The Tosa temperament that produced men
who shed their feudal skin.

Satsuma and Choshu were not the only domains to produce leaders of the Meiji Restoration — yet Tosa's history reads differently, and for good reason. First: an unusually rigid, centuries-long caste split between “goshi” (rural samurai descended from the defeated Chosokabe retainers) and “joshi” (the upper samurai who arrived with the victorious Yamauchi clan). Second: the restless energy of people like Ryoma, born a goshi, or Itagaki Taisuke, born into a lower samurai family, who pushed change precisely because they stood outside the existing order. Third: an outward-facing instinct nurtured by the open Pacific — the same instinct that produced John Manjiro and Iwasaki Yataro. And fourth: a land generous enough to have hosted, for over a thousand years, pilgrims walking 24 of Shikoku's 88 sacred temples. This site is organized around these four threads.