Born of a functional need rather than aesthetic ideal, golf range nets span spaghetti snack bars and a host of 70 other remarkable combinations are pictured and described in this quintessential glimpse of Tokyo's architectural grass roots.

    It is no wonder that they should feel the need for a solid reference book, one they can continually turn to throughout their studying careers. The Handbook of Japanese Verbs is just that book.The Introduction takes the first step toward comprehension by pointing out the features of Japanese verbs that stand in contrast to their English counterparts, such as tense, politeness level, auxiliaries, and transitive and intransitive forms.Part 1 shows through tables and concise commentary how Japanese verbs are categorized, conjugated, and combined with auxiliaries. Each form is followed by a short exercise, reinforcing the points just made.Part 2 takes up the forms described in the first part and shows how they function in full-fledged sentences. Each discussion is followed by examples and exercises, ensuring that the student has understood the forms under discussion.In the appendices, the student is offered a number of look-up methods, including an English-Japanese verb dictionary. This completes the apparatus necessary for a solid handbook on Japanese verbs, a book students can rely on for many years to come

    Sadako's determination to fold one thousand paper cranes and her courageous struggle with her illness inspired her classmates. After her death, they started a national campaign to build the Children's Peace Statue to remember Sadako and the many other children who were victims of the Hiroshima bombing. On top of the statue is a girl holding a large crane in her outstretched arms. Today in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, this statue of Sadako is beautifully decorated with thousands of paper cranes given by people throughout the world.

    In the years that followed, under Emperor Hirohito, conformity was the norm and the Japanese psyche became one of selfless devotion to country and emperor; soon Japanese soldiers were to engage in mass murder, rape, and even cannibalization of their enemies. Horror in the East examines how this drastic change came about. On the basis of never-before-published interviews with both the victimizers and the victimized, and drawing on never-before-revealed or long-ignored archival records, Rees discloses the full horror of the war in the Pacific, probing the supposed Japanese belief in their own racial superiority, analyzing a military that believed suicide to be more honorable than surrender, and providing what the Guardian calls "a powerful, harrowing account of appalling inhumanity...impeccably researched."

    Never before have the complexities and dramas of urban preservation been as keenly documented as in Preserving the World’s Great Cities. In researching this important work, Anthony Tung traveled throughout the world to visit remarkable buildings and districts in China, Italy, Greece, the U.S., Japan, and elsewhere. Everywhere he found both the devastating legacy of war, economics, and indifference and the accomplishments of people who have worked and sometimes risked their lives to preserve and renew the most meaningful urban expressions of the human spirit.From Singapore’s blind rush to become the most modern city of the East to Warsaw’s poignant and heroic effort to resurrect itself from the Nazis’ systematic campaign of physical and cultural obliteration, from New York and Rome to Kyoto and Cairo, we see the city as an expression of the best and worst within us. This is essential reading for fans of Jane Jacobs and Witold Rybczynski and everyone who is concerned about urban preservation. From the Hardcover edition.

    With pages full of tummy-tempting foods, the books in the World Snacks series are a delicious way to introduce even the littlest eaters to cuisines from all around the globe.

    Snow, Wave, Pine takes a close look at some of the most classic of those patterns, enabling the reader to recognize and appreciate these motifs wherever they appear, and providing inspiration to anyone interested in design or arts and crafts.The first half of the book introduces seventy-five important patterns, as depicted on a variety of objects. Seeing the lotus blossom or flowing water patterns, for instance, on antiques including brocaded kabuki robes, lacquerware trays, and metal sword guards throws into relief the patterns themselves, rather than the objects, making possible a new level of understanding and enjoyment. The informative text describes how each pattern arose, and the significance it had in terms of art, religion, and even politics. The reader has a sense of being empowered to look at any Japanese art, craft or design form with a new and educated eye.The second half of the book shows a rich and dynamic selection of more than one thousand family crests. Crests are very stylized motifs whose variety and artistry are remarkable. With a minimum of lines, they are able to express the essence of such forms as a pair of facing crows with wings outstretched; the rounded back of a monkey viewed from behind as it sits hunched over, alone; or the elegant single counter-clockwise whorl. Despite being hundreds of years old, they are extremely modern in their sensibility.Lavishly illustrated with over 450 color plates, and with text and photos alike by experts in the traditional Japanese arts, Snow, Wave, Pine is a treasurehouse of information for anyone interested in design forms or in Japanese culture.

