Best of
Japan

1995

Akira Club


Katsuhiro Otomo - 1995
    The book also features rarely seen alternate art, preliminary drawings, production sketches and a variety of Akira posters, advertisements and products, all accompanied by fascinating commentary by the artist himself. No Akira enthusiast, manga fan, or devotee of fantasy and science-fiction illustration should be without Akira Club.

Light One Candle: A Survivor's Tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem


Solly Ganor - 1995
    That meeting proved a catharsis, enabling Ganor to confront for the first time the catalogue of horrors he experienced during the Second World War. Beginning in prewar Lithuania, Light One Candle tells of the ominous changes that took place once Hitler came to power in 1933, of Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul who wrote thousands of exit visas for Jews fleeing the Nazi onslaught, of the brutal conditions in the Kaunas ghetto where Ganor spent most of the war, and of Stutthoff and Dachau, the concentration camps he was shuttled to and from in the last, desperate days of the war. Unflinching in its depiction of evil but uplifting in its story of the survival of the human spirit, Light One Candle is a gripping memoir that waited fifty years to be told.

Confronting Silence: Selected Writings


Toru Takemitsu - 1995
    In these writings, available here in English for the first time, the distinguished Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu reflects on his contemporaries, including John Cage, Olivier Messiaen, and Merce Cunningham; on nature, which has profoundly influenced his composition; on film and painting; on relationships between East and West; on traditional Japanese music; and on his own compositions.

Looking for the Lost: Journeys Through a Vanishing Japan


Alan Booth - 1995
    Whether retracing the footsteps of ancient warriors or detailing the encroachments of suburban sprawl, he unerringly finds the telling detail, the unexpected transformation, the everyday drama that brings this remote world to life on the page. Looking for the Lost is full of personalities, from friendly gangsters to mischievous children to the author himself, an expatriate who found in Japan both his true home and dogged exile. Wry, witty, sometimes angry, always eloquent, Booth is a uniquely perceptive guide. Looking for the Lost is a technicolor journey into the heart of a nation. Perhaps even more significant, it is the self-portrait of one man, Alan Booth, exquisitely painted in the twilight of his own life.

Braids: 250 Patterns from Japan, Peru, and Beyond


Rodrick Owen - 1995
    More than 50 projects incorporating 250 patterns are included.

An I-Novel


Minae Mizumura - 1995
    Minae is a Japanese expatriate graduate student who has lived in the United States for two decades but turned her back on the English language and American culture. After a phone call from her older sister reminds her that it is the twentieth anniversary of their family's arrival in New York, she spends the day reflecting in solitude and over the phone with her sister about their life in the United States, trying to break the news that she has decided to go back to Japan and become a writer in her mother tongue.Published in 1995, this formally daring novel radically broke with Japanese literary tradition. It liberally incorporated English words and phrases, and the entire text was printed horizontally, to be read from left to right, rather than vertically and from right to left. In a luminous meditation on how a person becomes a writer, Mizumura transforms the "I-novel," a Japanese confessional genre that toys with fictionalization. An I-Novel tells the story of two sisters while taking up urgent questions of identity, race, and language. Above all, it considers what it means to write in the era of the hegemony of English--and what it means to be a writer of Japanese in particular. Juliet Winters Carpenter masterfully renders a novel that once appeared untranslatable into English.

Like Underground Water: The Poetry of Mid-Twentieth Century Japan


Edward Lueders - 1995
    A richly dynamic, one-of-a-kind collection of over 240 poems from eighty leading Japanese poets.

Yoshitoshi's Women: The Woodblock-Print Series Fuzoku Sanjuniso


Yoshitoshi's Women: The Woodblock-Print Series: Fûzoku sanjûnisô - 1995
    Fuzoku sanjuniso, "Thirty-two Aspects of Daily Life," was issued in 1888. The series followed a traditional format: a lighthearted

One Hundred Frogs: From Matsuo Basho to Allen Ginsberg (Inklings)


Hiroaki Sato - 1995
    In this book, Sato has collected some 135 translations, versions, parodies, and re-creations of "pond-frog-sound", from Lafcadio Hearn, Daisetz Suzuki, Donald Keene, Kenneth Rexroth, Edward Seidensticker, Robert Aitken and Allen Ginsberg. The formats range from the five-seven-five syllables of the original haiku to sonnets, limericks, prose poems, and e.e. cummings-style flights of typographical fancy. Sato's brief introduction provides background, and ink-painting frogs hop across the pages.

White Flash/Black Rain: Women of Japan Relive the Bomb


Lequita Vance-Watkins - 1995
    Their words echo the refrain that the ravages of war live on in the body and soul, in victim and victor.

Peachboy (Rabbit Ears)


Eric Metaxas - 1995
    Full color book.

