He begins to piece together the connection of two young people who are inextricably linked to the crime; the dark, taciturn son of the victim and the unexpectedly captivating daughter of the main suspect. Over the next twenty years we follow their lives as Sasagaki pursues the case - which remains unsolved - to the point of obsession. Stark, intriguing and stylish, Journey Under the Midnight Sun is an epic mystery by the bestselling Japanese author.

    Abundantly illustrated and containing a wide variety of exercises, Genki is sure to bring vigor to your classroom! Though primarily meant for use in college-level classes, it is also a good guide for independent learners and is a nice resource book for teachers of Japanese. Genki's authors teach at Kansai Gaidai University, which hosts the largest number of North American students spending their junior year in Japan.

    Criticized as violent exploitation when first published in Japan - where it then proceeded to become a runaway bestseller - Battle Royale is a Lord of the Flies for the 21st century, a potent allegory of what it means to be young and (barely) alive in a dog-eat-dog world. Made into a controversial hit movie of the same name, Battle Royale is already a contemporary Japanese pulp classic, now available for the first time in the English language.

    This most influential teacher comes vividly to life in Crooked Cucumber, the first full biography of any Zen master to be published in the West. To make up his intimate and engrossing narrative, David Chadwick draws on Suzuki's own words and the memories of his students, friends, and family. Interspersed with previously unpublished passages from Suzuki's talks, Crooked Cucumber evokes a down-to-earth life of the spirit. Along with Suzuki we can find a way to "practice with mountains, trees, and stones and to find ourselves in this big world."

    Normally, the learner must memorize numerous compounds as unrelated units. A unique feature of this dictionary that overcomes this difficulty is the core meaning, a concise keyword that defines the dominant sense of each character, followed by detailed character meanings and numerous compounds that clearly show how thousands of building blocks are combined to form countless compound words.Another unique feature is the System of Kanji Indexing by Patterns (SKIP), an indexing system that enables the user to locate characters as quickly and as accurately as in alphabetical dictionaries.Modern linguistic theory has been effectively integrated with sophisticated information technology to produce the most useful kanji learner's dictionary ever compiled. For the first time, learners have at their fingertips a wealth of information that is linguistically accurate, easy to use, and carefully adapted to their practical needs.FEATURESo 2,230 entry characters, including all the kanji in the Joyo and Jinmei Kanji listso 41,000 senses for 31,300 words and word elements show how each character contributes to the meanings of compounds o 1,200 homophones with core meanings explain differences between closely related characters o 386 variant forms used in prewar literature and in names o 1,945 stroke order diagrams show you how to write each kanji stroke by stroke o 7,200 character readings, including name readings o Over 2,000 cross-references and five appendixes give instant access to a mass of useful reference data

    Japanese/English.

    The originals are in the Riccar Art Museum in Tokyo, the world's largest and most celebrated collection of such prints. On account of their rarity and value, 87 of them have been designated Japanese National Treasures or Major National Cultural Heritage Items. The introductory essay, "Ukiyo-e - Origins and History", by the Curator of the Riccar Art Museum, Mitsunobu Sato, familiarizes the reader with the history of this art form. This is followed by the chapter "Cherry - Wood - Blossom", in which Thomas Zacharias, Professor at the Munich Academy of Art examines the technique, content and style of Japanese prints and their influence on European art at the turn of the century. The major section of the book consists of the 139 reproductions, grouped by artist, each accompanied by a detailed, sensitive commentary. Street scenes, lovers' trysts, festivals, portraits of courtesans and actors, landscapes and travelogues - these are the motifs of the ukiyo-e print. The dominant theme, however, is woman's beauty, the grace of her posture and attitudes, and the decorative aesthetics of her flowing garments. Amongst the most celebrated of the artists featured here are Utamaro, with his beautiful courtesans and geishas; Sharaku, with his portraits of actors on the kabuki stage; Hokusai, with his landscapes, among them the "36 Views of Mount Fuji"; and Hiroshige, with his "53 Stations on the Tokaido" and his "100 Views of Famous Places in and around Edo". The ten-page appendix includes a glossary of technical terms and biographies of all 43 artists.

    

    What ended in one atrocity began with another: the savage military takeover of China's capital city, which quickly became known as the Rape of Nanking. The Japanese Army's conduct from December 1937 to February 1938 constitutes one of the most barbarous events not just of the war but of the century. The violence was documented at the time and then redocumented during the war crimes trial in Tokyo after the war. This book brings together materials from both moments to provide the first comprehensive dossier of primary sources on the Rape.Part 1, "The Records," includes two sources written as the Rape was underway. The first is a long set of documents produced by the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, a group of foreigners who strove to protect the Chinese residents. The second is a series of letters that American surgeon Dr. Robert Wilson wrote for his family during the same period. These letters are published here for the first time.The evidence compiled by the International Committee and its members would be decisive for the indictments against Japanese leaders at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo. Part 2, "The Judgments," reprints portions of the tribunal's 1948 judgment dealing with the Rape of Nanking, its judicial consequences, and sections of the dissenting judgment of Justice Radhabinod Pal.These contemporary records and judgments create an intimate firsthand account of the Rape of Nanking. Together they are intended to stimulate deeper reflection than previously possible on how and why we assess and assign the burden of war guilt.Timothy Brook is Professor of Chinese History and Associate Director of the Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies, University of Toronto, and is coeditor of Nation Work: Asian Elites and National Identities and Cultureand Economy: The Shaping of Capitalism in Eastern Asia, both published by the University of Michigan Press.

