About Anthony J. Bryant

Feb 14 1961 - Dec 25 2013

Anthony J. Bryant was a historian specializing in medieval Japan.

He graduated from Florida State University in 1983 with a degree in Japanese studies, and in 1986 moved to Tokyo to study the language intensively at Takushoku University. While there, he started writing for local magazines (including Wings, the inflight magazine for Japan Air Lines) and it is there that he wrote his first book for London's Osprey Publishing, The Samurai, Elite #23.

While in Japan, he worked as a features editor at the Mainichi Daily News and was editor at Tokyo Journal, an English-language monthly city magazine. He returned to the United States in 1992, and lived and worked in northern California's Bay Area until hired by TSR to take over as editor of Dragon Magazine in 1995. (That didn't last long…) After a stint at St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary, he found that he really missed academia and joined the department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Indiana University's Bloomington Campus which awarded him an MA in Japanese. His thesis was a translation and commentary of the Muromachi tale “Iwaya no sōshi” (The Tale of the Cave House).

He wrote four books on Japanese military history for Osprey, co-authored with Mark Arsenault the core rulebook for the feudal Japanese role-playing game Sengoku. He is the author of such Internet Japanese resources as An Online Manual of Japanese Armour Construction, An Online Japanese Miscellany, A History of Japanese Clothing and Accessories, and A Basic Introduction to Classical Japanese, as well as several essays on historical Japanese topics.

He passed away December 25, 2013 due to a sudden illness near Bloomington, IN, where he was living in his family home.

Baron Edward of Effingham, O.Pel, O.L., etc., served a stint on the throne of the Palatine Barony of the Far West (Japan, Korea, Guam, the Philippines), and while living in the West. He was awarded a Rose Leaf by King James and Queen Varina for his work on Japanese arts and sciences, and made a member of the Order of the Pelican by King Phillip and Queen Linda. He was made a member of the Order of the Laurel by King Valharic and Queen Katherine Alys of the Middle for his work on things Japanese. Though moved back to the Middle, there was always a part of his heart that was forever Trimarian, where he started his SCA career sometime in the Mesozoic era. He spent an inordinate amount of time in the guise of his Japanese alter-ego, Hiraizumi Tōrokurō Tadanobu no Ason. His mon is a pawlownia within a chrysanthemum ring.