Shibukawa Bangorô

In the lantern-hazed labyrinth of Edo’s Asakusa, young Bangorô—heir to the iron-willed Shibukawa Hanryuken—erupts into legend when he rescues the sword-poet Jinpachi and his moon-pale daughter from Kurosaki Tenzen’s perfidious custody beneath the eaves of Kanon Temple. A single, seismic throw of judo silkens the night air; yet the rescue detonates a chain-reaction of scandal when Bangorô, disgusted by Sengo Tayu’s illicit victory over the bruised colossus Yotsuguruma, hurls the cheating tayū across the dohyō like a rag-stitched comet. Rumors—black as lacquer, light as ash—swarm the pleasure quarters: our hero is branded a thug, exiled from his father’s tatami kingdom. Reduced to ronin-without-a-kimono, he mediates a blood-feud between two hulking ōzeki whose egos eclipse the moon, only to be summoned by the hawk-eyed Lord of Arima to slaughter a monstrous spider whose silk threads are said to bind the fate of every soul in the shogunate. Thus Bangorô steps off the map of honor and into a chiaroscuro myth where judo is religion, betrayal is currency, and the next throw might decide whether the world ends in silk or in fire.