A major character is The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy books is Uncle Yuta — Maeda Yuta Sensei. He is a former sohei who left religious life to become guardian for his orphaned neice and nephew.
After, and with, his basic monastic training, which he started at age 12, Yuta trained as a sohei, a warrior monk. One of the major weapons a sohei would use would be a Jo staff. After all, any monk might carry a walking staff. Who's to know he knows how to use it like this — until he does?
This is the first film I've seen about using a Jo staff as a weapon that shows a real expert at work.