Senso: The Japanese Remember the Pacific War: Letters to the Editor of Asahi Shimbun


Frank Gibney - 1995
    "SENSO" provides the general reader and the specialist with moving, disturbing, startling insights on a subject deliberately swept under the rug, both by Japan's citizenry and its government. It is an invaluable index of Japanese public opinion about the war.

Hiroshima in America


Robert Jay Lifton - 1995
    A study of the events surrounding the Hiroshima bombing focuses on its affects in America, considering the cover-up efforts by the government and linking the bombing to current insensitivities toward violence.

Beneath the Sleepless Tossing of the Planets


Makoto Ōoka - 1995
    Asian Studies. Translated from the Japanese by Janine Beichman. "One of Ooka's virtues was that he was not an intellectual, someone who has forgotten that human beings are more important than ideas, that human beings take priorityover everything. This poet knows, in the deepest sense, that human relationships rest on the relation of human beings to nature and to the universe. It is not difficult to see traces of the surrealist influence that colores Ooka's youth. But in contrast to many other Japanese poets, Ooka was never a blind worshipper of anything imported. Ooka is convinced that only when you approach actuality from two mutually opposing sides can you get a glimpse of its entirety. Rather than pantheism, the undercurrent of Ooka's poetry is paneroticism and it is that which saves him from indulging in conceptualization." From the preface by Tanikawa Shuntaro.

Wild Ways: Zen Poems of Ikkyu (Shambhala Centaur Editions)


John Stevens - 1995
    Translated here are over 100 of Ikkyu's finest poems. Also included is a translation of his famous prose poem "Skeletons", which focuses on Buddhist themes. Twenty-three 19th-century woodblock prints depicting events of Ikkyu's life accompany the translations.

Breaking Barriers: Travel and the State in Early Modern Japan


Constantine Nomikos Vaporis - 1995
    In this study, Constantine Vaporis challenges the notion that this system of travel regulations prevented widespread travel, maintaining instead that a "culture of movement" in Japan developed in the Tokugawa era.Using a combination of governmental documentation and travel literature, diaries, and wood-block prints, Vaporis examines the development of travel as recreation; he discusses the impact of pilgrimage and the institutionalization of alms-giving on the freedom of movement commoners enjoyed. By the end of the Tokugawa era, the popular nature of travel and a sophisticated system of roads were well established. Vaporis explores the reluctance of the bakufu to enforce its travel laws, and in doing so, beautifully evokes the character of the journey through Tokugawa Japan.

Writing Ground Zero: Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb


John Whittier Treat - 1995
    None, however, have more acutely understood or perceptively critiqued the consequences of nuclear war than Japanese writers. In this first complete study of the nuclear theme in Japanese intellectual and artistic life, John Whittier Treat shows how much we have to learn from Japanese writers and artists about the substance and meaning of the nuclear age.Treat recounts the controversial history of Japanese public discourse around Hiroshima and Nagasaki—a discourse alternatively celebrated and censored—from August 6, 1945, to the present day. He includes works from the earliest survivor writers, including Hara Tamiki and Ota Yoko, to such important Japanese intellectuals today as Oe Kenzaburo and Oda Makoto. Treat argues that the insights of Japanese writers into the lessons of modern atrocity share much in common with those of Holocaust writers in Europe and the practitioners of recent poststructuralist nuclear criticism in America. In chapters that take up writers as diverse as Hiroshima poets, Tokyo critics, and Nagasaki women novelists, he explores the implications of these works for critical, literary, and cultural theory.Treat summarizes the Japanese contribution to such ongoing international debates as the crisis of modern ethics, the relationship of experience to memory, and the possibility of writing history. This Japanese perspective, Treat shows, both confirms and amends many of the assertions made in the West on the shift that the death camps and nuclear weapons have jointly signaled for the modern world and for the future.Writing Ground Zero will be read not only by students of Japan, but by all readers concerned with the fate of culture after the fact of nuclear war in our time.

Nagasaki Journey: Photographs of Yosuke Yamahata


Independent Documentary Group - 1995
    Published on the 50th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it shows the horrendous aftermath of the bombing through reprints of digitally restored negatives from pictures taken just a few days after the critical juncture in history. The photos are accompanied by bilingual text in Japanese and English, including an interview with the photographer, a work of fiction, and extensive biographical and chronological materials. The graphic contents may not be suitable for certain readers.