    The book opens with an introductory essay by Gian Carlo Calza presenting an overview of the changing world into which Hokusai was born and through which he lived. This is followed by a series of essays, composed by distinguished Western and Japanese scholars, that present new research on a range of crucial areas of interest in Hokusai studies.These form a context for the core of the book, which embodies a retrospective of Hokusai's entire career, divided into seven chapters. Each chapter provides a succinct account of a phase in Hokusai's life, followed by a series of the finest and most representative works of that period. Great care has been taken throughout to choose for reproduction the best-preserved original prints that reveal Hokusai's mastery of line and colour to full advantage.This magnificent pictorial survey of Hokusai's prints, paintings and drawings is the first publication in English to make such a rich selection widely available, and to demonstrate the extraordinary range and quality of Hokusai's achievement. The final component of the book is a detailed scholarly commentary on each illustration that provides not only the necessary technical information but also a revealing analysis of style, color, composition and motif.

    Frank gives a scrupulously detailed explanation of the critical months leading up to the dropping of the atomic bomb. Frank explains how American leaders learned in the summer of 1945 that their alternate strategy to end the war by invasion had been shattered by the massive Japanese buildup on Kyushu, and that intercepted diplomatic documents also revealed the dismal prospects of negotiation. Here also, for the first time, is a comprehensive account of how Japan's leaders were willing to risk complete annihilation to preserve the nation's existing order. Frank's comprehensive account demolishes long-standing myths with the stark realities of this great historical controversy.

    The simple fact that cloth tightly compressed into wrinkles or folds resists the penetration of dye is an opportunity--an opportunity to let the pliancy of textiles speak in making designs and patterns.People around the world have recognized this opportunity, producing resist designs in textiles by shaping and then securing cloth in various ways before dyeing. Yet in no other country has the creative potential of this basic principle been understood and applied as it has in Japan. Here, in fact, it has been expanded into a whole family of traditional resist techniques, involving first shaping the cloth by plucking, pinching, twisting, stitching, folding, pleating, and wrapping it, and then securing the shapes thus made by binding, looping, knotting, clamping, and the like. This entire family of techniques is called shibori.Designs created with shibori processes all share a softness of outline and spontaneity of effect. Spontaneity is shibori's special magic, made possible by exploiting the beauty of the fortuitous things that happen when dye enters shaped cloth.Usually it is in response to the fact that a craft is being lost that the need for preserving and documenting it arises. The motivation behind this book is no exception, but the authors have gone far beyond simple documentation. Extensive research and experimentation have led to the revival here of shibori techniques that were once well known but have now been largely forgotten in Japan. In addition to more conventional techniques, the work of contemporary fiber artists in Japan and abroad in shibori textile art and wearable art is presented, to suggest the extent of the creative innovation possible.The 104 color and 298 black-and-white plates include a photographic Gallery of Shibori Examples, based on Japan's largest collection of traditional shibori fabrics. Included also are a detailed guide to basic natural dyes used in Japan, the making and care of an indigo vat, and a list of suppliers in North America, as well as a glossary and bibliography. Now available in paperback, this full documentation of one of the world's most inventive and exciting dyeing techniques continues as a classic in the textile field.

    Supplementary learning material for the text Genki II Beginner's Japanese, including grammar practices and the Chinese characters (Kanji).

    Thai translation rights in Thailand by SIAM INTER COMICS"อิตโต้ นักเตะเลือดกังฟู ภาค 2 เล่ม 1"

    It would be no exaggeration to say that, for most people, they can never be completely mastered. Thus, the study of particles is a lifetime undertaking, and students need a lifelong companion to help them along the way. That companion is A Dictionary of Japanese Particles.Covering over 100 particles in alphabetical order, the dictionary explains the meanings of each (most have more than one) and gives sample sentences for each meaning.Illustrations are provided where necessary for clarification. There are also exercises at the back of the book for those who wish to test their knowledge of particle usage. Appendices and endpaper charts are provided for easy access.A Dictionary of Japanese Particles is an essential reference work, meant to be used over the years as students continue to confront puzzling particles.

    Dower's brilliant examination of Japan in the immediate, shattering aftermath of World War II.Drawing on a vast range of Japanese sources and illustrated with dozens of astonishing documentary photographs, Embracing Defeat is the fullest and most important history of the more than six years of American occupation, which affected every level of Japanese society, often in ways neither side could anticipate. Dower, whom Stephen E. Ambrose has called "America's foremost historian of the Second World War in the Pacific," gives us the rich and turbulent interplay between West and East, the victor and the vanquished, in a way never before attempted, from top-level manipulations concerning the fate of Emperor Hirohito to the hopes and fears of men and women in every walk of life. Already regarded as the benchmark in its field, Embracing Defeat is a work of colossal scholarship and history of the very first order.

    Covering courtly fiction, Buddhist writings, war tales, diaries, poems, and more, Seeds in the Heart explores a vast and variegated treasury of writings. Detailed textual examinations of classic texts--from the Kojiki to The Tale of Genji, from The Pillow Book of Sei Sh�nagon to Zeami's N� plays--allow students, lay readers, and scholars a new understanding and enjoyment of this great literature.

    

    This richly illustrated, encyclopedic book complementing a 1999 exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, documents Ainu archaeology, ethnology, history, and modern life, presenting their traditional artifacts, clothing, art, and belief systems in the past and today.

    With the growing popularity of the martial arts, more and more people are looking for reliable information on the fighting traditions of the redoubtable Japanese warriors. These rare and often misunderstood arts are demystified in the eight essays in Sword & Spirit. The authors are all highly skilled and qualified practitioners, who have spent decades living, training, and researching in Japan--and they are unique in that they can tell their tales in English.Volume one of the Classical Warrior Traditions of Japan series, Koryu Bujutsu, was hailed by Wayne Muromoto of Furyu: The Budo Magazine as "...probably the best book on martial arts this year, if not for several years past and hence..." Don't miss these beautiful, well-researched books!

    Enchanting illustrations illuminate this gentle tale of a mother's tenderness and a child's new discoveries. Written by one of Japan's most beloved authors, it has the timeless quality of a folktale that will speak across cultures.

