Novel
Eight Dogs, or Hakkenden
南総里見八犬伝
Kyokutei Bakin · 1842
Synopsis
Lord of the province of Awa, Satomi Yoshizane sees his neighbour Anzai Kagetsura, to whom he had given rice during a famine, invade his lands and besiege his castles, according to the Asian Review of Books. At the end of his resources, he jokingly promises his daughter, Princess Fuse, to his dog Yatsufusa if it brings him the besieger's head; the dog brings it, and the word must be kept. Fuse withdraws with the animal to Mount To, and eight beads marked with the Confucian virtues scatter, heralding eight warriors.
Context
The one hundred and six booklets appeared in nineteen instalments from three successive houses; the novel is linked to Chinese vernacular tales, foremost among them Water Margin. The Tokyo Metropolitan Library bases it on the history of the Satomi, a house of Awa in the age of the warring provinces, names its illustrators, Yanagawa Shigenobu and Keisai Eisen, and adds that kabuki seized upon it during the very course of its publication. The review of the English translation notes there the moral principle that virtue should be encouraged and vice punished.
Who it is for
A long saga of warriors, best approached through its first part, translated into English, which critics judge readable without prior knowledge.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the longest novel of premodern Japan, it has inspired woodblock prints, plays and even recent manga.
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