    The History and Culture of Japanese Food provides an in-depth historical view of the origins of the Japanese diet and foodways.

    As the police investigation gets underway, surprising turns of events suggest they may be up against a band of serial killers who ruthlessly manipulate their victims and their families, the police, and the media for the entertainment of the viewing public. With penetrating psychological insights into the minds of her characters and vivid portrayals of modern-day Tokyo, Miyabe maintains the tension in this fast-paced, five-volume blockbuster.Available in e-book format in five separate volumes, to be released from December 2014 through February 2016.

    Free of cholesterol and salt and low in calories and fat, this natural food is inexpensive, easy to use, and delicious. The Book of Tofu contains everyday recipes, easy to follow instructions for making tofu at home, and an updated list of national and international tofu manufacturers.Sure to delight those interested in tasty, healthy foods, The Book of Tofu is the definitive guide to tofu.

    Based on extensive interviews with criminals, police officers, lawyers, journalists, and academics, this is the first academic analysis in English of Japan'scriminal syndicates.Peter Hill argues that the essential characteristic of Japan's criminal syndicates is their provision of protection to consumers in Japan's under- and upper-worlds. In this respect they are analogous to the Sicilian Mafia, and the mafias of Russia, Hong Kong and the United States. Although theyakuza's protective mafia role has existed at least since the end of the Second World War, and arguably longer, their sources of income have not remained constant. The yakuza have undergone considerable change in their business activities over the last half-century. The two key factors driving thisevolution have been the changes in the legal, and law-enforcement environment within which these groups must operate, and the economic opportunities available to them. This first factor demonstrates that the complex and ambiguous relationship between the yakuza and the state has always been morethan purely symbiotic. With the introduction of the boryokudan (yakuza) countermeasures law in 1992, the relationship between the yakuza and the state has become more unambiguously antagonistic. Assessing the impact of this law is, however, problematic; the contemporaneous bursting of Japan'seconomic bubble at the beginning of the 1990s also profoundly and adversely influenced yakuza sources of income. It is impossible to completely disentangle the effects of these two events.By the end of the twentieth century, the outlook for the yakuza was bleak and offered no short-term prospect of amelioration. More profoundly, state-expropriation of protection markets formerly dominated by the yakuza suggests that the longer-term prospects for these groups are bleaker still: nolonger, therefore, need the yakuza be seen as an inevitable and necessary evil.

    Most of these texts, however, did not become "classics" until the end of the nineteenth century, in a process closely related to the emergence of Japan as a modern nation-state and to the radical reconfiguration of notions of literature and learning under Western influence. As in Europe and elsewhere, the construction of a national literature and language with a putative ancient lineage was critical to the creation of a distinct nation-state.This book addresses the issue of national identity and the ways in which modern European disciplinary notions of "literature" and genres played a major role in the modern canonization process. These "classics" did not have inherent, unchanging value; instead, their value was produced and reproduced by various institutions and individuals in relation to socio-economic power. How then were these texts elevated and used? What kinds of values were given to them? How was this process related to larger social, political, and religious configurations?This book, which looks in depth at each of the major "classics," explores these questions in a broad historical context, from the medieval period, when multiple canons competed with each other, through the early modern and modern periods. Throughout, the essays focus on the roles of schools, commentators, and socio-religious institutions, and on issues of gender. The result is a new view of the transformation of the Japanese canon and its intimate connection with the issue of national and cultural identity.

    The Japanese-English section is arranged alphabetically according to pronunciation for ease of reference, and the Japanese characters are romanized. There are over 40,000 references, with careful distinction of all translation variants and thousands of phrases and idioms to illustrate typical usage.

    has enlightened us with new facts associated with the subjects portrayed in netsuke and new insight into the background of this unique world... An excellent, well-written tome and a worthy addition to one's library.--International Netsuke Society JournalNetsuke--tiny sculptures used to secure pouches to the kimono--have long been an obsession for collectors in both East and West. They depict a variety of figures, both domestic and exotic, from marketplace tradesmen to otherworldly beings to perfectly rendered animals. This superbly illustrated, accessibly written volume examines netsuke in the context of Japanese life and details the origins of designs that have evolved through the centuries. It delves into the minds of the artists and explores the question of the objects' use, both functional and symbolic. Featuring 300 netsuke from three world-renowned collections, this is the definitive work on these remarkably minute, endlessly intricate objects.

