Murakami Namiroku

Murakami Namiroku (村上浪六) was a well-known writer in Japan during the late 19th and early 20th century, best remembered for his popular fiction frequently set in the Edo period featuring chivalric gangsters. In 1891, he published his first work "Mikazuki (Crescent Moon) under the alias "Chinunoura Namiroku" (ちぬの浦浪六), which was well received. He would go on to write more than 100 novels until 1930 and become a prominent writer of the time.

He was the maternal grandfather of Otoya Yamaguchi, the 17-year-old ultranationalist who assassinated Japan Socialist Party chairman Inejirō Asanuma in 1960.

Early life
Namiroku was born Murakami Makoto (信) in Sakai, Osaka, Japan. His father died when he was very young, and was a result was raised by his mother. When he was in elementary school, he was adopted by a politician of the time named Saisho Atsushi. Namiroku wanted to become a politician and businessman, but inevitably failed at those endeavors. In 1890, Namiroku joined the staff of the Tokyo-based mail order magazine company Hochi Shimbun as a proofreader.

Writing career
In 1898, one year after joining Hochi Shimbun, Murakami published his first work of fiction "Mikazuki ("Crescent Moon"), which described the life of a swordsman who adhered to traditional samurai values. The book was very well received among the general public, and Murakami decided to be a professional writer from then on. Thereafter, he embarked on a series of novels about heroic chivalric street gangsters, which came to be known as "bachibin novels" after the hairstyle worn by their dashing streetwise heroes, whereby the hair (hin) on the head was shaved in the shape of a shamisen plectrum (bachi).