The Kamigata Scroll

The first English publication of Naruto Hichō

As a gesture of our appreciation for the paid subscribers of this site, we have sent out an email with the first draft of the first English translation of 鳴門秘帖: 上方の巻, or THE SECRET SCROLLS OF NARUTO: The Kamigata Scroll, by Yoshikawa Eiji, who is best-known in the West as the author of MUSASHI.

Osaka, the 1760s. Two men arrive after dark at a canal-side guardhouse, looking for a room. One is a gruff tile-maker from Edo named Karakusa Gingorō. The other is his man Taichi, who is carrying a great deal of money and would prefer not to be murdered for it. They are bound for Awa — the sealed domain on the island of Shikoku that forbids entry to outsiders — on a mission to find a vanished spy whose disappearance, ten years ago, left behind a grieving daughter and an unanswered question that could bring down the shogunate.

They do not know that a woman is crouched in the shadows beside the guardhouse, listening to every word. They do not know that a killer in a black hood is already following them through the dark streets, choosing his moment to strike.

And they do not yet know about Norizuki Gennojō — the swordsman-monk whose flute can be heard on the road to Awa, and whose sword, when he is finally forced to draw it, is worth thirty men.

The Kamigata Scroll opens Yoshikawa Eiji’s great adventure in the cities of the Kamigata — Osaka, Kyoto, and the roads between. Here the pieces are set in motion: Gingorō’s dogged attempt to obtain passage into the forbidden domain; the pickpocket Otsuna’s private pursuit of his party, for reasons of her own; the detective Mankichi’s ten-year obsession with the Awa conspiracy, suddenly reignited by a stolen letter; and the silent, lethal convergence of the Lord of Awa’s agents — the street-killer Ojūya Magobei, the spear-fighter Tendō Ikkaku, the predatory ship’s officer Mori Keinosuke — on anyone foolish enough to ask questions about Shikoku.

There are ambushes on bridges at midnight, a confidence game played with Dutch cards, a pursuit across a lake by lantern-light, a dying woman’s desperate love, and a final dockside battle against impossible odds as the Lord of Awa’s great ship sails for home with its secrets and its prisoners aboard — leaving Gennojō standing on a hilltop, watching the vessel shrink toward the horizon, swearing that he will follow.

This is the first English translation of Naruto Hichō, the novel that made Yoshikawa Eiji the most widely read author in Japanese history. Written in 1926–27 and never before available to English-language readers, it is the book that created the modern Japanese adventure novel. The Kamigata Scroll is the first of the book’s six volumes.

We will release the ebook on Amazon soon, perhaps even this month.