    How did Japan, which was until the middle of the 19th century an unknown set of islands in the northeastern tip of Asia, succeed to become in the 20th century a modern superpower, astounding the world with it's militaristic and technological achievements?How did it manage to combine between ancient values and institutions with Western progress, without crumbling and losing it's own unique cultural identity?Why did it walk on the path of aggressiveness, which peaked at the Attack on Pearl Harbor and the conquering of vast Asian lands? How did Japan rise from the ruin of atoms bombs during World War Two, and became in one generation to the second economical power in the world? What are the characteristics of the regime, market, society and culture in Japan today, and what makes the Japanese most worried about their future? What is Japan's place in the international sphere and what are it's relations with the state of Israel? That book answers all these questions and many more.This book tells the tremendous story of Modern Japan from the breaching of it's gates to the start of the 21st century.

    Who are the Japanese? How did their religious and spiritual perception had evolved? How did the art of painting, architecture and theatre of Japan came to be? How did the first novel in the world and shortest poems were created in the elusive islands?Who are the samurais and how did they affect on the life in Japan? What is Zen?What are Shogun, ninja and geisha? What were the values, institutions and patterns of behaviour that made Japan able to absorb the Western civillization without losing it's own unique culture? These questions and many more are answered in this book.This book tells the magnificent story of Japan from it's conception to the entrance of the West, in the middle of the 19th century.

    Its rich culture and ancient traditions are elegant and enchanting. Whether you’re on vacation or traveling on business, you’ll want the local language in your pocket and JAPANESE a language map® is the answer! This unique guide will cover all your language needs. There’s even a section for the essential Japanese signs you’ll see during your travels, making it easy to find your way around. With the Japanese language at your fingertips, you’ll be comfortable making reservations and dining out. Being polite by saying “please” (kudasai) and “hello” (konnichiwa) will be easy and fun. Light-weight and durable, take this Language Map® everywhere you roam—from the bustling Ginza in Tokyo to the beautiful Snow Festival in Sapporo.Hundreds of words and phrases you’ll need mostDivided into key categories such as Asking Questions, Dining Out, Meeting People, Shopping, Sightseeing, Transportation and much moreUnique snap-open and fold designPronunciation is easy with simple phoneticsUltra-thin (barely 1/8” thick) and light-weight (under two ounces)Laminated for durabilityFolds up like a map to slip easily into your pocket or bagFull color, original artwork

    He was several times a cabinet member and, for ten years, mayor of Tokyo. A strong advocate of representative government, he both witnessed and propelled Japan's transformation from a late feudal society to a modern state. His autobiography, available in English for the first time, gives an insider's account of key episodes and leaders over seven decades of Japanese history.Ozaki's political life spanned the Meiji rise to power and Japan's defeat in World War II, and he played a significant role in each phase of that epic. As a young reporter, he gained preeminence with incisive calls for supremacy in East Asia. A European trip that showed him the devastation of World War I converted him to advocacy of arms reduction and international cooperation. He watched with dismay as Japan encountered isolation and military disaster. Known for the courage of his convictions, he became a marked man, carrying a death poem in his pocket. His sturdy independence survived the American Occupation, as he deplored his associates' readiness to heed occupation dictates.Ozaki's story reverberates with the immediacy of his personal knowledge of every major Japanese political figure for three-quarters of a century. It is the account of a man who made history as well as writing it. His story is the story of modern Japan. Through it, readers will gain first-hand knowledge of Japanese constitutional history, one with rich relevance for contemporary Japanese politics.

    

    It is also the first book in this language to offer an in-depth analysis of his music. Toru Takemitsu’s works are increasingly popular with Western audiences and Peter Burt attempts for the first time to shed light on the hitherto rather secretive world of his working methods, as well as place him in context as heir to the rich tradition of Japanese composition in the twentieth century.

