A Digital Archive · Information & Documentation
The
Fujita Seiko
Archive
Books · Articles · Photographs · References — assembled, catalogued, and made available to researchers of the Japanese martial traditions.
A Digital Archive · Information & Documentation
Books · Articles · Photographs · References — assembled, catalogued, and made available to researchers of the Japanese martial traditions.
“The spirit of ninjutsu is to persevere to the very end. Even when pushed to the limit, one does not stop; even in death, one does not cease. This unyielding resolve is the spirit of the ninja way”
— Fujita Seiko, Ninjutsu to wa? (忍術とは？), 1938, p. 97
Exhibit · Primary Document
Published in 1938 by the Tōkyō Lecture Society, this pamphlet represents one of Fujita Seiko's earliest attempts to bring the art of Ninjutsu before the Japanese public. Written by the self-proclaimed 14th-generation grandmaster of Kōga-ryū, the text offers rare first-person testimony from a figure who claimed to be the last living heir to an unbroken lineage.
忍
From the Archive
「忍術ほど科学的で進歩的なものはなく、しかも武芸百般を総合し、精神と肉体の練磨において、このくらい厳しいものはないのであって、私は忍術こそ武術中の武術なりと信ずるものである。」
“Nothing is as scientific and progressive as ninjutsu. It brings together every branch of the martial arts, and nothing is as rigorous in the training of mind and body. I believe ninjutsu is the martial art among martial arts.”
— Fujita Seiko, Doronron: Saigo no Ninja (どろんろん 最後の忍者), 1958, p. 265
The Subject
藤田西湖
Born in Meiji Japan, Fujita Seiko (1898–1966) claimed to be the 14th-generation grandmaster of Kōga-ryū Ninjutsu — one of the last inheritors of a tradition he insisted could not survive him. Martial artist, author, public demonstrator, and self-mythologizer, his life remains one of the most fascinating and contested stories in the history of Japanese martial arts.
NEWSWEEK AUG 1964 ARCHIVE
International Press · August 3, 1964
Newsweek's 1964 profile brought Fujita Seiko to international attention at the height of Japan's ninja boom, describing a 65-year-old who claimed to see eight times better and hear fourteen times more keenly than ordinary men — a figure both celebrated and skeptically examined.
"Fujita, who claims he is the last of the Ninja and that the secrets of the craft 'will die with me,' deplores the current commercialization of Ninja in Japan."
「人間の智恵を働かしたら、森羅萬象、取つて以て我が利器とすべきもの擧げて数へがたいのである。十遁、百遁、千遁、萬遁限りないのである。そんな手數な勿體らしい事をいふ要はない、忍術は萬物を巧みに利用せよと言へば足るのである。」
“If human ingenuity is put to work, the things throughout all creation that can be turned to our advantage are beyond counting. There is no need for elaborate classifications. It is enough to say: ninjutsu makes skillful use of all things.”
— Fujita Seiko, Ninjutsu Hiroku (忍術秘録), 1936, p. 19
The Holdings
Authentication Document
This presentation copy of the 1953 Shintō Musō-ryū Jōjutsu Zukai bears inscriptions identifying both Fujita Seiko (藤田西湖), whose signature and personal seals appear on the right, and the recipient Fukuda Nobumasa (福田信正様), on the left. The accompanying cinnabar seal impressions provide important physical evidence of the volume’s original presentation state and provenance.