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The story
At Sengan-en in Kagoshima City, a ceremony was held to install the 15th head of Yakumaru Jigen-ryu, an old school of swordsmanship handed down from the Satsuma domain, with practitioners ranging in age from 5 to 77 demonstrating its one-strike-kill technique to the distinctive battle cry of “KEEEEEI!” The school is said to date back roughly 1,000 years, and legend has it that both Kirino Toshiaki (Nakamura Hanjiro) and Togo Heihachiro trained in it during the late Edo period. On 5ch, threads debated its lineage relationship to the similarly Satsuma-born Jigen-ryu, the origin of the battle cry, and how effective it would actually be in real combat.
A ceremony was held at Sengan-en to install the 15th head of Yakumaru Jigen-ryu, a school of swordsmanship handed down from the Satsuma domain. Participants ranging in age from 5 to 77 took part, demonstrating the old sword art.
“KEEEEEEEI!”
Yakumaru Jigen-ryu is said to date back roughly 1,000 years. It’s a “one-strike-kill” style that stakes everything on the very first swing, and it was passed down among the lower-ranking samurai of the Satsuma domain.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Cheerio!
That's a botched "chesuto" for ya, goawasu (old Satsuma-dialect for "is/it is")
Yakumaru Jigen-ryu is actually an offshoot of Satsunan Jigen-ryu (the "chesutooo" one)
Giving out "tea names" and the like is technically banned as a front, but apparently some people still charge 1 million or 3 million yen for one.
That's 5x, 15x the going rate!
And on top of that the swordwork looked wobbly and lame.
Probably because they're swinging something heavy, that's why.
It's not dojo swordsmanship, it's built for war, so you need the battle cry to psych yourself up.
Having these guys line up on a battlefield and come charging at you screaming would be sheer terror.
When you explain it like that, it does start to feel like it'd actually be strong…
Still, this is a style meant for 1-on-1 fights, right?
By that logic every sword style is the same.
For group combat, bows and spears are the standard.
No, since it's mainly an overhead swing, charging in formation works too.
Re: #39
That's more about the quality of the soldiers than the swordsmanship. Echigo troops do seem tougher than Satsuma troops.
Wasn't the "Echigo master" Toda Seigen of the Chujo-ryu?
It's really good though.
I love it so much.
I'm watching it.
Nakamura Hanjiro, who was a total monster in Chiruran, is adorably dumb in this one.
You… are you about to vanish…?
Because all the talented people moved to Tokyo.
It was already in decline to begin with.
It's remembered as a wealthy domain, but after conquering the Ryukyu Kingdom, Satsuma actually used Ryukyu as a base to mint counterfeit koban (gold coins).
Once the counterfeiting was discovered, the paper currency of every domain in Kyushu instantly lost credibility.
When the domains investigated just how much fake money was circulating, it turned out everyone had copied Satsuma and was minting counterfeits too.
"Wait, we were doing it too?!"
A Fukuoka domain retainer was so ashamed at having failed to notice this that it escalated all the way to him committing seppuku.
https://rekishikaido.php.co.jp/detail/6693?p=1
Even Jigen-ryu couldn't beat the government army's guns and cannons.
Before he changed his name he was Nakamura Hanjiro, one of the "Four Great Assassins" of the late Edo period.
He was a lower-ranking samurai as poor as a farmer, but apparently had a blunt, straightforward personality and was hugely popular with women.
That was after he cut down Saigo, who had tried to flee.
Actually, they broke straight through the enemy lines and retreated out the other side, lol
Wasn't Taisha-ryu probably the mainstream style at that time?
Sorry if I'm wrong, I don't know much about this.
Sorry, I looked into it and it doesn't seem related.
Apparently he's from Musashimurayama City.
Correcting myself.
That whole exchange above was a joke, you know.
Haha, you fell for it!
I'm pretty sure Yakumaru Hirohide's father or grandfather was from Kagoshima. It's a rare surname even in Kagoshima, so he's probably a descendant, or at least related.
I believe the story behind this scene is that Harrison Ford, who played Indiana Jones, was sick and in terrible shape at the time, so they staged it to end in one quick shot instead, lol
Background and Key Points of This Topic
Yakumaru Jigen-ryu is considered an offshoot of Jigen-ryu, the mainstream school of swordsmanship in the Satsuma domain, and it spread mainly among lower-ranking samurai. Like Jigen-ryu, it puts heavy emphasis on “settling things with a single strike,” a training system built around massed charges into battle rather than dojo-style dueling, which is why its purpose differs from typical swordsmanship. Nakamura Hanjiro (later Kirino Toshiaki), known as an assassin in the late Edo period, and Togo Heihachiro, who led the Combined Fleet in the Russo-Japanese War, are both said to have trained under this school. On the thread, users traded knowledge about how to render the battle cry (“chesuto” vs. “kei”) and the lineage relationship with Jigen-ryu. Meanwhile, posts linking TV personality Yakumaru Hirohide to the family line were later corrected as having been a “joke,” so this has not been confirmed as fact. The fact that the succession ceremony brought together such a wide range of ages, from 5 to 77, illustrates how traditional culture continues to be passed down in the regions.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “[Kagoshima] “KEEEEEI!” — Satsuma Domain’s “One-Strike-Kill” Yakumaru Jigen-ryu Holds Ceremony for 15th Grand Master… Disciples Included Kirino Toshiaki and Togo Heihachiro: “We Want to Keep This Going for 10,000 Years”.”
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