A history series
Samurai Retold
The samurai and their world, told from the record: who they were, how they fought, and how sure we can be.
Through the gate
Who wrote it down, and when?
Each story is told the way an old account tells it. Then it stops and checks. Some accounts were written by the people who were there. Some were written a lifetime later. Some first appear a century after that.
The series
Short films about real samurai, each told the way an old account tells it.
Then each one stops and checks: who wrote this down, and when? Some accounts come from people who were there. Some were written down generations later. This site keeps the two apart. The first series follows Miyamoto Musashi and the men he fought.
Characters
All characters →
Episodes
All episodes →How we know
Every chapter of every character page carries one of five grades. It says how close the oldest source is to the event, not whether the story is good.
- Evidence grade: Confirmed
On the record
Strong evidence from the time: the person’s own writing, inscriptions, letters, official records, surviving objects.
- Evidence grade: Probable
Most likely
A reasonable conclusion from several reliable sources that agree, or strong evidence plus sound reasoning.
- Evidence grade: Traditional
Later accounts
Found in later chronicles, family records, biographies or local tradition. Useful, but far from the event.
- Evidence grade: Legend
Told, not proven
Culturally important, but weakly evidenced or clearly embellished.
- Evidence grade: Dramatised
Our reconstruction
Our own reconstruction for the film — movement, dialogue, weather, faces — where no source speaks. Never presented as fact.