    It has been edited with the needs of English-speaking users in mind, whether students, teachers, business people, or casual linguists, and special care has been taken at each stage of its compilation including the selection of entry words and their equivalents, the wording of the detailed explanations of Japanese words, the choice of example sentences, and even its functional page design to maximize its usefulness. What is furigana and why is it so important? Furigana refers to the small kana that are printed above or alongside kanji to show their pronunciation. With furigana superscripts, the beginner who is familiar with hiragana and katakana is able to read even the most difficult and obscure kanji at a glance. Other dictionaries either provide little or no guide to kanji readings or romanize some or all of the Japanese words and sentences. In the past, romanized dictionaries were of some value to students using textbooks that contained no Japanese script. Now, however, an increasing number of influential curricula around the world are based on a rationale and methodology that demands the introduction of hiragana and katakana from the earliest stages. Learners and their teachers using such curricula will inevitably feel more comfortable with a dictionary such as Kodansha s Furigana Japanese Dictionary, one that shows the pronunciation of kanji with a familiar and authentic kana script. Combining Kodansha's Furigana Japanese-English Dictionary (1995) and Kodansha's Furigana English-Japanese Dictionary (1996) in one portable. affordable, and user-friendly volume, this dictionary has the following unique features: o A basic vocabulary of 30,000 entries covers the most frequently used English and Japanese words o Special treatment has been given to hundreds of words, names, and phrases of special relevance to English-speaking students of Japanese o Semantic and usage differences between Japanese words and expressions are explained in clear English o Thousands of example sentences and phrases illustrate how Japanese words are used in context o Special information is provided on verb conjugations, formality, and other aspects of Japanese grammar and usage

    Dogen Zenji (1200-1253) is unquestionably the most significant religious figure in Japanese history. Founder of the Soto school of Zen (which emphasizes the practice of "zazen" or sitting meditation), he was a prolific writer whose works have remained popular for six hundred years. "Enlightenment Unfolds" presents even more of the incisive and inspiring writings of this seminal figure, focusing on essays from his great life work, "Treasury of the True Dharma Eye," as well as poems, talks, and correspondence, much of which appears here in English for the first time. Tanahashi has brought together his own translations of Dogen with those of some of the most respected Zen teachers and writers of our own day, including Reb Anderson, Edward Espe Brown, Norman Fisher, Gil Fronsdal, Blanche Hartman, Jane Hirschfield, Daniel Leighton, Alan Senauke, Katherine Thanas, Mel Weitzman, and Michael Wenger.

    Influenced early on by William Klein and Andy Warhol, Moriyama stands as one of Japan's central postwar photographers.

    The Pokmon 2000 Collectors Value Guide gives an overview of the major Pokemon characters, a description of the television show as well as an overview of the trading card game.

    Over 100 cyborgs, robots, and erotic super pin-ups fill each of these popular collection by world famous airbrush illustrator, Hajime Soroyama.

    The text gives measurements in metric (Japanese), and pounds and ounces. All the dishes are illustrated.

    

    Assigned at various times to the Third, Seventh and Ninth armies, the Black Panthers fought major engagements in six European countries and participated in four major Allied campaigns, inflicting heavy casualties on the German army and capturing or destroying thousands of weapons, despite severe weather, difficult terrain, heavily fortified enemy positions, extreme shortages of replacement personnel and equipment, and an overall casualty rate approaching 50 percent. Richly illustrated and containing many interviews with surviving members of the 761st, this work gives long overdue recognition to the unit whose motto was Come Out Fighting. It recounts the events that in 1978--33 years after the end of World War II--led to the 761st Tank Battalion's receiving a Presidential Unit Citation, the highest honor a unit can receive. Also described are the efforts that resulted, in 1997--53 years after giving his life on the battlefield--in the Medal of Honor being posthumously awarded to Sergeant Ruben Rivers.

    Each was an outstanding figure who manifested Zen in his own way. Ikkyu was unconventional and uncompromising, a relentless enemy of the sham and hypocrisy that pervaded the religious circles of his day. Hakuin underwent a lengthy and strenuous apprenticeship to become a Master Teacher of Zen, training hundreds of disciples and insisting that they endure the same trials and surmount the same massive barriers that he had. Ryokan, in contrast, was a gentle, self-effacing recluse who never became an abbot but lived in quiet hermitages, savoring nature and writing poetry. All three were artists of the highest order, employing brush, ink, and paper as a means of transmitting Zen teachings and creating unique works of art.These are three of the greatest Zen masters in history-each unique, each an outstanding artist, and each a teacher of future generations. The biographies of these three men, in one volume, constitute an enlivening reading experience, full of insight on leading a meaningful life.John Stevens lived in Japan for thirty-five years, where he was a professor of Buddhist studies at Tohoku Fukushi University in Sendai. Stevens is a widely respected translator, an ordained Buddhist priest, a curator of several major exhibitions of Zen art, and an aikido instructor. He has authored more than thirty books and is one of the foremost Western experts on aikido, holding a ranking of 7th dan Aikikai. Stevens has also studied calligraphy for decades, authoring the classic "Sacred Calligraphy of the East." Other John Stevens titles that are likely to be of interest include "The Philosophy of Aikido, " and "The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei.""

    This lavishly illustrated volume tells the story behind the making of the film, and reveals the secrets behind anime, the popular Japanese animation technique. Set in the remote forests of northern Japan, The Princess Mononoke is an eco-fable of medieval times in which industry and civilization struggle against nature and humanity. Hailed as one of the best animated features ever made, The Princess Mononoke is certain to enthrall audiences across the country.

