THE STORY OF TOSHIZO HIJIKATA CHAPTER TWO – BEING NOTICED BY SENPAI

Somewhere in late 1850s’ – the exact year is, alas, lost to history – the region of Hino was affected by a wave of armed robberies. A group of thugs attacked and ransacked the homes of wealthier merchants. Afraid that his house might be targeted, Hikogoro Sato – Toshizo’s apothecary brother-in-law – decided to take action. Of course, he couldn’t afford samurai bodyguards – and besides, no self-respecting warrior would ever agree to work for a country bumpkin pill-pusher. So Sato found the next best thing: in return for protection, he opened his estate to one certain Isami Kondo and his sword fighting school, the Shieikan.

Isami Kondo was no samurai either – he was, in fact, a farmer himself. As a child, he was an avid reader – his favorite book was the Chinese saga “Romance of Three Kingdoms”, with tales full of noble warriors, higher causes and deaths larger than life. When he was in early teens, a thief broke into his family home. He chased after the man armed with nothing but a stick and beat the crap out of the poor sod, successfully bringing back everything he stole. This adventure made Isami so famous in his village that an actual swordsmanship teacher came to seek him out, offering him a place in his school. For Isami, it turned out to be one hell of a deal – he ended up being adopted into the teacher’s family, and named the official heir of the dojo.

And that’s how Isami Kondo ended up running the Shieikan. The majority of dojo’s members were amateurs – farmers, craftsmen and merchants – who harbored a strong admiration for bushido culture and a penchant for violent, one could even say “proactive” self-defense. They practiced their swordsmanship, fanboyed all things samurai, and dabbled into a very particular flavor of burgeoning Japanese nationalism, which celebrated the country’s long tradition of isolationist policy.

Surrounded by these people, Toshizo Hijikata thrived.

Toshizo’s own swordsmanship skills were something of a mess – a deadly one, true, as anyone who found himself on the receiving end of his katana could confirm, but a mess nonetheless. He was self-taught, having picked up bits and pieces of different kenjutsu styles when visiting dojos during his days as a medicine seller. So in Isami Kondo, he found an all-round “senpai”: instructor, mentor and friend, who not only had full understanding for Toshizo’s samurai aspirations, but was all too happy to partake in the madness. And Toshizo was ecstatic that finally there was someone who shared his dream.

The Shieikan years were happy times for Toshizo Hijikata – perhaps even the happiest times of his life. It was one of those fleeting periods when dreams suddenly start appearing within reach, but before there’s sacrifice to be made to have them actually come true. Working hard and helping out in the dojo, Toshizo soon grew popular among his newfound friends. Historians note many an anecdote that illustrate the strong camaraderie he had with fellow students, like the one time when they teased the living hell out of him because he received an entire bucket of pickled umeboshi plums – his favorite treat – from a lady admirer, which ended up making the entire dojo stink for days. He even took up writing poetry – because it went without saying that a true samurai was a warrior poet. His haiku pen name was Hogyoku, and there seems to be a general consensus that his verses were godawful, yet somewhat endearing.

The “real” samurai, of course, did not take the Shieikan crowd for serious. For the “real” samurai, they were nothing but peasants playing pretend, aping the sublimity of bushido without truly understanding it. They despised them, ridiculing them every step on the way, if they even bothered to acknowledge their existence in the first place.

But as it happens, life is a grand master of irony. When in 1863 shit hit the fan big time in Kyoto, and the very foundation of the Shogunate started to crumble, the ruling class had no choice but to start relying on people like the Shieikan men in order to survive.

~to be continued~



Next chapter: The Curtains Fall (A Lesson in History)
THE STORY OF TOSHIZO HIJIKATA - CHAPTER THREE: The Curtains Fall (A Lesson in History)