Title: The Father of Judo: A Biography of Jigoro Kano
Author: Brian N. Watson
Publisher: Kodansha International
Publication Date: October 16, 2000
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 212, 6.2 in x 8.8 in
Cover Price: $28
ISBN: 4770025300
Content
Brian Watson is a long time judo practitioner, ranked as a 4th dan at the time of writing The Father of Judo. He was a Special Research Student at the Kodokan in the 1970s, a university lecturer and translator, and an English correspondent for the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. Mr. Watson has written several books on judo and its history, the first of which was The Father of Judo.
This book was the first book-length biography in English on professor Jigoro Kano. Five years earlier, John Stevens devoted one third of his book Three Budo Masters to professor Kano. The other two thirds covered karateka Gichin Funakoshi and aikidoka Morihei Ueschiba. Mr. Watson relied upon five Japanese language and one English language sources when writing his book. Four of those sources were Japanese biographies of Kano.
The first 134 pages of the book are about Kano, but the next 50 are about judo competition around the world, with 40 of those being lists of open weight judo competition results from 1948 to 2000. The book features some of the best iconic photographs to appear in any English language Kano biography. Watson attributes these pictures to a 1970 book published in Japan.
Pros
The Father of Judo is a very readable account of professor Kano’s life. After a few pages on Japan’s historical setting around the time of Kano’s birth, the book devotes the rest of the bibliographic content to telling Kano’s story. The reader enjoys a fairly enthusiastic ride along with Kano through his life’s adventure. If a producer was looking for an English language book to form the basis for a movie about Kano, this one hits all the highlights. It concludes with a helpful timeline and glossary.
Cons
My major concern with The Father of Judo is the introduction of invented dialogue throughout the book. Mr. Watson writes the following on page 12 to explain this decision:
“In the writing of this book, every attempt has been made to achieve historical accuracy, and both Japanese and English sources have been consulted, as noted in the Bibliography. Since the chief aim of the book is to make the life of Jigoro Kano accessible to the widest possible audience, dialogue has been included, much of which has been re-created in the light of documented historical fact and the known personalities of the people involved.”
As a historian, this decision caused me to remove a star from the rating. In printed and online articles about Kano published after 2000, one sees “quotes” by Kano, taken from The Father of Judo as if Kano actually said them. This is frustrating and unnecessary. I believe Mr. Watson may have decided to rectify this decision by publishing his 2008 book Judo Memoirs of Jigoro Kano. In the introduction to that book he described The Father of Judo as being “directed at young readers,” whereas his Judo Memoirs contained Kano’s own words, as translated by Mr. Watson.
Minor Issues
Aside from wondering if the words in the book were truly professor Kano’s, the book is largely fault-free. I only found a couple minor issues. For example, on page 23 Mr. Watson wrote “Jigoro’s mother, Sadako, was the oldest daughter of a wealthy sake brewer who had no sons to inherit the family business and carry on the family name.” This supposedly justified Sadako’s father adopting Jigoro’s father, Jirosaku, per a Japanese custom at that time. However, this claim ignores the fact that Sadako had a brother, Ryotaro. Jigoro’s father, Jirosaku, returned the family business to Ryotaro after his adopted father’s death. On page 25, Mr. Watson depicts the vote for the 1940 Olympic Games as harrowingly close, with “37 votes… cast in favor of Tokyo, 36 for Helsinki.” In reality, the vote was 36 to 27. These are minor issues, however, and do not detract from the book’s message.
Conclusion
I give this book 4 out of 5 ninja stars.
The Father of Judo was a good read. I did not mind the narrative style, which some have criticized as being too child-like. However, I was concerned about the use of invented dialogue. I believe professor Kano’s story is compelling enough to tell using his own words. He was a prolific writer, even in English. Unfortunately, at the time of Mr. Watson’s writing, not enough of that story was available to the public. I hope interest in books such as The Father of Judo might prompt the attention of other biographers as well. With The Father of Judo being out of print and only available at a premium price in the secondary market, the world could do with a new English language biography integrating English and Japanese sources.
Tell me your thoughts on The Father of Judo. Then read other reviews and commentaries here on Martial Journal.
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