If you think the florid language I have put into the mouth of Umawatari Bogyu is exaggerated, then there are two books that will confirm that in many ways I have acted with some restraint. A. L. Sadler’s classic The Maker of Modern Japan (London, 1937), a biography of Tokugawa Ieyasu (‘His Most Illustrious Highness’), reproduces perfectly the honorific language of Tokugawa Japan, and for an authentic account of the intrigue and mayhem in the courts of the early Tokugawa shoguns you can do no better than read Beatrice Bodart-Bailey’s The Dog Shogun (Honolulu, 2006), a life of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi.
Apart from Bogyu himself, all the details of battles, armour, weapons and daily life are authentic, and may be followed up in several of my own works, as well as in books by other authors. If you want to know more about the martial arts, my book The Samurai Swordsman (Oxford and New York, 2008) is a good starting point, while Strongholds of the Samurai (Oxford and New York, 2009) is a comprehensive guide to Japanese castles. For female warriors, read my Samurai Women (Oxford and New York, 2010), and for the wonderful world of Japanese religion try The Samurai and the Sacred (Oxford and New York, 2006). I have also produced several monographs in the Osprey Campaigns Series on certain battles mentioned briefly here, such as Nagashino 1575; Kawanakajima 1553–64; Osaka 1615; The Mongol Invasions of Japan 1274 and 1281; and The Samurai Capture a King: Okinawa 1609, as well as many other titles listed on my website (www.stephenturnbull.com).
To learn more about the yamabushi and the rich world of folk religion, read Carmen Blacker’s wonderful book The Catalpa Bow (London, 1975); while books by the eminent scholars William Wayne Farris, Karl Friday and Thomas Conlan will tell you much about the samurai of an earlier age.