Swords of the Bakumatsu Shishi—The Beloved Blades of Sakamoto Ryoma, Kondo Isami, and Saigo Takamori

The Bakumatsu: When Swords Were Used Again in Earnest

After 260 years of Edo peace, the Bakumatsu era (1850s–1868) returned swords to genuine lethal use. Sonnō jōi activists, pro-shogunate forces, political assassinations — for the men who lived through this period, the sword was truly a life-or-death implement.

Sakamoto Ryoma's Mutsu-no-kami Yoshiyuki

The sword most associated with Sakamoto Ryoma (1836–1867) is the Mutsu-no-kami Yoshiyuki, crafted by a Tosa swordsmith and reportedly carried during the Omi-ya assassination. Now designated an Important Cultural Property and held by the Kyoto National Museum, this sword belongs to a man who embodied contradictions: a practitioner of the Hokushin Itto-ryu style who was also one of the first samurai to carry a pistol.

Kondo Isami and the Kotetsu Question

Shinsengumi commander Kondo Isami (1834–1868) reportedly carried a Nagasone Kotetsu — one of the most prized Edo-period smiths, renowned for exceptional cutting performance. However, scholars note that Kotetsu forgeries were already common in the Bakumatsu period, and Kondo's blade may well have been one. The famous anecdote of his response — "even if it's a fake, if my fighting spirit inhabits the blade, it will cut better than any genuine article" — captures the era's intense psychological relationship with swords.

The Symbolic End: Satsuma Rebels and Their Blades

Saigo Takamori (1828–1877) expressed a distinctly Satsuma philosophy: "The sword is the heart. Even the finest sword cannot cut if the wielder's heart is crooked." When his Satsuma samurai ultimately fell before Meiji government rifles at the Battle of Shiroyama in 1877, their swords became symbols of the end of warrior culture — and, in time, of its preservation as something more precious than a weapon.