    Embodying the marriage of beauty and functionality that is the key to the Japanese aesthetic, the objects presented in Katachi are made of materials that have played an important role in Japanese life for centuries: wood, bamboo, stone, fiber, metal, earth. The photographs, in black-and-white and color, showcase pieces ranging from exquisite geometric stone carvings and architecturally elegant shoji screens to such humble yet perfectly conceived objects as combs, sandals, rakes, and teapots. Twenty years in the making, photographer Takeji Iwamiya's masterwork is a lovingly rendered tribute to these objects and the culture they sprang from. Japanese concepts of shape and form have been a major influence on contemporary design throughout the world, and this eloquent collection will appeal to designers as much as to connoisseurs of Japanese art and culture.

    Each concert includes a setlist and information about the performance. There are also some original posed photographs, a chronology of every concert ever performed, a 12-page interview with the band members (conducted after vocalist Gackt's departure), and a sampling of tour goods and flyers.

    Enlightenment, this discourse claims, is neither a goal to be achieved nor a potential to be realized but the true status of all things. Every animate and inanimate object manifests the primordially enlightened Buddha just as it is. Seen in its true aspect, every activity of daily life--eating, sleeping, even one's deluded thinking--is the Buddha's conduct. Emerging from within the powerful Tendai School, ideas of original enlightenment were appropriated by a number of Buddhist traditions and influenced nascent theories about the kami (local deities) as well as medieval aesthetics and the literary and performing arts.Scholars and commentators have long recognized the historical importance of original enlightenment thought but differ heatedly over how it is to be understood. Some tout it as the pinnacle of the Buddhist philosophy of absolute non-dualism. Others claim to find in it the paradigmatic expression of a timeless Japanese spirituality. According other readings, it represents a dangerous anti-nomianism that undermined observance of moral precepts, precipitated a decline in Buddhist scholarship, and denied the need for religious discipline. Still others denounce it as an authoritarian ideology that, by sacralizing the given order, has in effect legitimized hierarchy and discriminative social practices. Often the acceptance or rejection of original enlightenment thought is seen as the fault line along which traditional Buddhist institutions are to be differentiated from the new Buddhist movements (Zen, Pure Land, and Nichiren) that arose during Japan's medieval period.Jacqueline Stone's groundbreaking study moves beyond the treatment of the original enlightenment doctrine as abstract philosophy to explore its historical dimension. Drawing on a wealth of medieval primary sources and modern Japanese scholarship, it places this discourse in its ritual, institutional, and social contexts, illuminating its importance to the maintenance of traditions of lineage and the secret transmission of knowledge that characterized several medieval Japanese elite culture. It sheds new light on interpretive strategies employed in pre-modern Japanese Buddhist texts, an area that hitherto has received a little attention. Through these and other lines of investigation, Stone problematizes entrenched notions of "corruption" in the medieval Buddhist establishment. Using the examples of Tendai and Nichiren Buddhism and their interactions throughout the medieval period, she calls into question both overly facile distinctions between "old" and "new" Buddhism and the long-standing scholarly assumptions that have perpetuated them. This study marks a significant contribution to ongoing debates over definitions of Buddhism in the Kamakura era (1185-1333), long regarded as a formative period in Japanese religion and culture. Stone argues that "original enlightenment thought" represents a substantial rethinking of Buddhist enlightenment that cuts across the distinction between "old" and "new" institutions and was particularly characteristic of the medieval period.

    As female writers they both inhabited and helped create a discursive world obsessed with the arts of concealment and self-display, the perils and possibilities—erotic, political, and literary—of real and metaphorical peepholes. As memoirists they were virtuosos in the exacting art of feminine self-representation.Fictions of Femininity explores the Heian memoirists' creations of themselves in four texts: Kagero nikki (The Kagero Memoir, after 974), Makura no soshi (The Pillow Book, after 994), Sarashina nikki (The Sarashina Memoir, after 1058), and Sanuki no suke nikki (The Memoir of the Sanuki Assistant Handmaid, after 1108). Essays on the individual memoirs pursue a dual interest, asking how each text works as a rhetorical construct and how it reflects the author's negotiations with Heian fictions about women and writing.Letting the memoirs themselves set the terms for exploring gender constructions, Fictions of Femininity addresses a spectrum of related issues. The reading of The Kagero Memoir probes two traditional avenues of feminine expression: the writing of waka and the discourse of Buddhist nunhood. Two essays on The Sarashina Memoir reveal a fine weave of literary, religious, and autoerotic fantasies, highlighting the intellectual gifts of a memoirist long misread as naive and girlish.The essay on The Memoir of the Sanuki Assistant Handmaid examines the use of spirit possession as metaphor for commemorative writing, tracing the balancing act its author performed in the midst of political intrigues at court. The relationship between the memoir and voyeurism takes center stage in the closing essay on The Pillow Book, which compares its author's treatment of the thematics of "seeing and being seen" with that of her chief rival, Murasaki Shikibu, creator of The Tale of Genji. Taken together, the essays in this book underscore the diversity of the Heian memoirists' responses to their roles as women and as writers in one of the most unusual epochs of Japanese history.

    Recent violent events in schools, together with increasing drop-out rates and bullying are undermining stereotypes about the effectiveness of the Japanese education system. This incisive and original book looks at Japanese high school from a student perspective and contextualises this educational turmoil within the broader picture of Japans troubled economic and political life.

    In his long career, Kitasono was instrumental in creating Japanese-language work influenced by futurism, dadaism, and surrealism before World War II and in contributing a Japanese voice to the international avant-garde movement after the war. This critical biography of Kitasono examines the life, poetry, and poetics of this controversial and flamboyant figure, including his wartime support of the Japanese state. Using Kitasono as a window on Japanese literature in the twentieth century, John Solt analyzes the relationship of Japanese writers to foreign literary movements and the influence of Japanese writers on world literature.

