Swords Illustrated

L EGEND,
SA M UR AI,
MAN?
In his new, achingly honest autobiography, Toshizo
Hijikata lays bare his ambitions, his failures, and his
struggles: with the Shinsengumi, with the rebellious
Choshu and Satsuma domains, and with himself.
T
he problem with legends is that they’re legendary. No one, not even the legend himself, can
shape what the world says about him; some
truth takes hold and becomes part of the story,
but lies and exaggerations take root just as
quickly, and they’re not easily displaced. Eventually a man steps back, looks at his legend,
and asks himself “Where am I in there?” That’s
a question Toshizo Hijikata has been asking
for himself a long time now. He helped transform the
Shinsengumi from a dangerous rabble known as the
Wolves of Mibu into the storied fighting force that
captured the hearts of a city by saving it from death by
fire. A largely self-taught swordsman, he’s proven
himself without peer on the battlefield—both in the
melee, and as a strategist.
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But what brought him here? Where did this legend
come from?
Toshizo Hijikata was born to a pair of well-to-do
farmers from the city of Hino. His father died before he
was born, and his mother shortly after, so Toshizo was
raised by his elder brother and sister-in-law. Even as a
child, it was clear that he dreamt of rising above his
somewhat humble origins as a warrior of renown.
Though he may not have had the blood of the samurai
in his veins, their fire burned hot in his heart. It was his
destiny to walk the path of the sword, and once he
started down that path, he never strayed from it.
He spent every free childhood moment practicing
with a stick about the same size and weight as a sword;
practicing until his eyes were blurry with sweat and the
calluses on his hands stung and bled. Every meal was
There are few figures who
shone brighter near the end of
the Edo period than Toshizo
Hijikata, the commander of
the Shinsengumi. He was
the perfect samurai in an
era where the ideals which
defined that class of warriorpoets had fallen largely by
the wayside, and he stood for
honor and personal integrity
above all in a time dominated
by political machinations and
back-room deals. But behind
the legend was a man, and
behind the curt, cold demeanor
was a passion that ran deeper
than any suspected.
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TOSHIZO HIJIKATA
inhaled with lighting speed, and then he was back
outside, running through katas he’d made up himself or
guessed at from watching samurai practice until it was
too dark for him to see the stick in front of his face. He
practiced until his muscles burned and his lungs
screamed, but each agonizing movement; each labored
breath only strengthened his resolve. Without a sword in
them, his hands felt empty.
Eventually Toshizo left Hino and made his way to
the great city of Edo, where he enrolled at Shiei Hall, a
small dojo run by Isami Kondou.
“Kondou’s like a brother,” he says of his friend and
commanding officer. “To everybody. Moment he talks to
you, he’s not a stranger anymore. Any of his students
would’ve died for him in a heartbeat. Including me.”
Even in the city, among other men with much more
formal training, Toshizo’s skill with the sword stood out.
Even in practice bouts with wooden swords he fought
with a ferocity and skill most of the students had never
seen before. It didn’t take long for him to rise to the top,
and join the exclusive ranks of Shiei Hall’s top swordsmen.
But another Toshizo began to appear during his
time at Shiei Hall: Toshizo Hijikata the leader.
His blade commanded the respect of anyone who
had seen him fight, but there were moments where his
very presence inspired respect and—perhaps more
importantly—obedience. Toshizo had never seen
himself as a leader—as committed to practice as he’d
been in Hino, he’d had little time to make friends—but
the longer he remained at Shiei Hall, the clearer it
became that he had a talent for it.
When Isami Kondou, Kamo Serizawa, and Nishiki
Niimi founded the Shinsengumi, Toshizo was given a
position as a commander.
“Thought maybe this was finally it. Finally a real
samurai,” Hijikata remembers. “Don’t like to speak ill of
the dead, but... Serizawa and Niimi weren’t doin’ themselves any favors. The rest of us were trying to keep the
city safe, do Matsudaira proud, but they were too busy
tearing up restaurants and getting in fights with sumos.
This one silk shop wouldn’t give Serizawa the money he
wanted, so he rolled a canon down the street and blew
the damn place up.”
Serizawa and Niimi’s behavior was beneficial at
first—no one wanted to mess with a man who might
blow your house up with his own personal cannon—but
it wasn’t long before they started to behave less like
protectors and more like the thugs and brigands the
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Aizu Clan has commissioned them to protect against.
Something had to be done.
Working in secret, Hijikata and a number of his
closest men began gathering evidence against
Serizawa and Niimi. Their efforts quickly paid off, and
Niimi was forced to commit suicide. Serizawa and a
group of his closest followers, however, presented a
more difficult problem, and, in one of the darker chapters of Hijikata’s life, October 31st, 1863 dawned with
Kamo Serizawa dead—assassinated in his sleep.
The Shinsengumi quickly consolidated, with Isami
Kondou at its head, and Hijikata as commander.
Legends aren’t born; they’re made. And it wasn’t
until he became commander that Toshizo Hijikata really
started to make his. Isami was the face of the Shinsengumi, but Hijikata was the brawn and the brains. When
he wasn’t out on patrol, he was buried in papers or strategizing with Keisuke Sanan. People wondered whenor if—he slept. If he was suffering from a lack of rest,
there weren’t any signs. The same steel resolve and
laser-focused intensity that had brought him out of
Hino and through the ranks at Shiei Hall was as apparent as ever, if not more so. The misdeeds of Serizawa and
Niimi had drawn the Shinsengumi’s reputation down
into the mud. Some had even taken to calling them the
“Wolves of Mibu,” after the Mibu district where the Shinsengumi had its headquarters and their reputation for
vicious, unpredictable violence. Under Toshizo, however,
they slowly began to regain some of the honor that
they’d lost. The dream that had been born back in his
home town was almost close enough for Toshizo to
grasp once again.
“That wasn’t the biggest the Shinsengumi ever was,”
he writes in his new autobiography, due out sometime
next year. “But in a lot of ways, it was the best we ever
were. There wasn’t any question about what we stood
for. Me and the men who fought next to me
“Any of his students
in a heartbeat.
understood what it was to be a samurai, even if we
didn’t have the title. Victory and fealty to his lord are the
two highest goals to which a man can aspire in his life.”
TOSHIZO HIJIKATA
would’ve died for him
Including me.”
In the months and years to come, Toshizo Hijikata
would face victory and hardship, and his fealty to his
lord would be tested again and again. Victory at the
Ikeda Inn would unite the Shinsengumi like never before,
and the attack at Fushimi would tear them apart. But
through it all, the spirit of the samurai would drive
Toshizo to new and greater heights. His achievements
would earn him a place in legend even as the samurai
and all he had stood for became a thing of the past.
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