    Entries cover areas such as literature, film, architecture, food, health, political economy, religion and technology and they range from shorter definitions, histories or biographies to longer overview essays giving an in-depth treatment of major issues.With over 700 alphabetically arranged entries, this Encyclopedia will be an invaluable reference tool for students of Japanese and Asian Studies, as well as providing a fascinating insight into Japanese culture for the general reader. Suggestions for further reading, a comprehensive system of cross-referencing, a thematic contents list and an extensive index all help navigate the reader around the Encyclopedia and on to further study.

    It is a journey in time where the visitor is a guest in old Japan. The picture of a world long thought lost is offered with only a few compromises to the modern age into which the visitor is immersed freed from the banality of everyday life. Thus a ryokan is a combination of Japanese art and culture of bygone centuries. The reader will find: architecture, painting, color woodblock printing, ceramics, lacquer work, ike-bana, sho, everyday utensils, traditional clothing and exquisite cuisine. Additionally, the reader will learn about the traditional rituals, ceremonies and pleasures such as the Way of Tea, no theater, the martial arts, seasonal festivals, The Way of the Samurai as well as legends and customs. This publication brings to life and gives insight into the history, traditions, and arts of Japan.

    It includes over 100 recipes in step-by-step format, from simple miso soups to elegant sashimi.

    The Japanese called this new religious movement and its believers Kirishitan. This volume explores the popular religious life and culture of the native adherents, which have been so often ignored in conventional studies of Christianity in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Japan. Subjects included are lay missionaries, followers engagement in symbols and rituals, Japanese catechism, and apostasy, underground practice, and martyrdom under persecution. This book provides fascinating new information about the faith and practice of the Japanese followers, and expands the horizon of historical studies of Japanese Christianity. It will be an important source for students of Japanese studies, religious history, and studies of cross-cultural interaction."

    The collection explores day-to-day teaching in Japan from the teacher's erspective relying on first hand accounts by those within the system.

    

    Concept art and designs for the Sega Dreamcast game Phantasy Star Online

    An upstate New York book dealer, Hall went to Japan in 1859 to collect material for a book on the country and to serve as correspondent for Horace Greely's New York Tribune. Seeing the opportunities for commerce in Yokohama, he helped found Walsh, Hall, and Co., an institution that became one of the most important American trading houses in Japan. Hall was a shrewd businessman, but also a perceptive recorder of life around him. Privately preserved for more than a hundred years, this document shows Hall to have been an astute observer and story-teller as well as an influential opinion-maker in the United States during the crucial decade of the American Civil War and the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate. While contemporary American and British diplomatic accounts have focused on the official record, Hall reveals the private side of life in the treaty port. The publication of his journal, now in abridged form for the student and general reader, furnishes us with an insightful and sensitive portrayal of Japan on the eve of modernity.

    

    Shinto explores the beliefs, customs, and historical roots of the religion in order to provide an overview of the faith as it is practiced today.

    Combining financial theory with new data and original case studies, they show why the Japanese financial system developed as it did and how its history affects its ongoing evolution.The authors describe four major periods within Japan's financial history and speculate on the fifth, into which Japan is now moving. Throughout, they focus on four questions: How do households hold their savings? How is business financing provided? What range of services do banks provide? And what is the nature and extent of bank involvement in the management of firms? The answers provide a framework for analyzing the history of the past 150 years, as well as implications of the just-completed reforms known as the Japanese Big Bang.Hoshi and Kashyap show that the largely successful era of bank dominance in postwar Japan is over, largely because deregulation has exposed the banks to competition from capital markets and foreign competitors. The banks are destined to shrink as households change their savings patterns and their customers continue to migrate to new funding sources. Securities markets are set to re-emerge as central to corporate finance and governance.

    In Japan, where, until recently, the extended family often lived under the same roof, social programs designed to facilitate interaction between old and young have proliferated. Leng Leng Thang offers an in-depth view of one of those programs, an unusual social welfare institution called Kotoen. Kotoen is a pioneering facility for multigenerational living, providing both daycare for preschoolers and a home for elderly residents. With its twin mottoes of fureai (being in touch) and daikazoku (large extended family), it has been the subject of widespread media attention and has served as a model for other institutions. Yet Kotoen has never before been studied seriously.Under its director's inspiring leadership, Kotoen looks unusually promising, but Thang is wary of simplistic conclusions. Her interviews, research, and work as a volunteer at Kotoen reveal the complaints common among some elderly residents toward their surroundings in old age institutions as well as the painful persistence of the traditional family ideal. Yet far from calling the experiment a failure, Thang challenges accepted wisdom and so-called common sense to reveal the advantages and limitations of the relationships fostered between Kotoen's grandchildren and grandparents. The lessons learned from Kotoen illuminate the urgency of re-engaging the generations in an aging society and provide direction for improving the quality of life for all.

