一拳必殺 ikken hissatsu Kill with One Blow
一拳必殺 (ikken hissatsu), one fist, certain kill, names the weapon where the older 一撃必殺 says one strike. Its one Japanese witness is a 1942 model essay for civil-service candidates in Manchukuo; it lives on as ikken hissatsu, the romaji of the English-language Shōtōkan books since Nakayama's Best Karate of 1977.
Abstract
一拳必殺, ikken hissatsu, one fist, certain kill, is the older phrase 一撃必殺, one strike, certain kill, with the weapon named. It has a single Japanese witness, a 1942 model essay for civil-service candidates in Manchukuo, and no Japanese life since: no title, no page, no dictionary. It lives on in English, as ikken hissatsu, the romaji of the English-language Shōtōkan books since Nakayama's Best Karate of 1977, which glossed it to kill with one blow and in its next volume warned that taking the words literally is dangerous.
Overview
The sense. That one blow of the fist must be the decisive one; in karate, the ideal of the single finishing technique. The older form, 一撃必殺, one strike, is the Japanese phrase and has its own history, from 1941.
The words. Ichigeki hissatsu; ikken hissatsu. 一撃 is one strike: one blow, one attack, the word the dictionaries illustrate with to fell with a single blow. Its oldest Japanese sense is a hawk's stoop, in a twelfth-century poem, and the oldest thing like our phrase in Chinese is about the same bird: a commentator on the Book of Changes explains the character for falcon by saying the bird does not perch in pairs and its one strike surely hits [1]. 必殺 is certain kill: 必, surely, and 殺, kill; the big dictionary defines it as killing the opponent without fail, or the resolve to, and its own example is our phrase turned round, 必殺の一撃, the killing blow [1]. In old Chinese the two characters are a verb, will surely kill him; the noun is Japanese and modern. 拳 is fist, and 一拳 is a real word, one fist in a poem of about 900 and a blow of the fist in a novel of 1904 [1]. So the two forms say one strike, certain kill and one fist, certain kill, and the second is the first with the weapon named. Neither is in any dictionary opened as a phrase.
The text in English. No English book carries the romaji before Nakayama's Best Karate of 1977; Ōyama's own English of 1959 to 1980 carries the idea and never the romaji.
The historical record
1941 and 1942. The older form. The older form, 一撃必殺, enters print in 1941 in the practice reports of the new wartime elementary schools, and from January 1942 in the Imperial Army's short course in sword fighting; the war correspondents carried it through 1945, and after the war karate made it its own.
1942. The one Japanese witness. A model essay of 1942 for civil-service candidates in Manchukuo lists among the aims of training one sword, certain kill; one fist, certain kill; and beyond them the spirit of the divine warrior who does not kill [2]. That is the only known Japanese witness for 一拳必殺.
Today, in two forms. 一撃必殺 is the Japanese phrase: thirteen wartime books, sixty-two titles in the national catalogue since 1976, the federations' own word [3]. 一拳必殺 has its one witness of 1942 and no Japanese life since, no title, no page, no dictionary. Where it lives is English, as ikken hissatsu, the romaji of the Shōtōkan books since 1977. Which characters the Japanese originals of those books print under the romaji is not settled here; the reading ikken is 一拳, one fist.
The word in English
1959 to 1978. Ōyama's English, then Nakayama's. Ōyama's English books from 1959 carry the idea in every one, knock down any man with one blow, and the romaji in none [4]. The phrase itself arrives with Nakayama's Best Karate (1977, glossary: ikken hisatsu: to kill with one blow), the earliest known romaji [5]; his 1978 volume adds the warning: long ago there was the expression ikken hissatsu, meaning "to kill with one blow," but to assume from this that killing is the objective is dangerous [6].
1981 to 2002. The Shōtōkan books. The Shōtōkan books keep the romaji: Oui magazine in 1981 (Victory with one punch) [7], Black Belt in 1985 [8], Rielly's histories from 1985 (One-punch death-blow) [9], Kanazawa's Kumite Kyōhan in 1987 ("To kill with one blow") [10], Morris 1994 (one deadly blow) [11], Stevens 1995 (a single blow must decide all) [12], Umezawa's wordbook 1998 (One strike, certain kill) [13], Durbin 2001 (one strike, certain death) [14], Lowry 2002 (one strike decides all) [15].
Today. Ikken hissatsu is the romaji of the English-language Shōtōkan books since 1977. Nakayama's 1978 warning against taking the words literally is the phrase's best commentary: the aim is to finish in the shortest time with one decisive technique, not to kill.
A reading
The two forms are one phrase. Japanese writes 一撃必殺; the English-speaking Shōtōkan world hears ikken hissatsu, which is the karate world's form and no older than it. Its one Japanese witness, the 1942 essay, sets it beside one sword, certain kill and reaches past both to the divine warrior who does not kill, which is where Nakayama's warning also points.
References
- 「一撃」・「必殺」・「一拳」・「必殺技」, 大辞泉・日本国語大辞典, at kotobank; 黃宗炎, 周易象辭, 卷12 (the falcon), at zh.wikisource. https://kotobank.jp/word/一撃 · https://kotobank.jp/word/必殺
- 満洲司法協会, 満洲帝国常識模範論説全集, 1942, scan 92. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1266899/1/92
- National Diet Library Digital Collections, next-generation full-text search on 一撃必殺 and related spellings, and the national catalogue by title since 1976. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/
- Mas Oyama, What Is Karate?; Vital Karate; This Is Karate, 1959–1980, at Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/what-is-karate
- Nakayama Masatoshi, Best Karate, vol. 1, Kodansha International, 1977, at Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/bestkarate0000naka
- Nakayama Masatoshi, Best Karate, vol. 3, Kodansha International, 1978, at Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/karatebestkarate03kumite011978
- Oui, November 1981.
- Black Belt, May 1985.
- Robin L. Rielly, Karate Training and other titles, 1985–2003.
- Kanazawa Hirokazu, Shotokan Karate International Kumite Kyōhan, 1987, at Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/shotokan-shotokan-karate-international-kumite-kyohan
- Vince Morris, The Advanced Karate Manual, 1994.
- John Stevens, Three Budo Masters, 1995.
- Umezawa Rui, The Empty Hand: A Karate Wordbook, Weatherhill, 1998.
- William Durbin, Mastering Kempo, 2001.
- Dave Lowry, Traditions, 2002.