He embarks on a road trip to escape it all, and he soon discovers the only one he can count on completely is his faithful, recently adopted dog, who helps him see the light at the end of the tunnel. Illustrating the valuable lessons of friendship and loyalty, this is a heartwarming tale of two endearing characters and their shared adventure into the unknown.

    Jack Fletcher is shipwrecked off the coast of Japan - his beloved father and the crew lie slaughtered by ninja pirates.Rescued by the legendary sword master Masamoto Takeshi, Jack's only hope is to become a samurai warrior. And so his training begins.But life at the samurai school is a constant fight for survival. Even with his friend Akiko by his side, Jack is singled out by bullies and treated as an outcast.With courage in his heart and his sword held high, can Jack prove himself and face his deadliest rival yet?

    An ancient Buddha being restored; Perugino managing his workshop; a Japanese Noh actor rehearsing; a fanatic of Baroque music lecturing to a handful of old villagers; tourists intruding into the rituals of Japan’s most sacred shrine; a heron hunting.… Seiobo hovers over it all, watching closely.Melancholic and brilliant, Seiobo There Below urges us to treasure the concentration that goes into the perception of great art, leading us to re-examine our connection to immanence.

    Aya Kitō was diagnosed with a disease called spinocerebellar degeneration when she was 15 years old. The disease causes the person to lose control over their body, but because the person can retain all mental ability the disease acts as a prison. So in the end she cannot eat, walk or talk.Aya keeps a diary of not only what she does but how she feels and the hardships she must endure. Initially, the diary's purpose was for Kitō to chronicle impressions she had about how the disease was affecting her daily life. As the disease progressed, however, the diary became Kitō's outlet for describing the intense personal struggles she underwent in coping, adapting, and ultimately trying to survive her disease. As she notes in one entry, "I write because writing is evidence that I am still alive."Through family, medical examinations and rehabilitations, and finally succumbing to the disease, Aya must cope with the disease and live on with life until her death at the age of 25.

    It's also one of the longest-running manga series in the U.S.! Samura's stirring tale of a warrior's search for redemption and a young girl's quest for revenge has taken the world by storm, winning numerous awards across the globe and spawning an anime series and a novel spinoff. In Dark Horse's The Art of Blade of the Immortal, Hiroaki Samura's lush color paintings, detailed line work, and selected story pages and chapter breaks are on display in an oversized, 9" x 12," hardcover collection. This Dark Horse edition also includes an exclusive section with thirty-two extra pages of artwork, an introduction by acclaimed artist Geof Darrow (Hard Boiled), and a translated afterword by Samura.

     At last, the master Says, "That's hard to explain." And That is all she says.This unsatisfying answer sets Wabi Sabi on a journey to uncover the meaning of her name, and on the way discovers what wabi sabi is: a Japanese philosophy of seeing beauty in simplicity, the ordinary, and the imperfect. Using spare text and haiku, Mark Reibstein weaves an extraordinary story about finding real beauty in unexpected places. Caldecott Medal-winning artist Ed Young complements the lyrical text with breathtaking collages. Together, they illustrate the unique world view that is wabi sabi. A New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book for 2008!

    It is rather Kenya Haras attempt to explore the essence of White, which he sees as being closely related to the origin of Japanese aesthetics – symbolising simplicity and subtlety. The central concepts discussed by Kenya Hara in this publication are emptiness and the absolute void. Kenya Hara also sees his work as a designer as a form of communication. Good communication has the distinction of being able to listen to each other, rather than to press one's opinion onto the opponent. Kenya Hara compares this form of communication with an “empty container”. In visual communication, there are equally signals whose signification is limited, as well as signals or symbols such as the cross or the red circle on the Japanese flag, which – like an “empty container” – permit every signification and do not limit imagination. Not alone the fact that the Japanese character for white forms a radical of the character for emptiness has prompted him the closely associate the color white with emptiness.

    The spellbinding world of Hiromi Kawakami; the hair-raising horror of Otsuichi; the haunting, poignant prose of Banana Yoshimoto; even the poetic word-play of Yoko Tawada whatever a readers taste, he or she is sure to find something of interest and value in this book, suitable for students at the intermediate level and above. As in real Japanese novels, the text on each page runs from top to bottom and from right to left. Each double-page spread features translations of all the difficult passages. In the back of the book, moreover, is a built-in Japanese-English learners dictionary and a notes section covering issues of nuance, usage, grammar and culture that come up in each story. Best of all, the books comes with a free audio CD containing narrations of the stories, performed by a professional voice actress.

