Takebe Ayatari (1719-1774), a high-ranking samurai, and the adopted son of Ueda Akinari (1734-1809), a merchant family, were linked during their lifetime by the relationship of a teacher and a talented student, sometimes turning into rivalry. And in the history of Japanese literature, their names stand in the same row as the names of the initiators of a new genre of narrative fiction — yomihon. Akinari's collection Tales of the Spring Rain includes short stories of a historical, fantastic and adventurous nature, and Ayatari's Tale of the Western Mountains is a story about love and samurai duty, based on the real events of a bloody drama that took place in a village near Kyoto. The publication is decorated with drawings by Takebe Ayatari, who was a talented artist.