Fujita Seiko Scroll Authenticity?

[Robert G]

Hello,

I recently purchased a scroll that was supposedly written by Fujita Seiko.

Since there are many fakes and forgeries out there I was wondering about the authenticity of this scroll. Any thoughts?

thank you kindly,

Robert

[Lance Gatling]

I've never seen any writing attributed to Fujita Seika, but it seems to be a very nice scroll. Perhaps someone can help you. Where did you get it?

On a different note, yesterday I visited a dojo in Tokyo where they practice Masaki ryu manrikigusari. The sensei asked me if I knew your father - I had to laugh and say certainly I did not know him, but I did in fact buy his book 'Spike and Chain', and still have it and the scars I inflicted on myself trying to emulate what I saw in the book (not a sign of the difficiencies of the book, but rather on my juvenile notions of how to swing a chain. I actually left class before I determined whether he knew the elder Gruazanski personally. I'll ask him next time.

Regards,

Lance Gatling

[Robert G]

Hello Lance,

Thank you for the kind sentiments about my fathers book. I have not seen

anything handwritten by Fujita Seiko personally so I am not sure if this is

authentic or not.

What dojo in Tokyo did you visit? As you know Nawa Sensei has since passed

away September 2006 and his four Shihan are still teaching, as far as I know.

I would be interested in knowing who was teaching the class perhaps Sano

Shinichi?

The scroll was purchased on Yahoo auction site several months

ago.

[Lance Gatling]

No, I have talked with Sano san before but this class was under Shibata sensei, part of a bigger class. I'm going to see Sano san's class someday.

Regards,

Lance

[Robert G]

Sorry I forgot to post a translation of the scroll:

The first one on the scroll means "Any people who are tolerance also embrace a small fire inside of them".

The second one is his name "Seiko"

The third stamp "Mr. Fujita"(the top one) and "Mr. Seiko"(the bottom one).

The stamp's "Mr" is not exact Mr. but in English there is not such a thing i can
think of as equivalent.

Robert

[Robert G]

This information is from the seller of the scroll..


The scroll was written in 1926 and is not a copy. This is from Kyuushuu.
Written by a martial artist Seiko Fujita, who was a descendent of Kouga style ninjutsu. He was known as “The Last Ninja” and recognizes himself as the 14th of Kouga Ninjutsu descendent. Besides Kouga Style, he also took over the tradition of Nanban assassin style Kung fu, Joujutsu, Shingetsu style Ninja Star, and so on. However, some other people who also took over some of the Ninjutsu tradition still exist in Japan, so it is not accurate to say he was the last Ninja. Although, he was the last person who was hired by the Japanese government as a martial artist, therefore in a way he might be the last Ninja in an official record.

During the WWII he learned Nanban assassin style Kung fu. Some people say that he taught Kouga Style Ninjutsu to someone, but there is no record of that. He taught Nanban assassin style Kung fu to Kenwa Mabuni and some students from Itou style after the WWII. Among his students, Manzou Iwata took over all the tradition except the Kouga Style Ninjutsu that Fujita had.
Fujita collected so many documents about Bujutsu. He also copied a lot of them when those were not for sale. After the death of Fujita, those collections were donated to Odawara city by his family. There is a library in Odawara city, and has a section of “Fujita Seiko Library”. This library maintains those collections. His collections are very valuable nowadays among those people who do Budo study.

[JS3]

"He taught Nanban assassin style Kung fu to Kenwa Mabuni and some students from Itou style after the WWII."

This an interesting statement.
Is anyone able to verify it? If so, does anyone know if this was included as part of Mabuni's tradition?

[George Kohler]

I believe the reference was to Nanban Satto-ryu kenpo (南蛮殺到流拳法), which is one of the ryuha that Fujita was soke to.

Satto is made up of the following kanji 殺到. The first kanji can mean murder, kill, or diminish. The kanji together can have the meaning of "result in killing," but I have heard that the meaning meant "swarm upon" or "rush into."

Kenpo means fist method, but some Japanese also refer it to Chinese boxing (chuan-fa is the Chinese pronunciation).

[George Kohler]

"He taught Nanban assassin style Kung fu to Kenwa Mabuni and some students from Itou style after the WWII."

This an interesting statement.
Is anyone able to verify it? If so, does anyone know if this was included as part of Mabuni's tradition?

I have heard a few people studied Nanban Satto-ryu from Fujita. Since they were friends I would not be surprised if Mabuni did learn from Fujita. The only schools that I've heard that Mabuni learned was okinawan martial arts and Shinden Fudo-ryu kenpo.

From what I understand Fujita Isamu (Fujita Seiko), Konishi Yasuhiro, and Ueno Takashi taught at the same place for a time, and I've heard that Konishi did learn Nanban Satto-ryu too. Anekawa Katsuyoshi (who studied Hakko-ryu and Ueno Sensei's Tenshin Ko-ryu kenpo) also studied Nanban Satto-ryu kenpo at the same location.

[henso]

The scrolls are very interesting and I hope they are authentic, but, cannot say so as I am not an expert in Japanese calligraphy. As concerns writings that can be directly attributed to Fujita, there are a couple of photo copies of scrolls written by Fujita, in my book (Fujita Seiko: The Last Koga Ninja - pg 74) that accompanied a letter written by Iwata Genzo, describing his father, Iwata Manzo's association with Fujita. They relate to Daien-ryu Jojutsu and Nanban Satto-ryu Kenpo, which Iwata Manzo inherited from Fujita in 1943 and 1948 respectively. That said, the writing would have been done approximately 20 yrs after the purported Fujita scroll, which could allow for significant evolution of his writing style.

In the matter of who learned Satto-ryu Kenpo, there is strong anecdotal evidence that Mabuni was exposed to it, as were his students Iwata Manzo and Sakagami Ryusho. Iwata became Fujita's Uchi Deshi, and subsequently taught his son, Iwata Genzo, and his Uchi Deshi, Murayama Kunio, Satto-ryu. I have had the honor to uke for Murayama Sensei on about half a dozen occassions during Satto-ryu seminars, and was allowed to film the sessions. For those who do not have my book, you can also see the mentioned scrolls on my book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu9GtT7Msc

Regards,