    Behind the Pink Curtain focuses on the art and industry of one of the most notorious sectors of Japanese filmmaking, the erotic Pink Film, or pinku eiga genre, and the closely related Roman Porno films produced by Nikkatsu studios from 1971 to 1988. A phenomenon distinct from the cheaply-produced hardcore Adult Video (AV) market, from the early 60s onwards major Japanese film studios and independent producers alike have kept up a conveyor belt level of output of pornographic features intended purely for cinema release. Still today, just short of 100 such titles are shot on 35mm every year intended for screening in a specialist network of adult cinema across the nation. In recent years, many have found themselves released on DVD in the West or screened at international film festivals, while many of Japan's most noted filmmakers today have cut their teeth in this industry. Just how close are the links between the arthouse and the grindhouse in Japan? Read about the ins and outs of Japanese censorship from the wartime onwards, and how topless deep sea diving girls came to woo local audiences in the 50s. Learn how a TV nature documentary maker ended up helming nude female Tarzan movies, and how 60s mavericks Koji Wakamatsu and Masao Adachi met up with John and Yoko at Cannes while on the way to the Golan Heights to make a film about Palestinian revolutionaries. How Deep Throat's Harry Reems wound up in Tokyo starring in a zany sex comedy about a penis transplant gone awry, and how one of Japan's most famous literary figures ended up the subject of the country's first gay porno movie. How one of Nikkatsu's leading directors went it alone to make a film about powerboat racing and ended up in the bad books of the Yakuza, and how the anti-Bush sex farce Horny Home Tutor: Teacher's Love Juice came to be re-titled as The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai and became one of the most talked about Japanese films of recent years, playing at over twenty international film festivals. Based on extensive interviews with many of the leading figures in the field, Behind the Pink Curtain is a colorful and exhaustive trawl through Japan's most vibrant and prolific filmmaking sector.

    Reproduced from the finest surviving edition of a rare manuscript, this book brings Hiroshige and Eisen's portrait of daily life in 19th-century Japan to Western audiences for the first time.

    How shocking that you haven't been forced to surrender even now.By this point, even I am forced to expect a lot from you.Not all of the game takes place on the board.How about taking a little peek on the outside this time around?They say that if you know your enemy, you need not fight a hundred battles.The difficulty level depends on you.The manner in which you've fought until now will greatly influence the difficulty of this game.

    This volume, the first in a new contemporary architecture series, presents his manifesto for architecture and in so doing showcases the architect's works and projects to date. Recently realized buildings, such as the T-House' and House O' are presented alongside designs, sketches and models of unrealized works and competition entries.

    This memoir chronicles his extraordinary life and intellectual pursuits.

    The discoveries made, however, are so far-reaching that a large portion of economics literature will have to be modified to accommodate another half to the macro economic spectrum of possibilities that conventional theorists have overlooked. In particular, Japan's Great Recession showed that when faced with a massive fall in asset prices, companies typically jettison the conventional goal of profit maximization and move to minimize debt in order to restore their credit ratings. This shift in corporate priority, however, has huge theoretical as well as practical implications and opens up a whole new field of study. For example, the new insight can explain fully the precise mechanism of prolonged depression and liquidity trap which conventional economics - based on corporate profit maximization - has so far failed to offer as a convincing explanation. The author developed the idea of yin and yang business cycles where the conventional world of profit maximization is the yang and the world of balance sheet recession, where companies are minimizing debt, is the yin. Once so divided, many varied theories developed in macro economics since the 1930s can be nicely categorized into a single comprehensive theory, i.e., the Holy Grail of macro economics The policy implication of this new discovery is immense in that the conventional aversion to fiscal policy in favor of monetary policy will have to be completely reversed when the economy is in the yin phase. The theoretical implications are also immense in the sense that the economics profession will no longer have to rely so much on various rigidities to explain recessions that have become the standard practice within the so-called New Keynesian economics of the last twenty years.

    "The Gothic & Lolita Bible" is a quarterly, mook (magazine/book hybrid) that's a combination fashion magazine, culture guide, and art book. The Bible caters to fans of two separate but related fashions out of Japan, Gothic and - to a greater extent - Lolita. The Lolita look, a sweet, modest, Victorian-influenced fashion with origins in Japanese street fashion, has a particularly strong and growing fan base in the United States. The Japanese Bible has played an instrumental role in promoting and standardizing the Gothic and Lolita styles, and the U.S. Bible aims to achieve the same success in the American market, where there's a growing desire for more information in English.

