 Strictly speaking, Kokugaku during the Tokugawa period (1600–1868) was neither a movement nor a school but rather a succession of schools—private academies—that had their own distinctive orientations and specialties, and in the analysis that follows we will begin by following the lead of Japanese scholarship by seeing the essence of Kokugaku in the writings of its Tokugawa-era paragons: Keichū, Azumamaro, Mabuchi, Norinaga, and Atsutane. 