陸奥守吉行

Sakamoto Ryōma stands as one of the great romantic figures of Japanese history — the visionary revolutionary from Tosa who helped broker the Satchō Alliance between the Satsuma and Chōshū domains, engineered the return of political power to the Emperor, and founded Japan's first modern trading company, all before being cut down at thirty-one. The Teradaya Incident of 1866 is one of the most cinematic moments of the era: Ryōma was soaking in the bath at a Fushimi inn when shogunate agents surrounded the building. His lover Oryō ran naked through the inn to warn him; Ryōma seized his Smith & Wesson revolver and his sword and fought his way out. The coexistence of the pistol and the sword — Western weapon and samurai blade — in that single desperate night captures the essence of Ryōma himself: a man who stood with one foot in the feudal past and one in the modern world, who preached that the age of swords was over while carrying one to his death.