    In-depth interviews with curators and essays by leading art critics finally bring these exciting art spaces to life for an English-speaking audience.More information online at: http: //artspacetokyo.com Book Specifications 12 highly detailed, beautifully rendered maps of neighborhoods both on and off the beaten path in Tokyo insider information into the best cafes, restaurants and shops in these neighborhoods over 50 beautiful pen and ink illustrations of the art spaces and interviewees lavishly bound in cloth with a silk screened cover and thick, high-quality papers throughout Reviews and Press "Much of the charm of the guide is in the little observations, the sly asides and the high and wide originality of the artists, whom Mod and Rawlings capture and pin to the page like a collection of polychromatic butter?ies. This gorgeous book is a working guide, but it's also a work of art. " -- GRAPHIC SPOTLIGHT, Kirkus Review..". an unexpectedly stunning bit of cultural travelogue from Chin Music Press." -- KHOI VINH, Subtraction "A new guide to the Tokyo art scene points the way." -- BENJI LANYADO, The Guardian"Art Space Tokyo ... is a gem of a publication satisfying a longstanding need for English-language material on the terrain it tackles." -- NEILTON CLARKE, Art Monthly Australia "Lovely design with care and an eye for detail make it a total must have piece in my opinion." -- ULESHKA ASHER, WorldChanging "[I]nsight into the city's world of contemporary art ... readers are treated to a variety of revealing interviews with gallery owners and art fair operators, among others, as well as essays by art critics and other specialists." -- CRISTOPH MARK, Daily Yomiuri Extended DescriptionArt Space Tokyo is the first book of its kind to capture with both a critical and broad sweeping eye the current state of art in Tokyo. Art Space Tokyo introduces readers to twelve of the city's most distinctive and exciting galleries and museums through a compilation of interviews with the directors and curators of each of these spaces. Readers are given rare insight into why these spaces exist, how they became what they are and where they're heading. Furthermore, through other interviews with the directors of auction houses, art fairs, collectors and media figures, as well as six essays by art specialists, Art Space Tokyo delves into the complexity of Tokyo's resurgent contemporary art scene. Editorial and DesignEditor and co-author Ashley Rawlings is a specialist in postwar Japanese art. After graduating with a BA in Japanese studies from the University of Cambridge, he moved to Tokyo in 2005, where he worked as a freelance editor, writer and translator. His writing on the Tokyo art scene has appeared in several Japanese and international printed and online publications, including The Japan Times, ART iT, ArtAsiaPacific and Artforum.com. He is now based in New York, where he works as features editor of ArtAsiaPacific.Designer and co-author Craig Mod (craigmod.com) is a Tokyo based print designer and online developer. He is a cofounder of Chin Music Press (chinmusicpress.com), an independent press putting out beautifully made books on Japan. He is also a cofounder of Hitotoki (hitotoki.org), a website creating literary experience maps imbuing otherwise anonymous cityspaces with individual experiences. He was awarded a Fabrica fellowship in 2005 and served as a judge for the 85th ADC awards.Photos, art maps, and detailed information at: http: //artspacetokyo.com

    Her Japanese translation of L. M. Montgomery's beloved children's classic Anne of Green Gables, Akage no An (Red-haired Anne), was the catalyst for the book's massive and enduring popularity in Japan. A book that has since spawned countless interpretations, from manga to a long-running television series, and has remained on Japanese curriculum for half a century. For the first time, the bestselling biography of Hanako Muraoka written by her granddaughter, Eri Muraoka, and translated by the award-winning Cathy Hirano (The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up), is available in English. A young girl born into an impoverished farming family in Yamanashi Prefecture, when Hanako Muraoka is given the opportunity to attend the illustrious girls' school Toyo Eiwa Jogakuin, she falls in love with the English language, and with translating poetry. This love of the written word leads to a career as a children's writer, but her burgeoning literary life is cut tragically short with the death of her son and the bankruptcy of her husband's printing company. When the Second World War brings an end to her stint reading children's stories over the radio—for which she is known across Japan as "Aunty Radio"—she turns to her first love: translation. It was the story of a young girl in a pastoral setting with a love of poetry that spoke most powerfully to Muraoka's heart. Amidst the wail of air raid sirens, she began translating her copy of Anne of Green Gables into Japanese around 1943, completing the majority of the work during the Second World War. In 1952, despite the crumbling of the Japanese publishing industry and the censorship enforced by the occupation, a publisher took a chance on an unknown translator, and the rest is history. From rural Japan to mid-century Tokyo, Anne's Cradle tells the complex and captivating story of a woman who came of age in conservative twentieth-century Japan, and risked everything to bring the best of children's literature to her people, and cultivated a literary career that led generations of Japanese readers to fall in love with a plucky redhead from Prince Edward Island.

    It is a disciplined art form in which the arrangement is a living thing where nature and humanity are brought together.Ikebana: The Art of Arranging Flowers, a classic Ikebana text, has now been completely updated for modern readers. Written by Shozo Sato, a well-respected and renowned Ikebana expert, this book presents a fascinating overview of the history of Ikebana to present day, and introduces classic Ikebana styles such as Rikka, Seika and Moribana to Freestyle. The reader is familiarized with the tools of Ikebana and the basic Ikebana flower-arranging techniques. Simple and detailed instructions guide Ikebana enthusiasts through the process of making dozens of stunning arrangements.

    He is also a major writer in the tradition of Japanese Modernism, and exerts a massive influence on the popular and literary culture of today's Japan. The Edogawa Rampo Reader presents a selection of outstanding examples of his short fiction, and a selection of his non-fiction prose. Together, they present a full and accurate picture of Rampo as a major contributor to the Japanese literary scene, helping to clarify his achievements to the English-speaking world. All the content of the Rampo Reader is brand-new to English. His non-fiction work has never been translated into English before. This is the only place to find a comprehensive one-volume introduction to the world of Edogawa Rampo.

    I'm quite surprised to see that you still haven't surrendered.The Golden Witch has extremely high hopes for you.Have you figured out the structure of this world by now?You have no chance of victory unless you know the rules.Please, enjoy your game with the Witch to your heart's content.The difficulty level is equal.Equal for both you and the Witch.

