From a farmer in 1784 to two friends in modern-day Fukuoka, these are the people behind Musashi, the original sumo anime from Asil Studios. Here is a little more of their story than we could fit on screen.
Jinbei Saito – Finder of the King of Na Gold Seal
The farmer who changed Fukuoka’s history
Real historical figure · fictional portrayal
In the spring of 1784, a farmer named Jinbei on Shikanoshima, an island in Hakata Bay, reported finding a small gold seal under a heavy stone while he was repairing a rice-field irrigation ditch. Kamei Nanmei, a scholar of the Fukuoka domain, identified it as the seal that China’s Emperor Guangwu gave to the King of Na in 57 CE. Today the gold seal is a National Treasure on display at the Fukuoka City Museum.
In Musashi, Jinbei is a strong, quiet farmer of about 35 who hauls a barrel of sake to Maizuru Castle with his best friend. The choices he makes that spring echo down his family line all the way to Taku.
Historical records name him only as “Jinbei.” The family name Saito, his personality, and his adventures are our story's invention.
Lord Kuroda – Lord of the Fukuoka Domain
Lord of Maizuru Castle, 1784
Real historical family · fictional portrayal
The Kuroda clan ruled the Fukuoka (Chikuzen) domain from 1600 until the domains were abolished after the Meiji Restoration. Their seat was Fukuoka Castle, also called Maizuru Castle. The gold seal found in 1784 went to the Kuroda family, who kept it for almost two centuries before donating it to Fukuoka City in 1978.
In real history, the lord in 1784 was Kuroda Naritaka, a seven-year-old boy and the younger brother of the shogun. He had inherited the domain in 1782. That same year, 1784, the domain opened two schools, including Kamei Nanmei’s Kantokan.
Our Lord Kuroda is an imagined grown-up lord. He is proud, sharp-eyed, and dangerous to cross.
The Lord Kuroda in Musashi is a fictional character. He is not meant to depict Kuroda Naritaka or any other specific real lord.
Koji Nakamura
The big kid with a bigger heart
Koji grew up in Sumiyoshi, a working-class neighborhood on Fukuoka’s east side. He has never really known his father. His mom works long nights, so Koji was largely raised by the older couple who run the little eatery below their rented room. He calls them Grandma and Grandpa.
Bigger than every kid in his grade, with the appetite of a bear, Koji was an outcast at school. Many lonely nights taught him not to be afraid, though. The day he saw three boys shoving Taku to the ground, he shouted “Hey, stop that!” and stepped in. That was the start of a lifelong friendship.
Taku Saito
Small kid, giant brain
Taku is small for his age and lives with his parents in a high-rise apartment (a “mansion” in Japan) in Sumiyoshi. His father works for a trading company near Hakata Station. His mother is from Vietnam, and because of that, some classmates treated Taku as an outsider from his first day of junior high.
Taku had few friends, so he spent his time taking gadgets apart and putting them back together. He once climbed a fence to rescue a broken PlayStation from the neighborhood’s bulk-trash day. Since Koji stood up for him, the two have been inseparable. Taku joins the sumo club as its student manager. He doesn’t know it yet, but his family story reaches all the way back to a farmer named Jinbei.
Ai
Koji’s mom
Ai is 34 and is raising Koji mostly on her own. She is bright and hardworking. She finished high school but has little patience for a school system she feels cares only about passing tests, so she wants Koji to grow up strong and kind rather than just good at exams.
To pay the bills, Ai cooks and waits tables at night in Nakasu, Fukuoka’s busy entertainment district, while Koji’s “grandparents” downstairs keep an eye on him. She is tired and often away, but she is completely devoted to her son. Before Koji was born, Ai lived a very different life in Japan’s big cities. That story is one for another season.
Omura Sensei
Gym teacher with a secret
Omura Sensei teaches physical education at Sumiyoshi Junior High. He is young, athletic, and the most popular teacher in school, and everyone wants to be on his team at field day. He also advises the sumo club.
What he never talks about is that he once was a professional sumo wrestler. He was the biggest kid in his class and won the Fukuoka Prefecture junior high sumo championship. He went pro as a teenager, but the harsh treatment from senior wrestlers and an ankle injury ended his career after only three tournaments. He has regretted quitting ever since. Now he scouts local tournaments for a kid with real potential, and in Koji he may finally have found one.
Miyagino-oyakata
The old master of Miyagino stable
Miyagino-oyakata is the head (oyakata) of Miyagino-beya, a professional sumo stable. Each November the stable travels to Fukuoka for the Kyushu tournament and sets up a practice camp there, complete with its own clay ring, or dohyo. That is where Koji, Taku, and Omura Sensei come to visit.
He is very old and white-haired, and he speaks softly and warmly. He has spent a lifetime in sumo, first as a wrestler and then as a teacher of wrestlers. He believes a champion must master shin-gi-tai: heart, technique, and body. His welcome is gentle, but his eyes miss nothing that happens on the dohyo.
Miyagino stable is a real sumo stable. Our Miyagino-oyakata is a fictional character inspired by a former Miyagino Stable master, who wrestled under the name Chikubayama.