Tokyo: A Spatial Anthropology


Jinnai Hidenobu - 1995
    Does anything remain of the old city?The internationally known Japanese architectural historian Jinnai Hidenobu set out on foot to rediscover the city of Tokyo. Armed with old maps, he wandered through back alleys and lanes, trying to experience the city's space as it had been lived by earlier residents. He found that, despite an almost completely new cityscape, present-day inhabitants divide Tokyo's space in much the same way that their ancestors did two hundred years before.Jinnai's holistic perspective is enhanced by his detailing of how natural, topographical features were incorporated into the layout of the city. A variety of visual documents (maps from the Tokugawa and Meiji periods, building floorplans, woodblock prints, photographs) supplement his observations. While an important work for architects and historians, this unusual book will also attract armchair travelers and anyone interested in the symbolic uses of space.(A translation of Tokyo no kûkan jinruigaku.)

Haiga: Takebe Socho and the Haiku-Painting Tradition


Stephen Addiss - 1995
    

The Cutmouth Lady


Romy Ashby - 1995
    fiction "cool, pungent perverse gaijin schoolgirl"

The Making of a Japanese Periphery, 1750-1920


Kären E. Wigen - 1995
    Her focus, the Ina Valley, served as a gateway to the mountainous interior of central Japan. Using methods drawn from historical geography and economic development, Wigen maps the valley's changes—from a region of small settlements linked in an autonomous economic zone, to its transformation into a peripheral part of the global silk trade, dependent on the state. Yet the processes that brought these changes—industrial growth and political centralization—were crucial to Japan's rise to imperial power. Wigen's elucidation of this makes her book compelling reading for a broad audience.

Kodomo


Susan Kulkin - 1995
    Kuklin has interviewed seven children living in Hiroshima and Kyoto, who talk about those aspects of their lives they think will most interest young American readers. Kanji characters for the Japanese words appear throughout the text. Full-color photos.

Japanese Prints: The Art Institute of Chicago


James T. Ulak - 1995
    The Art Institute of Chicago houses one of the world's most beautiful and comprehensive collections of Japanese woodblock prints in the world. Clarence Buckingham, of the famed Chicago family, donated 12,000 prints alone. The book covers this exquisite collection of work from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries in four sections: Primitives, Courtesans, Actors, and Landscapes. It includes work by well-known masters such as Hiroshige, Hokusia, and Utamaro, as well as lesser-known talents such as Shun'ei, Shunko, and Kiyonaga. While the trim size is small, none of the subtle colors, delicate paper texture, or intricate fabric design is lost.

Japan's Name Culture: The Significance of Names in a Religious, Political & Social Context


Herbert E. Plutschow - 1995
    First in-depth study in English of Japanese names, their history and evolution, and ontological implications.

Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan


Gary P. Leupp - 1995
    Few scholars have seriously studied the subject, and until now none have satisfactorily explained the origins of the tradition or elucidated how its conventions reflected class structure and gender roles. Gary P. Leupp fills the gap with a dynamic examination of the origins and nature of the tradition. Based on a wealth of literary and historical documentation, this study places Tokugawa homosexuality in a global context, exploring its implications for contemporary debates on the historical construction of sexual desire.Combing through popular fiction, law codes, religious works, medical treatises, biographical material, and artistic treatments, Leupp traces the origins of pre-Tokugawa homosexual traditions among monks and samurai, then describes the emergence of homosexual practices among commoners in Tokugawa cities. He argues that it was "nurture" rather than "nature" that accounted for such conspicuous male/male sexuality and that bisexuality was more prevalent than homosexuality. Detailed, thorough, and very readable, this study is the first in English or Japanese to address so comprehensively one of the most complex and intriguing aspects of Japanese history.

Who Rules Japan?: The Inner Circles of Economic and Political Power


Harold R. Kerbo - 1995
    These elites represented the best and brightest of Japan and they were willing to make great sacrifices for the prosperity of their people. Now, this same elitist system may be the nation's downfall. The new elites who replaced the pre-World War II zaibatsu elite have formed their own brand of upper class rule based on corporate control and domination of the state. Intent on solidifying their power through arranged marriages and interlocking families, many Japanese believe the new elite has become corrupt and self-serving. The resulting inequality has spurred growing anger among the non-elite classes. At a time when stability defines the new world order, Japan faces its greatest threat--the threat from within.Bound to be controversial, Who Rules Japan? is a study that expertly connects the country's economic, cultural, historical, and political facets. Kerbo and McKinstry explain how this new type of upper class has gradually spurned the traditional ideals of democracy in favor of an elitist approach that exploits the masses and causes ominous unrest. As a result, Japan is now confronted with a critical turning point in its history. The elites must choose between consolidating their personal power by continuing to resist change or beginning to make necessary sacrifices for their nation at the expense of their own privilege and prestige. The course they take will determine Japan's fate and the shape of the world order into the next century. Unique in its approach, this book will be of interest to scholars, researchers, students, and the general reader--all those interested in understanding Japan's inner struggle.

