Yamazaki Susumu is discussed on many Japanese sites and many say the
same thing...he has basic medical knowledge...OR even that his father
was a traditional healer...ofcourse these sites do not cite books from
which this info came from. I thought that back on MM list someone had
said that it would be hard to just "fake" that they had medical
knowledge because occupations were highly specialized back then.
Serizawa Kamo, as always the most informative English site, discusses
him...keep reading:)
http://victorian.fortunecity.com/stanford/130/bio.html
Sorry babelfish required...discusses his role in the Ikedaya Affair
http://g1342122.at.infoseek.co.jp/bakumatu_yamazaki.htm
http://g1342122.at.infoseek.co.jp/bakumatu_yamazaki_2.htm
The movie "I Want to Die a Samurai" depicts Yamazaki Susumu
*unfortunatly only bootlegs on ebay are available
The whole ninja thing is interesting...there were ninja clans/families
etc mentioned in Japanese history. However many historians also
discuss samurai doing "ninja work" as well.
On a different note,when I started using babelfish to search Japanese
search engines there was a Shinsengumi site that mentions "Saito One
no sign ninja/shinobi" ... it was more of a fan site but still I think
what the webmaster was getting at was that he/she didn't think Saito
One was a ninja but obviously he could do spy work. Perhaps Nanae
Chrono just recognized that information gathering was as "ninja" as
you can get and chose to portray him that way.
--- In SHQ@yahoogroups.com, spiritus saitou wrote:
> Did Yamazaki actually have a ninja background or is that entirely an
invention of PMK?