《Young Samurai》

"Young Samurai" was Tamotsu Yato's first publication and is an extensive photo-essay on Japanese male bodybuilding in the mid-60s. It was published in 1967, simultaneously by Grove Press in the US and by Bijutsu in Japan under the title of "Taido" (The Way of the Body). Aside from 64 (not including the frontispiece) full-pages of photographs by Yato, "Young Samurai" contains an introduction by Yukio Mishima, an essay by Hitoshi Tamari - the Managing Director of the Japan Bodybuilding Association, a photographer's note by Yato, a complete index to the photographs including names of models, locations and dates of events, and is completed by an index to the models themselves, listing their age, place of residence, vocation, the number of years they've been weight training, body measurements and other sports practiced.

Tamotsu Yato, a photographer working in Japan from the mid-60s to the early 70s, created images of Japanese men that had a currency and evocativeness that were rare for his time. In his less-than-a-decade-long career, he photographed constantly and sometimes furiously, pointing his camera at friends, friends of friends, bodybuilding competitions, mens' festivals and non-professional models from Tokyo's thriving urban culture. Eventually, he developed the photographs into three distinct bodies of work which were published as "Young Samurai", "Naked Festival" and "Otoko". The last, "Otoko", was inspired to a great degree by the photographer's close friendship with novelist Yukio Mishima.

Yato's photographs portrayed a Japanese masculinity distinctly contrary to stereotypes, absolutely contemporary, wholly masculine, and completely Japanese. His death in 1973 cut short a pictorial investigation which promised to go deeper into a territory with little parallel or precedent.

- Richard Hawkins, July 2001