    

    He foresaw their intentions of taking India and linking up with the two other Axis Powers, Germany and Italy, in an attempt to conquer the Eastern Hemisphere. US naval forces had been severely surprised and diminished in Pearl Harbor and the army was outnumbered and ill-prepared to take on the invading hoards. One of his few options was to form a defensive line on the eastern side of the Patkai and Himalayan Ranges, there he could look for support from the Chinese and Burmese. It was to be the only defence to a Japanese invasion of India.To support and supply these troops, fighting in hostile jungle terrain where overland routes had been cut off, he desperately needed to set up an air supply from Eastern India. His problem was lack of aircraft and experienced pilots to fly the dangerous 'Hump, over the world's highest mountains. Hence came Operation Seven Alpha, a plan to enlist the aircraft, DC-3s, and pilots, veterans of World War One, of American Airlines. This newly formed Squadron would fly these medium-range aircraft in a series of long-distance hops across the Pacific and Southern Asia to the Assam Valley in India. They would then create and operate the vital supply route carrying arms, ammunition and food Eastward to the Allied bases and return with wounded personnel. This is the story of this little-known operation in the early days of the Burma Campaign.This book is based on the true experiences of those who were involved and is a fitting tribute to the bravery and inventiveness of a band of men who answered their country's desperate call at the outset of the war against Japan in Asia.

    Known to carry large wicker baskets filled with tea utensils through the streets and surrounding hills of Japan's capital, Baisao set up shop wherever he ended up and brewed tea for those who came to enjoy the scenery with him. Establishing a quiet, simple life, Baisao spent his final years composing poetry, brewing tea, and teaching Zen, in the process becoming a well-loved figure. These poems, memoirs, and letters tell us more about this endearing person and trace his long life's profound spiritual journey. This comprehensive translation includes nearly all of Baisao's writings, giving us a deep look at this remarkable man.

    The dashing male-role players in its musical theatre productions enjoy the adulation of a predominantly female audience for whom these handsome idols represent ideal masculinity, while, at the same time, these 'men' in turn are reflected and magnified by the overwrought femininity of their female-role counterparts. This volume resounds with the voices of those closest to Takarazuka, the girls and women who have danced, sung, and acted in its limelight. Using exclusive interviews, historical records, autobiographies, and years of close-hand observations, former Revue translator and voice actor Leonie Stickland extensively explores the aspirations, endeavors, and experiences of Takarazuka's creators, performers, and adoring fans. Stickland's book simultaneously elucidates gender issues which have impacted upon the life-stages of women in Japan throughout the past century.

    This is the setting of Post-Dated, a chronicle of one man's erratic education far from home . . . linguistic blunders, broken branches, mischievous coworkers, eccentric clients, a strict (but hilarious) master . . . adventures that he realizes are just the beginning of a nonstop emotional roller coaster. But then again. . . there are lessons to be learned even in the most irregular of circumstances.

    The book includes an author's note about samurai swords and a glossary of Japanese terms.

    Until now there has been neither a comprehensive survey of Japanese modernist fiction nor an anthology of translations to provide a systematic introduction. Only recently have the terms modernism and modernist become part of the standard discourse in English on modern Japanese literature and doubts concerning their authenticity vis-a-vis Western European modernism remain. This anomaly is especially ironic in view of the decidedly modan prose crafted by such well-known Japanese writers as Kawabata Yasunari, Nagai Kafu, and Tanizaki Jun'ichiro-. By contrast, scholars in the visual and fine arts, architecture, and poetry readily embraced modanizumu as a key concept for describing and analyzing Japanese culture in the 1920s and 1930s.This volume addresses this discrepancy by presenting in translation for the first time a collection of twenty-five stories and novellas representative of Japanese authors who worked in the modernist idiom from 1913 to 1938. Its prefatory materials provide a systematic overview of the literary movement's salient features--anti-naturalism, cosmopolitanism, the concept of the double self, and actionism--and describe how modanizumu evolved from its early jagged edges into a sophisticated yet popular expression of Japanese urban life in the first half of the twentieth century. The modanist style, characterized by youthful exuberance, a tongue-in-cheek tone, and narrative techniques like superimposition, is amply illustrated.Modanizumu introduces faces altogether new or relatively unknown: Abe Tomoji, Kajii Motojiro, Murayama Kaita, Osaki Midori, Tachibana Sotoo, Takeda Rintaro, Tani Joji, Yoshiyuki Eisuke, and Yumeno Kyusaku. It also revisits such luminaries as Kawabata, Tanizaki, and the detective novelist Edogawa Ranpo. Key works that it culls from the modernist repertoire include Funahashi Seiichi's Diving, Hagiwara Sakutaro's Town of Cats, Ito Sei's Streets of Fiendish Ghosts, and Kawabata's film scenario Page of Madness. This volume moves beyond conventional views to place this important movement in Japanese fiction within a global context: an indigenous expression born of the fission of local creativity and the fusion of cross-cultural interaction.

    Marc Peter Keane describes the history, design, and aesthetics of tea gardens, from T’ang China to the present day, with over one hundred stunning photographs, floor plans, and illustrations. The most extensive book on this genre ever published in English, The Japanese Tea Garden is a rich resource for garden lovers, landscape designers, and architects—and anyone who admires the striking aesthetic of the Japanese garden.Marc Peter Keane lived in Japan for 20 years, designing gardens for individuals, companies, and temples. He has written 3 other books on Japanese garden design. He is affiliated with the Research Center for Japanese Garden Art at the Kyoto University of Art and Design, the East Asian Program at Cornell University, and the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies at Columbia University.