    Their successes and failures resulted in the catastrophic event that globalized the Cold War ---the Korean War. Based on recently released secret documents, Richard Thornton puts the reader inside the American, Soviet and Chinese decision-making processes during these earth-shaking events, events that have been misinterpreted for decades.

    

    After World War II, it became Japan's fastest growing religion. Currently, membership is over ten million people worldwide. They recently opened their second university campus in California, and they are active in the United Nations, among other peace organizations.

    Preliminary details about the geisha world and life of Ichimaru are presented, followed by information on kimono design, manufacture, and types, and the

    While her eldest sister (now acknowledged as the mother of Asian American fiction), was writing stories of downtrodden Chinese immigrants under the name Sui Sin Far, Winnifred's Japanese romance novels and stories became all the rage, thrusting her into the glittering world of New York literati. Diana Birchall chronicles the sometimes desperate, sometimes canny, and always bold course of her grandmother's amazing professional career as a journalist, a bestselling novelist, and a Hollywood scriptwriting protegee of Carl Laemmle at Universal Studios.

    A fascinating look at ancient Japanese weaponry, complete with 150 dazzling full-color photographs.

    In Japan, it is prosecutors who wield the greatest control over these values and who therefore reveal most clearly the character of the Japanese way of justice. In this book, David T. Johnson portrays Japanese prosecutors at work; the social, political, and legal contexts that enable and constrain their actions; and the content of the justice thereby delivered. Johnson is the first researcher, Japanese or foreign, to gain access to the frontline prosecutors who charge cases and the backstage prosecutors who manage and direct them. He shows that prosecutors in Japan frequently harmonize to imperlatives of justice that Americans often regard as irreconcilable: the need to individualize cases alike. However, their capacity to correct offenders and to obtain contrite, complete confessions from criminal suspects. Johnson argues that this extreme reliance on confessions occasionally leads to extreme efforts to extract them. Indeed, much of the most disturbing prosecutor behavior springs directly or indirectly from the system's inordinate dependence on admissions of guilt. The major achievements of Japanese criminal justice are thus inextricably intertwined with its most notable defects, and efforts to fix the defects threaten to undermine the accomplishments. Clearly written and skillfully argued, this comparative analysis will be of interest to students of Japan, criminology, and law and society. It illuminates unexplored realms in Japan's criminal justice system while challenging readers to examine their assumptions about how crime should be prosecuted in their own systems of criminal justice.

    The photographs show quaint country homes, lush gardens, simple decorations and traditional dishes and recipes. The book presents the traditional lifestyle of the Japanese countryside and describes how elements can be used in present-day urban living.

    This book about Koson is the first Western publication of his oeuvre of prints and paintings. It provides all known information on the artist's life and work, his teachers and publishers, facsimiles of his signatures and seals and illustrations of an estimated seventy-five percent of his total print output. This title is the definitive reference book for Koson collectors. "Crows, cranes & camellias" accompanied an exhibition of Koson's work held at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam in 2001.

    For Japan, data on family size and structure, fertility and infant mortality, marriage patterns, urban and rural populations, and migration from one region of the country to another have been preserved for several centuries in temple registration documents, population and cadastral surveys conducted by the Tokugawa government from the17th to 19th centuries, and other sources of information. In this volume, Akira Hayami, one of the pioneers of historical demography in Japan, reports on the findings of researchers who are working with these rich sources of data. He explains the importance of their conclusions not only for historical studies but also for understanding the demography of contemporary Japan and its foreseeable future.

