Gamblers

This is a monumental collection of gambling short stories, written by Baron Yoshimoto, known for "Jukyouden," who personally researched the world of gamblers. The protagonist of the first story, "Kurikara Monmon," Togashi Buntaro, is a young man who comes to Tokyo from a mountain village in the Tohoku region, relying on his late father's war comrades. Buntaro takes refuge in the home of Yamada Jinjiro, a member of the Yamajin family, a moneylender in Asakusa. The story takes place on the 17th of the first month in 1924, right in the middle of the Asakusa Sanja Matsuri festival. Buntaro's father was a matagi (hunter), and during the Pacific War, he returned to Japan after learning Shorinji Kempo from a Chinese monk while serving in Manchuria. His skills were said to be at a master level, and he passed them on to his only son, Buntaro. Buntaro, who understands the essence of Shorinji Kempo, never uses his physical strength even after joining a yakuza family, and gradually finds himself at odds with the Yamajin family, who lack the spirit of a gambler...