    As a student of Zen and butoh, Fraleigh witnesses her own artistic and personal transformation through essays, poems, interviews, and reflections spanning twelve years of study, much of it in Japan. Numerous performance photographs and original calligraphy by Fraleigh's Zen teacher Shodo Akane illuminate her words.The pieces of Dancing Into Darkness cross boundaries, just as butoh anticipates a growing global amalgamation. "Butoh is not an aesthetic movement grafted onto Western dance, " Fraleigh concludes, "and Western dance may be more Eastern than we have been able to see. "

    

    The camera is generally assumed to be unable to depict that which is not visible to the eye. And yet the photographer who wields it well can depict what lies unseen in his memory. --Eikoh HosoeEikoh Hosoe is an integral part of the history of modern Japanese photography. He remains a driving force in photography, not only for his own work, but also as a teacher and as an ambassador, fostering artistic exchange between Japan and the outside world. His influence has been felt in his native country and throughout the international photographic community.

    Pronunciation guide, glossary, cultural notes, and activity guides are included.

    Criss-crossing the country, his race becomes complicated, from hate groups to voters hesitant about him, but when the truth about his father finally comes out, the deciding vote will be cast by Takashi Jo.

    As a junior officer with no military training or indoctrination and less than ten weeks of active duty behind him, he had been assigned to be photographic officer for the First Marine Division. The Corps had never had a photographic division before, much less a field photographic unit. But Soule accepted the challenge, created the unit from scratch, established policies for photography, and led his men into combat. Soule and his unit produced films and

    It is written as a diary kept from April 1945 to April 1946 by Shinsuke Yamanaka, a fifty-three-year-old fan-maker living in Nezu, part of Tokyo's shitamachi (old-town) district. After the war, Shinsuke learns by chance that the Occupation forces are plotting a nefarious scheme: in order to cut Japan off from its dreadful past, they intend to see that the language is written henceforth using the alphabet. To fight off this unheard-of threat to the integrity of Japanese culture, seven beautiful women - the Seven Roses - take a stand. They include Tomoe, whose husband perished in a B29 raid and whose stepfather has gone mad; Fumiko and Takeko, whose elder sister died in an air raid; Sen, another war widow; Tokiko, who lost her parents and older brother; and Kyoko and Fumiko, whose entire families were wiped out.The seven, while resentful of Japan's leaders for having lured the country down the path to war and, painfully aware of their own responsibility in being so gullible, hate the United States. They set their sights on three powerful members of the education delegation who have come to finalize official policy regarding the Japanese language. The year portrayed was a bleak and painful time for Japan. Shinsuke's diary, however, is surprisingly cheerful, filled with a wealth of details of ordinary people's openhearted lives. The author draws a lively portrait of Japanese who, despite privation, find relief in laughter.

    Benjamin Lee Wren discusses the possibilities as people from different backgrounds seek a deeper meaning for their lives, without destroying their heritage, through experiences such as zazen, tai chi, ikebana, folk dancing, and the celebration of the liturgy. He focuses on living in the present rather than in the past or the future. Wren explains a merging of asceticism and aesthetics which leads to a philosophy and theology that appreciates less as more, asymmetry, simplicity, tranquillity, and the beauty of aging. He shows how through parallels between the Four Noble Truths and Eight Fold Path of the Buddha and the Eight Beatitudes of Jesus, people become more sensitive to the problems of social justice. The result of an understanding of Zen through the nonverbal and nonimage form of pure contemplation called zazen, Wren demonstrates, is an experience of depth and breadth into the root of one's own being. This practice does not discount a Christian background; instead, it leads to a deeper understanding of all aspects of life.

    Fujimoto asserts that it is Toyota's evolutionary learning capability that gives the company its advantage and demonstrates how this learning is put to use in daily work.

    The author explores the benefits of Kampo in this comprehensive guide to the use of this healing system.

    Whether exploring mystic mountains with conch-blowing holy men, partying in the brash fast-moving cities, or contemplating Zen in exquisite rock gardens, the author's witty and informative commentary unfolds the mysteries of this often misunderstood land.

    The immediate consequence of this action was the order for all Japanese American citizens on the West Coast to leave. When it became evident that it was impossible for Japanese Americans to move to any other states, the government created the War Relocation Authority, which rounded up and incarcerated, or interned, 100,000 Japanese Americans in camps scattered across the western United States. This collection * presents key documents and memoirs from the period * offers literary perspectives on the times * documents the era in print and photographsEach document is presented with its author indicated.

    For those with a taste for Japan, Basho enthusiasts and the growing number of haiku poets and readers alike, here is a rare glimpse into a man who may now be reappraised as the favourite uncle guardian of Japan s quiet soul."

    

    The first is to examine the impact of shogunate/domain relations on warlord legitimacy. Although the shogunate had supreme power in foreign and military affairs, it left much of civil law in the hands of warlords. In this civil realm, Japan resembled a federal union (or “compound state”), with the warlords as semi-independent sovereigns, rather than a unified kingdom with the shogunate as sovereign. The warlords were thus both vassals of the shogun and independent lords. In the process of his analysis, the author puts forward a new theory of warlord legitimacy in order to explain the persistence of their autonomy in civil affairs.The second purpose is to examine the quantitative dimension of warlord rule. Daimyo, the author argues, struggled against both economic and demographic pressures. It is in these struggles that domains manifested most clearly their autonomy, developing distinctive regional solutions to the problems of protoindustrialization and peasant depopulation. In formulating strategies to promote and control economic growth and to increase the peasant population, domains drew heavily on their claims to semisovereign authority and developed policies that anticipated practices of the Meiji state.

    Senryu are interesting, however, precisely because they reflect the thoughts and feelings of ordinary townspeople in a way that other more orthodox types of Japanese literature do not. In his introduction on the nature and historical background of the form, Makoto Ueda explores the elements of humor and satire contained in senryu, highlighting the mores that lie behind the laughter the poems evince.

