Post by Otagiri Tatsuzou on Nov 20, 2004 13:18:28 GMT -5
Title: The Samurai - Warriors of Medieval Japan 940 - 1600
Author: Anthony Bryant
Date: 1989
Publisher: Osprey
ISBN 0-85045-897-8
Amazon Link
This is #23 in Osprey's Elite series and is written by Anthony J Bryant, an SCA Laural known as Baron Edward of Effingham, and a member here. This book takes an admirable swing at condensing over 600 years of samurai history from the Heian to the end of the Sengoku to 64 pages, but it's not quite a home run.
I have never really liked the Angus McBride plates that appear in the Osprey samurai books. To my eyes, the illustrations appear squat and blocky. The drawings rarely provide enough detail to be able to reconstruct any particular piece of armour. But as I have learned more, experience now fills in the missing detail and I can see the illustrations provide a good feel for the overall appearance of the armour.
To help fill in the gaps, Mr. Bryant has provided a detailed layout of an O-Yoroi and woodcuts from the Honcho Gunkiko that show the layout of an hara-ate and a dou-maru. A photograph of a sendai-dou laid flat provides a good look at a tosei gusoku.
There are numerous black and white photos of full suits of armour and several helmets. A couple of weapon photos help round out the martial material. I especially like the close up of the tachi hilt, as this weapon is the typical samurai sword for most of the period covered. There is a photo of tsubo-kote, an atypical vambrace and gauntlet set that could be of value to the SCA fighter. And while the following pieces can be seen as parts of the photos of whole suits, it lacks good photos of the clothing worn such as a yoroi hitatare, or closeups of suneate/kiahan, footgear, nodowa, or more typical kote - all things I would have found valuable for SCA reconstruction.
This book does have a drawing of the details of kebiki odoshi - a big plus. But oddly does not include one for sugake odoshi.
This is a great book for someone interested in samurai in general and wants to start filling in some of the details of their history, arms, and armour. It is a good start in the education of the SCA member who is looking at Japanese reenactment. It is not a complete guide to building a Japanese kit for the SCA, something, to be fair, it was probably not intended to be.