About kyoto-samurai.com

kyoto-samurai.com is an independent guide to the bookable samurai, kendo and ninja sessions in Kyoto, Japan. Below you find who writes it, how it pays for itself and how the facts about each dojo, studio and theatre are collected.

Who is behind this site

kyoto-samurai.com is run by Patrick Kühne, an independent travel publisher based in Markkleeberg near Leipzig, Germany. Alongside this site he publishes a small group of guides to tickets and day tours in other cities. No agency writes for kyoto-samurai.com: one person reads the product pages, writes the comparisons, updates them and answers the mail.

What this site does

Many sessions in Kyoto carry the word samurai or kendo in the title, and they are very different things. One is a sport in full armour, another a stage sword dance, a third a costume photoshoot. We read the product pages and sort the sessions by what you actually do: armour or not, which kind of sword, whether there is any cutting, the minimum age and the part of the city where it happens. Bookings are made on the booking platform, never on this site.

How we earn money

When you book through one of our links, the booking platform pays us a commission. Your price stays exactly the same: the commission comes out of the platform's margin. No contract obliges us to favour a particular studio, and our tables are sorted by number of reviews, not by what pays us best.

Where our information comes from

Prices, ratings and review counts come from our booking partner's API and are refreshed automatically. Session facts (duration, minimum age, location, what is included) come from the operators' product pages and are re-checked regularly. If a product page does not state an age limit or a group size, our tables say "not stated" rather than filling the gap. If a studio has changed its programme or its address, a short note to us is enough for a correction.

What we are not

We do not teach kendo or run any session ourselves, and we are not affiliated with any studio, theatre or museum mentioned on this site. For binding information (cancellations, venue changes, schedules) the operator always takes precedence.

Contact

For questions about a session, corrections or press enquiries, use the e-mail address in the legal notice, where you also find the postal address and VAT ID. Replies usually come within a day or two.