Feudal retainers of Tahara domain, Kazan WATANABE, Choei TAKANO and Dutch scholar Sanei KOSEKI organized Shoshikai (association) with interested people like town doctors, feudal retainers of domain and vassals of shogun in order to study Western learning and internal and external situation for the purpose of coastal defense, and scholars of Japanese literature named the organization as Bansha, which has the disdainful meaning "Kessha (association) studying Yaban (barbarous) Western science."
蛮社とは、田原藩士渡辺崋山、高野長英、小関三英ら洋学者を中心に町医者・藩士・幕臣等有志の者が海防目的で蘭学や内外の情勢を研究していた尚歯会（しょうしかい）を、「蘭学という野蛮な結社」と国学者の側が蔑んだことによる。