Yoseikan budō originated in 1931 as the style created by its founder Minoru Mochizuki (1907–2003), a high ranking student and assistant to Kanō Jigorō, the founder of judo, and Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of aikido, in the pre-World War II period. In addition to the very high ranks he held in these arts he was student of one of the oldest styles of traditional Japanese koryū budō, the Katori Shintō-ryō, and studied with various karate teachers including Gichin Funakoshi, the man who brought karate from the Okinawan islands to mainland Japan.