    He is recognised as having been the leading light of the Ukiyo-e School during its golden age, and his influence upon the work of Western artists has been beyond measure. He produced in the region of 2,000 woodblock prints, approximately one third of which take their subjects from the licensed pleasure quarter of Edo, with the remainder being made up of images of popular beauties, pairs of famous lovers, historical and mythical figures, domestic scenes, and the physiognomic studies for which he is best-known. With 90 reproductions of the artists prints, designs grouped and discussed according to subject, and with illustrations of publishers marks, artists signatures, and the names of figures commonly inscribed upon his works, this reference guide provides the most comprehensive resource for identifying the subjects portrayed in Utamaros prints to date.

    Born in Tokyo in 1797, his talent became evident by the tender age of 12, when he became an apprentice to a famous print master. Starting out with vivid illustrations of cultural icons — including Kabuki actors and Japanese heroes — he moved on to a unique treatment of warrior prints, incorporating elements of dreams, omens, and daring feats that characterized his distinctive style. These dramatic eighteenth-century illustrations represent the pinnacle of his craft. One hundred and one full-color portraits of legendary samurai pulse with movement, passion, and remarkably fine detail. A must for collectors of Japanese art and a perfect first work for those who want to start their own collection, it includes brief captions and a new introduction.

    Thirty years after the last whale was captured and slaughtered in Australia, this incisive account tells the very human story of the characters and events that brought whaling to an end. This fair and balanced account portrays the raw adventure of going to sea, the perils of being a whaler, and the commitment that leads activists to throw themselves into the path of an explosive harpoon. Accompanied by a wonderful photographic record of the time, this is the action-packed history of a town reliant on whaling dollars pitted against a determined band of protesters.

    He also wrote a variety of texts on theater and performance that have, until now, been only partially available in English.Zeami: Performance Notes presents the full range of Zeami's critical thought on this subject, which focused on the aesthetic values of no and its antecedents, the techniques of playwriting, the place of allusion, the training of actors, the importance of patronage, and the relationship between performance and broader intellectual and critical concerns. Spanning over four decades, the texts reflect the essence of Zeami's instruction under his famous father, the actor Kannami, and the value of his long and challenging career in medieval Japanese theater.Tom Hare, who has conducted extensive studies of no academically and on stage, begins with a comprehensive introduction that discusses Zeami's critical importance in Japanese culture. He then incorporates essays on the performance of no in medieval Japan and the remarkable story of the transmission and reproduction of Zeami's manuscripts over the past six centuries. His eloquent translation is fully annotated and includes Zeami's diverse and exquisite anthology of dramatic songs, Five Sorts of Singing, presented both in English and in the original Japanese.

    Organized by the Walker Art Center in close collaboration with Hiroko Kudo, the artist's widow, it features approximately 70 works covering the full trajectory of his amazingly productive career, which spanned from the late 1950s through the 80s. Born in Japan, Kudo first gained notoriety in the Tokyo art scene of the late 50s. He immigrated to Paris in 1962, working in a range of media--objects, sculpture, installation, drawing and painting--and presenting numerous Happenings and performances. Kudo's work and activities intersect with many important postwar artistic trends--including French Nouveau Realisme, Fluxus, Pop art, 60s anti-art tendencies and 80s Postmodernism. Throughout his life and career, Kudo remained particularly Japanese while his art and vision were consistently and uniquely transcultural, internationalist and cosmopolitan. This beautifully designed exhibition catalogue includes an essay examining Kudo's philosophy, the evolution of his artistic vocabulary and his place in art history by curator Doryun Chong; a reflection by artist Mike Kelley; a selection of Kudo's writings, interviews with the artist and other historical criticism; and an illustrated chronology by Hiroko Kudo.

    Presenting the world’s most popular sutra in ancient Chinese seal script, it includes a new English translation, a transliteration of the original Zen chant, and an introduction that discusses the history, meaning, and spiritual significance of the Heart Sutra and Asian calligraphy. Buddhists and artists alike will delight in this inspired and meditative treatment of a treasured wisdom source.Artist Nadja Van Ghelue has studied traditional calligraphy and sumie painting. She runs the online gallery www.theartofcalligraphy.com.

    In the new book from noted authors Marcia Iwatate and Geeta Mehta, Japan Living continues the themes of their highly successful Japan Houses with 30 specially designed houses that transcend function and resonate with spirit.The houses represented in Japan Living reflect the many changes in the dynamics of the new Japanese society, including an aging population and the desire to remain single; while others embody plenty of creativity, self-expression and individuality. Throughout, a return to traditional materials and design elements is married with such present-day requirements as minimalism, flexibility, a small kitchen, a beautiful bathroom, energy efficiency and electronic gadgetry. Each of these homes is an exquisite representation of the integrity consistently found within Japanese interior design, both in new construction and old.

    An understanding of its forms is therefore essential to any serious student of the Japanese language. This programmed course is carefully designed to teach the basic and correct forms which the learner should master for his or her own use, by first looking at the various typical situations to see when respect should and should not be shown in Japanese, and then going on to see how respect is expressed in special forms of speech. In this way the learner is shown how to identify the type of respect for used, the person to whom respect is being shown, and the equivalent form in colloquial language. The insights into both Japanese culture and language will help any student or businessperson traveling to Japan or speaking Japanese on a regular basis.Understand which situations require respect language.Identify the most suitable grammar, honorifics, and more for a wide range of situations.Self–tests to help yo master what you learn.Valuable quick–reference appendices.