    Photographs taken in France by Aoi Tsutsumi (堤 あおい). This is the second of two Mizérable photobooks.

    

    occupation of Japan transformed a brutal war charged with overt racism into an amicable peace in which the issue of race seemed to have disappeared. During the Occupation, the problem of racial relations between Americans and Japanese was suppressed and the mutual racism transformed into something of a taboo so that the two former enemies could collaborate in creating democracy in postwar Japan. In the 1980s, however, when Japan increased its investment in the American market, the world witnessed a revival of the rhetoric of U.S.-Japanese racial confrontation.Koshiro argues that this perceived economic aggression awoke the dormant racism that lay beneath the deceptively smooth cooperation between the two cultures.This pathbreaking study is the first to explore the issue of racism in U.S.-Japanese relations. With access to unexplored sources in both Japanese and English, Koshiro is able to create a truly international and cross-cultural study of history and international relations.

    It was an independently produced, experimental, avant-garde work from Japan whose brilliant use of cinematic technique was equal to if not superior to that of contemporary European cinema. Those studying Japan, focusing on the central involvement of such writers as Yokomitsu Riichi and the Nobel Prize winner Kawabata Yasunari, have seen it as a pillar of the close relationship in the Taishō era between film and artistic modernism, as well as a marker of the uniqueness of prewar Japanese film culture.But is this film really what it seems to be? Using meticulous research on the film’s production, distribution, exhibition, and reception, as well as close analysis of the film’s shooting script and shooting notes recently made available, Aaron Gerow draws a new picture of this complex work, one revealing a film divided between experiment and convention, modernism and melodrama, the image and the word, cinema and literature, conflicts that play out in the story and structure of the film and its context. These different versions of A Page of Madness were developed at the time in varying interpretations of a film fundamentally about differing perceptions and conflicting worlds, and ironically realized in the fact that the film that exists today is not the one originally released. Including a detailed analysis of the film and translations of contemporary reviews and shooting notes for scenes missing from the current print, Gerow’s book offers provocative insight into the fascinating film A Page of Madness was—and still is—and into the struggles over this work that tried to articulate the place of cinema in Japanese society and modernity.

    It is written as a diary kept from April 1945 to April 1946 by Shinsuke Yamanaka, a fifty-three-year-old fan-maker living in Nezu, part of Tokyo's shitamachi (old-town) district. After the war, Shinsuke learns by chance that the Occupation forces are plotting a nefarious scheme: in order to cut Japan off from its dreadful past, they intend to see that the language is written henceforth using the alphabet. To fight off this unheard-of threat to the integrity of Japanese culture, seven beautiful women - the Seven Roses - take a stand. They include Tomoe, whose husband perished in a B29 raid and whose stepfather has gone mad; Fumiko and Takeko, whose elder sister died in an air raid; Sen, another war widow; Tokiko, who lost her parents and older brother; and Kyoko and Fumiko, whose entire families were wiped out.The seven, while resentful of Japan's leaders for having lured the country down the path to war and, painfully aware of their own responsibility in being so gullible, hate the United States. They set their sights on three powerful members of the education delegation who have come to finalize official policy regarding the Japanese language. The year portrayed was a bleak and painful time for Japan. Shinsuke's diary, however, is surprisingly cheerful, filled with a wealth of details of ordinary people's openhearted lives. The author draws a lively portrait of Japanese who, despite privation, find relief in laughter.

    

    

    

    In the case of the subway system, lines have been extended, and some rapid-transit lines have been added. New code numbers for each station were also given for foreign travelers to read. In addition, as a result of urban development in areas such as Roppongi, Shinagawa, and Shinodome, quite a few new company buildings, stores, and hotels have appeared. This new edition of the "Tokyo City Altas, provides the most current information for getting around the city.

    Be the wind chime Turn storms into song Be the pebble Let time smooth you

    It is widely held that spoken and written Japanese require separate efforts by the student, as if these two aspects were in fact distinct languages.A first step toward alleviating this situation was taken by Yasuko Mitamura in 1985 with the publication of Let's Learn Hiragana and Let's Learn Katakana, which continue to help thousands of students every year to master these two forms of Japanese script. Now, Let's Learn Kanji goes to the heart of the problem: the learning of kanji (i.e., Chinese characters as they are used in Japan).Not simply a brilliant exposition but also a workbook, it teaches the student how to write the basic strokes, how to put these together into full-fledged kanji, and how kanji function in the context of example sentences. Progress is continually checked, and the student is encouraged through quizzes and exercises. The result: 250 fundamental characters learned almost painlessly.

    He presents here a wealth of new material, including interviews with key players past and present, which lifts the veil that has hitherto obscured the entrepreneurial nature of Japanese companies like Canon, Casio, Seiko, Sharp, and Yamaha.Japanese entrepreneurs, working in the consumer electronics industry during the 1960s and 70s, took unheralded American inventions such as microchip cameras, liquid crystal displays, semiconductor lasers, and sound chips to create products that have become indispensable, including digital calculators and watches, synthesizers, camcorders, and compact disc players. Johnstone follows a dozen micro-electronic technologies from the U.S. labs where they originated to their eventual appearance in the form of Japanese products, shedding new light on the transnational nature of twentieth-century innovation, and on why technologies take root and flourish in some places and not in others.At this time of Asian financial crisis and the bursting of Japan's bubble economy, many are tempted to dismiss Japan's future as an economic power. We Were Burning serves as a timely warning that to write off Japan—and its invisible entrepreneurs—would be a big mistake.

    Kunichika's designs were drawn from established Ukiyo-e genres like Kabuki actor prints ("yakusha-e") and prints of beautiful women ("bijinga"), he was however a man of his time and this is reflected in his modern use of colour, composition and subjects. The book includes reproductions of 135 of Kunichika's prints, an extensive bibliography and an overview of signatures and carvers seals.

