A Strange Shimabuku Signature

Recently, while looking through my book collection, my wife found something strange on an old American Okinawa Karate Association document that was published in David Evseeff’s and Milledge Murphey’s 1995 book: Isshinryu: The History &; Evolution of the “One-Heart Way”.






She asked me, “Did Shimabuku change his name?”


“Yes” I said “His given name was Shinkichi but he adopted the ‘karate name’ Tatsuo, or Dragonman.”


”Not that. Did he ever change the kanji he used? The kanji here is different than I have seen before.”





On page 115 is reprinted a letter from Shimabuku Tatsuo dated June 10, 1961. Details of the content are not so important but what is strange is the signature.




Most may be familiar with the kanji Shimabuku used for his first name shown here on the left but the kanji used in the signature on this letter is different. I haven’t been able to find any other documents with this character.






















The kanji used on the letter for ‘o’ is:




and is sometimes pronounced ‘o’ and means male when used in a name. So using this kanji gives the same meaning, Dragonman, and the same pronunciation, but the ‘spelling’ is different.



May not really mean much to us here but kanji used for names in Japan or Okinawa are very important. Changing the kanji you use is like changing your name. It would be like ‘John Doe’ suddenly signing his name to ‘John Dough’. Sounds the same but has a different meaning.


Even more strange is that the character appears to be written with a different line weight as if a different person added it in later but even the kanji in the letter’s sidebar matches this kanji in the odd signature.

Here’s a copy of the letter with the questionable kanji enlarged. I really have no idea why this is as it is. It seems unlikely Shimabuku Tatsuo would change his signature for this, or any other letter, but it appears he may have.