Tombo dragonfly is a symbol for the samurai that represents to never give up as the dragonfly doesn’t fly backwards. Very encouraging!

Tombo Dragonfly is perhaps the oldest design in Japan and it’s represented on the oldest discovered primitive pottery.

The Nihon Shoki (The Chronicles of Japan, compiled in 720 AD) is the second oldest book of classical Japanese history. Dragonflies are mentioned here, as akitsu, the way they were called in those days.

The chronicle says that when the first emperor Jimmu Tenno climbed a mountain in Nara Prefecture he said “The shape of my country is like two Akitsu mating.”

source: http://www.kusuyama.jp/blog/tombo-dragonfly/