    In her thirty years of teaching Japanese cooking to foreign residents in Tokyo, author Keiko Hayashi has proved these assumptions wrong. She has become a master at simplifying difficult traditional Japanese cooking procedures without compromising taste or appearance, and of explaining the use of Japanese ingredients and finding readily available Western substitutes. Simple and Delicious Japanese Cooking contains more than one hundred recipes, all of which are easy to follow, kitchen tested, and presented in full color. The recipes are categorized into hors d'oeuvres, soups, seafood, chicken and eggs, meats, vegetables, rice noodles, and desserts. In addition, the author offers four seasonal menus. She also explains traditional Japanese cooking utensils and techniques and provides an exhaustive guide to basic ingredients. Simple and Delicious Japanese Cooking is the perfect introduction to one of the world's great cuisines.

    The areas included are phonology, syntax, semantics, morphology, language acquisition, sentence processing, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics. This Handbook is for those who are familiar with the topic at the basic level and wish to investigate it in more detail, but it also can be used as a language-specific and typological reference. Written by leading scholars in the field Provides a unique and authoritative survey of Japanese linguistics Each chapter presents an overview of the topic and discusses current concerns and future directions

    The text situates these erotic images within the contexts of sexuality, gender and power and re-establishes shunga in Japanese culture and creativity, covering questions of aesthetics and shunga in official art history.

    His name was Ryoma, which is the title of the only biographical novel of Japan's greatest samurai in English.This is the authentic story of Ryoma's key role in Japan’s bloody revolution, by which the country was transformed from a land ruled by feudal lords and samurai, under the hegemony of the shogun, into a modern industrialized nation under the unifying rule of the Emperor. Mid-19th-century Japan was a caldron of political upheaval and intrigue and bloody inner-fighting among samurai. This most enthralling age in the annals of Japan brought forth some of the most fascinating men in that nation’s history. Those men modernized Japan, and laid the foundation for the militarism of WWII and the economic powerhouse of today. This close look into the hearts and minds of those two-sworded men provides a deep insight into the political, cultural, and psychological roots of modern Japan.

    According to Japanese mythology, the cosmos took form spontaneously from chaos.  Lighter elements formed the abode of the gods, while heavier ones became the shapeless Earth.  Many divinities emerged in these two realms, but the seventh celestial couple consisted of Izanagi and Izanami, a god and goddess whose destiny was to establish the sea-kissed islands of Japan in the unruly waters far below.This pair created innumerable further deities, or kami, responsible for the world’s natural phenomena, though the greatest of all their offspring was the sun goddess Amaterasu.  She was brought forth by Izanagi and given dominion over the sky.  The eight gods and goddesses she produced with her brother Susano are said to be the ancestors of Japan’s emperors.Many other tales can be found in Realm of the Rising Sun: Japanese Myth, one volume in an exciting series called Myth and Mankind, a culture-by-culture examination of world myth and its historical roots.  Whether exploring the myths of Persia, early America, China or Greece, each book brings an ancient culture to life as never before.As a result, this is a world history like no other.  Every book is filled with the strange stories, mystic rites, angry gods, vision quests and magic symbols at the heart of all cultures – but left out of most history books.  Such myths are central to understanding how, since the dawn of time, people around the world have sought to explain birth, death, creation, love and other mysteries of life.  These myths lie at the intersection of imagination and history, wisdom and experience, dreams and reality.

    The Western world became aware of this when Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon was awarded the Grand Prize at the Venice film festival in 1951 and the Oscar for best foreign film in 1952. More recent examples include Shohei Imamura's Eel, which won the Palm d'Or (Best Picture) at Cannes in 1997.From Book to Screen breaks new ground by exploring important connections between Japan's modern literary tradition and its national cinema. The first part offers an historical and cultural overview of the working relationship that developed between pure literature and film. It deals with three important periods in which filmmakers relied most heavily on literary works for enriching and developing cinematic art. The second part provides detailed analyses of a dozen literary works and their screen adoptions.

    In addition to the historical information and discussion of aesthetic issues that appear in the introductions to each of the chapters, the book presents English translations of otherwise inaccessible major works on Japanese aesthetics, beginning with a complete and annotated translation of the first work in the field, Nishi Amane's Bimyogaku Setsu (The Theory of Aesthetics).In its four sections (The Subject of Aesthetics, Aesthetic Categories, Poetic Expression, Postmodernism and Aesthetics), Modern Japanese Aesthetics discusses the momentous efforts made by Japanese thinkers to master, assimilate, and transform Western philosophical systems to discuss their own literary and artistic heritage. Readers are introduced to debates between the unconditional supporters of Western ideas (Onishi Hajime) and more cautious approaches to the literary and artistic past (Okakura Kakuzo, Tsubouchi Shoyo). The institutionalization of aesthetics as an academic subject is discussed and the work of some of Japan's most distinguished professional aestheticians (Onishi Yoshimori, Imamichi Tomonobu), philosophers (Kusanagi Masao, Nishitani Keiji, Sakabe Megumi), and literary critics (Karatani Kojin) is included. Modern Japanese Aesthetics is a sophisticated and energetic volume on the process that led to the construction of aesthetic categories used by Japanese and, later, Western scholars in discussing Japanese literature and arts. This important work will be essential reading for anyone concerned with the formation of a critical vocabulary in Japan.Modern Japanese Aesthetics: A Reader is a companion volume to A History of Modern Japanese Aesthetics (UH Press, 2001).

