Kodokan in Osaka

Why does the Kodokan have a branch in Osaka?
Has anybody been there?

Gester

Osaka, in the Kansai region, is Japan’s second city. It is perfectly natural for the Kodokan to have a satellite branch there.

Over the 136 yr history of the Kodokan there have been a number of Kodokan branch dojo, particularly early on when Kano shihan was trying to spread appropriately skilled instructors. Etajima (the Navy academy), a couple around Tokyo, eventually most of the judo dojo in Korea when it was part of the Empire.

All are closed today, long gone, except the Osaka branch.

Thanks, Jonesy and NBK, for the information.

Gester

There was even a pretty mature plan at one time for The Budokwai in London to be a Kodokan branch....

Jonesy wrote:There was even a pretty mature plan at one time for The Budokwai in London to be a Kodokan branch....

Interesting - never heard that.

Kano shihan traveled broadly on business and would make a point of popping in on jujutsu classes and recruited the early European judo pioneers, promoting them to higher (>2 dan) judo ranks and getting them to teach 'judo' instead of jujutsu.

But I didn't know they'd discussed taking on the London Budokwai as a branch.

The Japanese dojo (and they were almost entirely patronized by Japanese) in Korea were mostly linked to Japanese colonial police, also teaching the kids of Japanese businessmen and colonials, and those were all swept up into a Kodokan-led organization and renamed as Kodokan branches, headed out of Keijo, the colonial name for Seoul.