Kyokutei Bakin

Kyokutei Bakin, also known as Takizawa Bakin (1767–1848), was one of the leading Japanese writers of the early 19th century. Born in Edo, he lost his samurai status, married a merchant's widow, and spent about fifty years writing. His long historical romance Nansō Satomi hakkenden ('Satomi and the Eight Dogs', 1814–42) is a classic of Japanese literature, and he wrote more than thirty novels in the yomihon genre, stressing loyalty and filial piety.

Bakin also took part in a literary circle that met to share strange stories. Its collection, the Toen Shosetsu (1825), contains the most detailed telling of the utsuro-bune: a round vessel said to have drifted ashore in Hitachi Province in 1803, carrying a young woman holding a box and marked with unreadable symbols.

Bakin's account is a record of a rumor circulating in Edo, not an eyewitness report. Historians read it alongside other period texts and older tales of sacred beings arriving in hollow vessels.