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Last Samurai

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Fumiaki Shishida stated, "Ueshiba's Daito-ryu Aiki Ju-jutsu was renamed Aioi-ryu Aiki Ju-jutsu in 1928, and was declared independent from Daito-ryu Aiki Ju-jutsu. After that, it became clear that the name changed to Aiki-bujutsu in 1929 and Aiki-budo around 1933.".

This is somewhat supported by this certificate awarded to Isamu Takesh*ta by Morihei Ueshiba in 1928 in Aioi-ryu Aikijujutsu.

But there are some difficulties here, not the least of which is that both Morihei Ueshiba and Kisshomaru Ueshiba would later imply that "Aioi-ryu" was an Ueshiba family art unrelated to Daito-ryu.

1) This scroll is simply a renamed Daito-ryu Hiden Mokuroku scroll. Morihei Ueshiba would issue similar scrolls into the 1960's, when he issued Daito-ryu Hiden Mokuroku scrolls renamed to "Aikido".

2) The scroll cites Morihei Ueshiba's authority as a "student of Sokaku Takeda".

3) Sokaku Takeda would continue to visit, and teach, Daito-ryu at Morihei Ueshiba's Kobukan Dojo into the early 1930's, and would award Morihei Ueshiba the Goshinyo no Te certification in Daito-ryu in 1931. Morihei Ueshiba and Isamu Takesh*ta would still be inviting people to train in Daito-ryu, using that name, in the early 1930's.

4) Morihei Ueshiba's students in the pre-war would later testify that they had been training in Daito-ryu, and had been awarded Daito-ryu scrolls. Students of Morihei Ueshiba after the war...were still being enrolled as students of Daito-ryu:

"Then after the war, I think it was 1947, the Ministry approved the organization as Aikikai Foundation. They were using the word aiki back then. And the title on my registration paper is "Daito-ryu Aiki-jujutsu registry". This is what I signed. At the top of the students' registry, there are also the names of people such as the Admiral Takesh*ta Isamu."

- Interview with Hiroshi Isoyama (began training in 1949)

This is a complex topic, complicated by the fact that Morihei Ueshiba himself appears to have been massively disinterested in what he was doing was actually called.

When considering this, it's important not to discount the influence of external pressures.

Before the war the diary of Isamu Takesh*ta recounts the discussion among Morihei Ueshiba's supporters and patrons of "the Takeda problem", what to do about Sokaku Takeda, who was considered as eccentric and unreliable. There was enormous pressure from Ueshiba's supporters at this time to separate from Sokaku Takeda and Daito-ryu, which was possibly the largest part of this rebranding.

Ironically, in 1942 the art would again be rebranded, to "Aikido", under pressure from the Dai-Nihon Butokukai and the Japanese government.

After the war, Morihei Ueshiba's art was still often referred to as Daito-ryu, as mentioned above (Gozo Shioda was giving "Daito-ryu" demonstrations as late as 1957), but again, there were external pressures.

Sokaku Takeda himself was gone by this time, but there were now considerable marketing pressures in place as Kisshomaru Ueshiba and the other post-war instructors struggled to find a marketing message in the post-war era. As late as 1957, Morihei Ueshiba was still citing himself as in instructor of Takeda's art, but that became gradually eclipsed with the narrative of a "new and original art", and a cult of the "founder".

Some of these issues are discussed further here:

https://www.aikidosangenkai.org/blog/ueshiba-ha-daito-ryu-aiki-jujutsu/