    Kanji are an essential part of the Japanese language and together with kana (hiragana and katakana) comprise the written component of Japanese.This book presents the kanji characters that are most commonly used. They have been carefully selected for rapid and effective learning. Each kanji's readings, meanings, and common compounds are presented, and romanized pronunciations for English speakers (romanji) are included as well. Printed with gray guidelines, stroke order guides are designed to be traced over to teach students the standard sequence of strokes used to write each character. Three indexes at the back allow the characters to be looked up as with a dictionary or by their readings. Students who wish to practice writing kanji will find extra practice sheets available.This book includes:-Step-by-step stroke order diagrams for each character-Special boxes with grid lines to practice writing characters-Words and phrases using each kanji-Romanizations (romanji) to help identify and pronounce every word

    The wayfarers of the time, however, discovered that travel provided the opportunity to escape from the confines of the everyday. Cultured travelers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries wrote travel memoirs to celebrate their profession as belle-lettrists. For women in particular the open road and the blank page of the diary offered a precious opportunity to create personal hierarchies defined less by gender and more by culture and refinement. After the mid-eighteenth century--which saw the popularization of culture and the rise of commercial printing--textbooks, guides, comical fiction, and woodblock prints allowed not a few commoners to acquaint themselves with the historical, lyrical, or artistic pedigree of Japan's famous sites. By identifying themselves with famous literary and historical icons of the past, some among these erudite commoners saw an opportunity to rewrite their lives and re-create their identities in the pages of their travel diaries.The chapters in Part One, "Re-creating Spaces," introduce the notion that the spaces of travel were malleable, accommodating reconceptualization across interpretive frames. Laura Nenzi shows that, far from being static backgrounds, these travelscapes proliferated in a myriad of loci where one person's center was another's periphery. In Part Two, "Re-creating Identities," we see how, in the course of the Edo period, educated persons used travel to, or through, revered lyrical sites to assert and enhance their roles and identities. Finally, in Part Three, "Purchasing Re-creation," Nenzi looks at the intersection between recreational travel and the rising commercial economy, which allowed visitors to appropriate landscapes through new means: monetary transactions, acquisition of tangible icons, or other forms of physical interaction.

    Commissioned by Life magazine to paint the war as it was being experienced by U.S. and Allied troops, Lea went aboard a Navy destroyer in the North Atlantic to cover the fight against the German U-boats in late 1941; was on the carrier Hornet days before its sinking during the desperate air and sea battles off Guadalcanal in 1942; recorded the struggles of Army Air Forces transport, fighter, and bomber crews in England, North Africa, and China in 1943; and hit the bloody beaches at Peleliu with the assault waves of the 7th Marines in 1944. He was preparing to join forces poised to invade the home islands when the Japanese surrendered in 1945. In The Two Thousand Yard Stare, Brendan M. Greeley Jr. has collected virtually all of Tom Lea’s firsthand written accounts of his assignments for Life, including a previously unpublished diary and letters to fellow Texas writer J. Frank Dobie, along with Lea’s powerful sketches and unforgettable paintings. Greeley places them in context, along with photographs and informative details on the people, places, and wartime events encountered by Tom Lea. Thoroughly documented and filled with telling illustrations, this book will leave a stunning impression on those interested in the realistic depiction of war, in both images and words. Also a must-read for students, scholars, and collectors of Tom Lea’s work, The Two Thousand Yard Stare brilliantly captures the artistic skills and spirit of one of America’s most compelling painters and writers.

    So how much do we, and should we, read into the way food is represented in literature? Reading Food explores this and other questions in an unusual and fascinating tour of twentieth-century Japanese literature. Tomoko Aoyama analyzes a wide range of diverse writings that focus on food, eating, and cooking and considers how factors such as industrialization, urbanization, nationalism, and gender construction have affected people's relationships to food, nature, and culture, and to each other. The examples she offers are taken from novels (shosetsu) and other literary texts and include well known writers (such as Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, Hayashi Fumiko, Okamoto Kanoko, Kaiko Takeshi, and Yoshimoto Banana) as well as those who are less widely known (Murai Gensai, Nagatsuka Takashi, Sumii Sue, and Numa Shozo).Food is everywhere in Japanese literature, and early chapters illustrate historical changes and variations in the treatment of food and eating. Examples are drawn from Meiji literary diaries, children's stories, peasant and proletarian literature, and women's writing before and after World War II. The author then turns to the theme of cannibalism in serious and popular novels. Key issues include ethical questions about survival, colonization, and cultural identity. The quest for gastronomic gratification is a dominant theme in gourmet novels. Like cannibalism, the gastronomic journey as a literary theme is deeply implicated with cultural identity. The final chapter deals specifically with contemporary novels by women, some of which celebrate the inclusiveness of eating (and writing), while others grapple with the fear of eating. Such dread or disgust can be seen as a warning against what the complacent gourmet boom of the 1980s and 1990s concealed: the dangers of a market economy, environmental destruction, and continuing gender biases.Reading Food in Modern Japanese Literature will tempt any reader with an interest in food, literature, and culture. Moreover, it provides appetizing hints for further savoring, digesting, and incorporating textual food.