A Hawaiian Christmas Story


Richard Matsuura - 1995
    

Court and Bakufu in Japan: Essays in Kamakura History


Jeffrey P. Mass - 1995
    As the essays in this book show, however, the period was notable for the coexistence of two centers of authority, the Bakufu military government at Kamakura and the civilian court in Kyoto, with the newer warrior government gradually gaining ascendancy.

Rude Awakenings: Zen, the Kyoto School, & the Question of Nationalism


James W. Heisig - 1995
    This volume challenges those assumptions by focusing on the question of nationalism in the work of Japanese Buddhist thinkers during and after the Pacific War. Fifteen Japanese and Western scholars offer a variety of critical perspectives concerning the political responsibility of intellectuals and the concrete historical consequences of working within a religious or philosophical tradition. The first group of essays debates the role of Zen Buddhism in wartime Japan. A second group of essays examines the political thought and activities of Nishida Kitarō, the doyen of the Kyoto school. A third group of essays questions the complicity of other philosophers of the Kyoto school in the wartime spirit of nationalism and analyzes the ideas of modernity and the modern nation-state then current in Japan. This carefully documented volume offers a wealth of information and reflection for those interested in prewar and wartime history, Zen, Japanese philosophy, and the problem of nationalism today.

Capitalism From Within: Economy, Society, and the State in a Japanese Fishery


David L. Howell - 1995
    In this study, David L. Howell looks beyond the institutional and technological changes that followed Japan's reopening to the West to probe the indigenous origins of Japanese capitalism.

Nature On View: Homes And Gardens Inspired By Japan


Peggy Landers Rao - 1995
    homes and gardens that have incorporated Japanese design principles, especially the easy and natural ways these structures merge with the outdoors. From New York City apartments to California hilltop getaways, this book explores how basic principles of timeless Japanese architecture can be applied to both new construction and remodeling projects. 180 full-color photographs.

Jomon Of Japan: The World's Oldest Pottery


Douglas Moore Kenrick - 1995
    Japanese reaction was twofold: according to the archaeological establishment the tests were wrong, while some of the new wave of archaeologists believed that the tests were reliable and that it was only a matter of time before similar tests indicated even earlier dates for pottery from China and elsewhere. Since the 1960s, supporting evidence and many more tests have substantiated the 12,000 year result, and nowhere else in the world has provided such early evidence. By the 1970s the primacy of the Jomon potters was accepted by most archaeologists in Japan, and was beginning to be recognized in the West. However, recognition is far from complete, largely due to a lack of any comprehensive account of Jomon pottery in the English language. In Jomon of Japan Douglas Kenrick provides just such an account, and compares Jomon dates with those of other early pottery cultures. Douglas Kenrick describes how, in the isolation of the Japanese islands, Jomon pottery was made for no less than 10,000 years. During those ten millennia, Jomon technology did not change and the pottery remained hand-made. Jomon potters developed exceptional levels of skill, and employed an unparalleled variety of decorative techniques ranging from incision and applique, through cord-marking and relief modelling, to extravagant sculptural effects. Their repertoire of shapes ranges from the utilitarian to the ceremonial, and extends even to the experimental, while their schemes of decoration, textural and sculptural, encompass the naturalistic and the abstract.

Keep Your Bonsai Alive Well


Herb Gustafson - 1995
    Explore the needs of indoor and outdoor plants, watering, weeding, seasonal care, repotting, how to control pests and diseases, and more. Consult handy checklists for tasks to be done in each season; and for over 150 species from Abelia to Ziziphus a convenient chart provides information on the soil requirements, pruning techniques, sunlight tolerance, whether it's an indoor or outdoor plant, and the most common pests it attracts. Plus, treating bonsai in emergency situations. 96 pages (all in color), 6 1/4 x 10 1/4.

Japan Encyclopedia


Boyé Lafayette de Mente - 1995
    Each entry is shown with its Japanese equivalent and phonetic pronunciation in English, and is provided with an explanation that ranges from a few paragraphs to several pages. More than 200 photographs and line drawings enrich the text, helping to make Japan and its unique characteristics come alive.

Food of Japan: Authentic Recipes from the Land of the Rising Sun


Periplus Editors - 1995
    The Japanese desire to enhance rather than alter the essential quality of each ingredient and their strong sense of seasonal foods give Japanese food an intriguing purity. Color photos.

Japanese Workers in Protest: An Ethnography of Consciousness and Experience


Christena L. Turner - 1995
    These blue-collar workers, involved in prolonged labor disputes, tell their own story as they struggle to make sense of their lives and their culture during a time of conflict and instability. What emerges is a sensitive portrait of how workers grapple with a slowed economy and the contradictions of Japanese industry in the late postwar era. The ways that they think and feel about accommodation, resistance, and protest raise essential questions about the transformation of labor practices and limits of worker cooperation and compliance.