    Because of the vast geographical separation between these two Axis nations, and because of some of very real philosophical and operational differences, the alliance was fraught with difficulty. But in the vast middle-ground of the Indian Ocean, these reluctant allies did come together to conduct naval operations that might well have had disastrous consequences for the Allies but for the intervention of fate and the inevitable friction of war. Captain Krug served in U-boats in that theater and in the Far East and, with the assistance of scholars of both nations, he has produced a very readable and meticulously researched account of German and Japanese naval interaction. Besides thoroughly covering--for the first time--this neglected topic, the authors provide valuable insight into the faulty mechanism of an alliance between totalitarian powers, characterized by suspicion and a reluctance to freely share information and assets. They also bring to light the difficulties--and ultimate consequences--of dealing with the megalomania and criminal intellect of Adolf Hitler, which resulted in war-crime trials for some of the participants. Proving that not every aspect of the world's greatest war has been covered, this book is a valuable contribution to the ever-expanding lore of the war and will be required reading for those with an interest in naval operations, global strategy, and international diplomacy during the period.

    With the help of Jan Zwartendijk, acting Dutch consul, and Chiune Sugihara, Japan's vice consul in Lithuania, the refugees obtained documents for their perilous escape from Nazi persecution. From Japan, many refugees moved on to Dutch-controlled Curacao or other final destinations. Decades after the war, and one year before his death in 1986, Sugihara was finally honored by Israel with the "Righteous Among the Nations" Award for the help he gave to the Jews in 1940. He also received the Raoul Wallenburg Award posthumously in 1990. However, in Japan little was known about Sugihara's heroic actions for more than five decades. The author, Seishiro Sugihara (no relation to Chiune), reveals a pattern of deception and obfuscation by Japan's foreign ministry to obstruct recognition of Sugihara's philanthropy. The Sugihara episode, the author contends, is only one in a long line of scandalous cover-ups which have plagued the Ministry, including its ill-fated Twenty-One Demands upon Nationalist China in 1915; and more infamously the failure of its Washington Embassy to follow orders and deliver the "declaration of war" on December 7, 1941 which resulted in the Pearl Harbor operation being stigmatized as a "sneak attack." His book is the first to demonstrate that, while Japan's military was abolished during the Occupation, the Foreign Ministry secured its own future at the expense of Japan and the Japanese people, and deliberately and systematically placed Sugihara's act of kindness beyond public scrutiny.

    The fifty-four images -- illustrating one chapter each -- date from the mid-seventeenth century and shimmer with uncommon beauty and delicacy.

    Central to Shinto beliefs are the kami, animistic gods perceived in all aspects of nature. They exist in the nooks and crannies of houses and inhabit streams, trees and mountains, while others are sacred to human activities such as agriculture and arts and crafts. The principle rites of appeasing the gods - considered essential to a stable society - include acts of cleansing, gratitude, tolerance and obedience to tradition.

    It thus seeks to avoid a generalized account of public relations to the military and diplomatic events of the early 1930s, offering instead a nuanced account of the shifts in public and popular opinion in this crucial period.

    Through fiction, memoirs, film scripts, poetry, and manga (Japanese cartoons), the volume brings to light the personal and communal memories that have disappeared into silence. Readers get a new and vivid perspective on such events as the Manchurian Incident, the rape of Nanking, Japanese American internment, and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The authors include well-know Japanese figures, such as Yukio Mishima and Dazai Osamu, and such contemporary authors as Hayashi Kyoko, Choko Ishigaki, and Keiji Nakazawa. American authors adding their perspective include Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, Donald Ritchie, and Gladys Swan. Work by Linda Gregg, Martha Zweig, and other American authors is also included.

    Their guild tie to overlords, notably the great monastery Enryakuji, was forged early in the medieval period, giving them a protected monopoly and allowing them to flourish. Demand for credit was strong in medieval Kyoto, and brewers profitably recirculated capital for loans.As the medieval period progressed, the brewer-lenders came into their own. While maintaining overlord ties, they engaged in activities that brought them into close contact with every segment of Kyoto's population. The more socially prominent brewers served as tax agents for religious institutions, the shogunate, and the imperial court, and were actively involved in a range of cultural pursuits including tea and linked verse.Although the merchants themselves left only the faintest record, Suzanne Gay has fully and convincingly depicted this important group of medieval commoners.

    But will the ship destroy all land by causing a deadly worldwide flood? And can the swimsuits get any more revealing? Suggested for mature readers.