    In the process he sheds light on the vexing topics of diaspora, migration, identity, and group formation.

    Foregrounding these voluminous records, Totani disputes the notion that the trial was an exercise in "victors' justice" in which the legal process was egregiously compromised for political and ideological reasons; rather, the author details the achievements of the Allied prosecution teams in documenting war crimes and establishing the responsibility of the accused parties to show how the IMTFE represented a sound application of the legal principles established at Nuremberg.This study deepens our knowledge of the historical intricacies surrounding the Tokyo trial and advances our understanding of the Japanese conduct of war and occupation during World War II, the range of postwar debates on war guilt, and the relevance of the IMTFE to the continuing development of international humanitarian law.

    Public alarm over climate change has helped to make sustainable development a major public policy issue and a topic of growing importance in the daily lives of Americans. This book is a comprehensive assessment of U.S. progress toward sustainable development and a roadmap of necessary next steps toward achieving a sustainable America. Packed with facts, figures, and the well-informed opinions of forty-one experts, it provides an illuminating “snapshot” of sustainability in the United States today. And each of the contributors suggests where we need to go next, recommending three to five specific actions that we should take during the next five to ten years. It thus offers a comprehensive agenda that citizens, corporations, nongovernmental organizations, and government leaders and policymakers can use to make decisions today and to plan for the future. Sustainable development holds enormous promise for improving the quality of life for Americans over the coming decades. Agenda for a Sustainable America describes what we need to do to make the promise a reality. It assesses trends in twenty-eight separate areas of American life—including forestry; transportation; oceans and estuaries; religion; and state, local, and national governance. In every area, contributors reveal what sustainable development could mean, with suggestions that are specific, desirable, and achievable. Their expert recommendations point the way toward greater economic and social well-being, increased security, and environmental protection and restoration for current and future generations of Americans. Together they build a convincing case for how sustainable development can improve our opportunities and our lives.

    But this popular image only brushes the surface of the samurai tradition. The Samurai Swordsman: Master of War brings to life the history behind the courageous and highly disciplined fighting men of early Japan.Authoritative military history expert Stephen Turnbull shows how the samurai evolved from the primitive fighters of the 7th century into an invincible military caste with a fearsome reputation. Many aspects of the samurai and their military significance are covered, including the cultural reasons why the elite mounted archers originally emerged in Japan; their wars against pirate invaders; how samurai masters taught the next generation; the women samurai and their accomplishments; and much more. Illustrated with full-color historical images that show the samurai tradition in fascinating detail, The Samurai Swordsman is an invaluable guide to an enduring legacy.

    A widespread trend sweeping Japan is the homemade specialty bento parents prepare for their children. This trend is now becoming popular in Hawaii and just in time is a new cookbook filled with fun, easy-to-make bento box recipes that will delight the eye and tickle the tummy. Sliced carrots become plumeria flowers; scrambled eggs become little chicks; a vegetable croquette becomes a puppy dog; and home lunch becomes something to look forward to. With recipes and step-by-step photos, any home cook can prepare these bentos for even the pickiest eater. Have fun. Make food and art and feed your child nutritious, delicious lunches that are picture perfect.

    Taking inspiration from anime and manga, fans dress up and act like their favorite characters in costume play. Cosplay. The women of Tokyo Cosplay Paradise are all featured in their own designs, but particular influences and styles are prevalent among these women as they are photographed throughout Tokyo and its prefectures. Fans and afficionados alike will recognize look-alike costumes from Sailor Moon, Kare Kano, and Inuyasha, as well as typical characters such as ninjas and nurses, along with plenty of stockings, ribbons, and strawberries. Yoshimitsu juxtaposes these women and Tokyo itself by placing independent photos of either next to each other, creating a powerful statement. Cosplay is a part of Tokyo, and Tokyo is a part of cosplay. Tokyo Cosplay Paradiseis sure to please fans of anime and fashion alike. Wall to wall color photos, with a fold-out centerfold.

    To witness the amazing parallel development of the railways in Japan, happening at much the same time as America was connecting its vast hinterland to the East and West coasts, is an eye-opening realization. Early Japanese Railways, tells the fascinating story of the rise of Japanese rail amidst a period of rapid modernization during Japan's Meiji era. Leaving behind centuries of stagnation and isolation, Japan would emerge into the 20th century as a leading modern industrialized state. The development of the railways was a significant factor in the cultural and technological development of Japan during this pivotal period. Free's rare photographic and historical materials concerning Japan's early railways, including a print showing the miniature steam engine brought to Japan by Admiral Perry aboard his "Black Ships" to demonstrate American superiority, combine to form a richly detailed account that will appeal to students of Japanese history and railway buffs alike. This one-of-a-kind book, Early Japanese Railways 1853–1914, illuminates for non-Japanese-speaking readers the early history of Japanese railroads and in the process the fascinating story of Japan's prewar industrial modernization. Anyone interested in train history or model trains will find this book a fascinating read.