    Priestesses are the acknowledged religious leaders within the home, clan, and village--and, until annexation by Japan approximately one hundred years ago, within the Ryukyuan Kingdom. This fieldwork-based study provides a gender-sensitive look at a remarkable religious tradition. Susan Sered spent a year living in Henza, an Okinawan fishing village, joining priestesses as they conducted rituals in the sacred groves located deep in the jungle-covered mountains surrounding the village. Her observations focus upon the meaning of being a priestess and the interplay between women's religious preeminence and other aspects of the society.Sered shows that the villages social ethos is characterized by easy-going interpersonal relations, an absence of firm rules and hierarchies, and a belief that the village and its inhabitants are naturally healthy. Particularly interesting is her discovery that gender is a minimal category here: villagers do not adapt any sort of ideology that proclaims that men and women are inherently different from one another. Villagers do explain that because farmland is scarce in Okinawa, men have been compelled to go to the dangerous ocean and to foreign countries to seek their livelihoods. Women, in contrast, have remained present in their healthy and pleasant village, working on their farms and engaging in constant rounds of intra- and interfamilial socializing. Priestesses, who do not exert power in the sense that religious leaders in many other societies do, can be seen as the epitome of presence. By praying and eating at myriad rituals, priestesses make immediate and tangible the benevolent presence of kami-sama (divinity).Through in-depth examination of this unique and little-studied society, Sered offers a glimpse of a religious paradigm radically different from the male-dominated religious ideologies found in many other cultures.

    Considering the great influence textbooks have as interpreters of history, politics and culture to future generations of citizens, it is no surprise that they generate considerable controversy.

    In this book, a team of three leading scholars in the field explore the dynamic relationship among science, technology and Japanese society, examining how it has contributed to economic growth and national well-being. The book includes several case studies in which competing views are presented, creating a synthesis of recent debates. Throughout, readers gain insight into the complex interplay between different values and interests, knowledge, and power. Chapters discuss government policy, the private sector and community responses; computers and communication; the automobile industry, the aerospace industry and quality control; the environment; consumer electronics; medical care; and the role of gender. This is an ideal introductory text for students in the sociology of science and technology, the history and philosophy of science, and Japanese studies. Up-to-date research and case studies make this an invaluable resource for readers interested in the nature of science and technology in the twenty-first century.

    In this book, an anthropologist reads its research, exploring Japan through the eyes of Japanese researchers and discovering patterns of change that are both uniquely Japanese and shared by consumers in other advanced industrial nations.

    For this superlative book the authors visited six of these extraordinary artists, then blended a brief, illuminating text with color photographs, calligraphy, and illustrated sections to convey the essence of each art form. Readers will visit backstage at a Bunraku puppet theater, learn how the famous Japanese swords are made, and much more! 2000 Notable Children's Books (ALA), Notable Children's Trade Books in the Field of Social Studies 2000, and National Council for SS & Child. Book Council, Notable Children's Trade Books in the Field of Social Studies 2000, National Council for SS & Child. Book Council

    She analyzes aspects of painting, architecture and sculpture created expressly under the patronage of Iemitsu at three major monuments - the castles an Nijo and Nagoya and the sumptuous decoration of the great Tokugawa mausoleum, Nikko Toshogu. In highlighting key examples of artistic production, Gerhart brings to the fore significant themes and issues that exemplify political art in the first half of the 17th century.

    Excellent translations of some of Koda's most provocative short works are included.

    It provides analysis of the problem of career mobility in science, the status quo in university and government laboratories, relations between scientists and lay administrators and the problems encountered by women scientists.Japanese Science contests the view that Japan's relatively poor scientific record has been the product of cultural factors and instead demonstrates the crucial importance of moribund policy decisions in holiding back dynamic and ambitious scientists.

    The widespread social, political, economic, and cultural changes that occurred during the years of Japan's modernization movement in the early twentieth century are discussed in thirteen essays by Japanese and American scholars.The contributors employ a diversity of disciplinary and historical approaches: the volume contains essays on intellectual, literary, economic, diplomatic, political, and social history covering the period from 1900 to 1945. The essays relate the new individualism of the Taisho years to such phenomena as literary naturalism, political socialism, the failure of economic expansion, and industrial and agricultural unrest.

    Cities reverberate with the whirl of crisscrossing trains, pulsating neon, and hurry-scurrying crowds. High-tech skyscrapers rise from the rice paddies. Rural festivals unleash a torrent of raw energy in an otherwise tranquil countryside. And ancient volcanoes-after snoozing for centuries-awaken with a thunderous roar to remind the islands' inhabitants of the mighty forces of nature.Beneath all the frenetic forward motion of present-day Japan lies a foundation built on over a millennium of recorded history and a vast legacy of artistic and cultural traditions. The Japanese often pause to reflect on their past-for there lies the key to their national identity, so often obscured in today's confusing web of satellites and semiconductors.The contemporary color schemes, time-honored traditions, and dynamic natural beauty of Japan come to life in this lavishly illustrated book. Geisha and robots, Fuji and fine arts, shrines and skyscrapers-they're all here. An illuminating foreword by Mike Mansfield, former U.S. senator and ambassador to Japan, precedes a gallery of over 140 color photographs that highlight the nature, modern life, traditional arts, and contemporary culture of Japan. Accompanying the collage of photos are essays by author-poet Dorothy Britton, journalist Frederick Hiroshi Katayama, art historian Martha J. McClintock, and architect Azby Brown, who offer incisive perspectives on the country, its arts, and its people.Through word and picture, this one volume brings together the contrasting faces of Japan. From the legendary cherry blossoms of Yoshinoyama to the colorful kitsch of urban architecture, Japan: A Living Portrait captures the eclectic synthesis of things past, present, and future that makes this island nation so endlessly fascinating.

    The series draws on the expertise and research of leading Japanese specialists as well as the foremost Western historians of Japan. From prehistory to the present day, the series encompasses the events and developments in Japanese polity, economy, culture, religion and foreign affairs. In the distinguished tradition of Cambridge histories, the completed series provides an indispensable reference tool for all students and scholars of Japan and the Far East.