Every country needs its heroes. Unfortunately, the great Japanese hero seems to have been a casualty of World War II. To this day, Japan tends to look all the way back to the Edo Period for its favorite heroes, including Sakamoto Ryoma, the "ronin" revolutionary who was instrumental in bringing about the Meiji Restoration.
Ryoma's life, as depicted in this new fictionalized biography, reflects the rapid changes his country went through in the 1860s. At the beginning of the story, Ryoma lived like a traditional lower-ranking samurai and held the same views, opposing change and abhorring any encroachment by the "filthy barbarians," as foreigners were then called. But he went through a series of enlightening experiences that helped him develop his modern, revolutionary ideas.
First, he became an expert swordsman, which gave him a certain renown nationwide. This brought him into contact with politically influential men in the revolutionary underground who were dreaming of overthrowing the Tokugawa dynasty's feudal "Bakufu" system that had ruled Japan for some 260 years.