pretty good to me.