    In Kabuki's Forgotten War, senior theater scholar James R. Brandon calls this view into question and makes a compelling case that, up to the very end of the Pacific War, kabuki was a living theater and, as an institution, an active participant in contemporary events, rising and falling in consonance with Japan's imperial adventures.Drawing extensively from Japanese sources--books, newspapers, magazines, war reports, speeches, scripts, and diaries--Brandon shows that kabuki played an important role in Japan's Fifteen-Year Sacred War. He reveals, for example, that kabuki stars raised funds to buy fighter and bomber aircraft for the imperial forces and that pro-ducers arranged large-scale tours for kabuki troupes to entertain soldiers stationed in Manchuria, China, and Korea. Kabuki playwrights contributed no less than 160 new plays that dramatized frontline battles or rewrote history to propagate imperial ideology.Abridged by censors, molded by the Bureau of Information, and partially incorporated into the League of Touring Theaters, kabuki reached new audiences as it expanded along with the new Japanese empire. By the end of the war, however, it had fallen from government favor and in 1944-1946 it nearly expired when Japanese government decrees banished leading kabuki companies to minor urban theaters and the countryside.Kabuki's Forgotten War includes more than a hundred illustrations, many of which have never been published in an English-language work. It is nothing less than a com-plete revision of kabuki's recent history and as such goes beyond correcting a significant misconception. This new study remedies a historical absence that has distorted our understanding of Japan's imperial enterprise and its aftermath.

    We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

    The carefully managed coppice woodlands on the hillsides, the villages strung along the base of the hills, and the carefully tended paddy fields of rural Japan made possible the sustainable interaction of nature and humans. Radical changes in the middle of the twentieth century led to the abandonment of satoyama landscapes which now are being rediscovered. There is a new realization that these woodlands still play a vital role in the management of the Japanese landscape and a new determination to manage them for the future. This multifaceted book explores the history, nature, biodiversity, current conservation measures, and future uses of satoyama. The information presented here will be of interest in all parts of the world where patterns of sustainable development are being sought."

    In 1991 the same lethal combination of risky loans, inflated stocks, and real estate speculation that created this "bubble economy" caused it to burst, plunging the country into its worst recession since World War II. New Zealand-born architect Thomas Daniell arrived in Japan at the dawn of this turbulent decade. After the Crash is an anthology of essays that draw on firsthand observations of the built environment and architectural culture that emerged from the economically sober post-bubble period of the 1990s. Daniell uses projects and installations by architects such as Atelier Bow Wow, Toyo Ito, and the metabolists to illustrate the new relationships forged, most of necessity, between architecture and society in Japan.

    Full of beautiful photographs, the book details 18 kinds of widely collected, obtainable and affordable, antique and vintage dolls and figurines (ningyo).Author Alan Scott Pate—the leading American expert on Japanese dolls—writes in illuminating detail about the traditions of each type of doll and shares practical tips on how to collect this amazing Japanese art form. Included are: Festival dolls: hina-ningyo, musha-ningyo, tableau dollsDisplay dolls: saga-ningyo, gosho-ningyo, isho-ningyo, iki-ningyoWood dolls: kamo-ningyo, nara-ningyo, kokeshi-ningyoClay dolls: fushimi-ningyo, hakata-ningyoMechanical dolls: karakuri-ningyo, kobe-ningyoTheatrical dolls: bunraku-ningyo, takeda-ningyoPlay dolls: ichimatsu-ningyo, keue saiko

    Following the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and Japan's surrender in August 1945, their dream turned into a nightmare. Since the late 1980s, popular Japanese conceptions have overlooked the disastrous impact of colonization and resurrected the utopian justification for creating Manchukuo, as the puppet state was known. This re-remembering, Mariko Tamanoi argues, constitutes a source of friction between China and Japan today. Memory Maps tells the compelling story of both the promise of a utopia and the tragic aftermath of its failure. An anthropologist, Tamanoi approaches her investigation of Manchuria's colonization and collapse as a complex history of the present, which in postcolonial studies refers to the examination of popular memory of past colonial relations of power. To mitigate this complexity, she has created four memory maps that draw on the recollections of former Japanese settlers, their children who were left in China and later repatriated, and Chinese who lived under Japanese rule in Manchuria.The first map presents the oral histories of farmers who emigrated from Nagano, Japan, to Manchuria between 1932 and 1945 and returned home after the war. Interviewees were asked to remember the colonization of Manchuria during Japan's age of empire. Hikiage-mono (autobiographies) make up the second map. These are written memories of repatriation from the Soviet invasion to some time between 1946 and 1949. The third memory map is entitled Orphans' Voices. It examines the oral and written memories of the children of Japanese settlers who were left behind at the war's end but returned to Japan after relations between China and Japan were normalized in 1972. The memories of Chinese who lived the age of empire in Manchuria make up the fourth map. This map also includes the memories of Chinese couples who adopted the abandoned children of Japanese settlers as well as the children themselves, who renounced their Japanese nationality and chose to remain in China. In the final chapter, Tamanoi considers theoretical questions of the state and the relationship between place, voice, and nostalgia. She also attempts to integrate the four memory maps in the transnational space covering Japan and China.Both fastidious in dealing with theoretical questions and engagingly written, Memory Maps contributes not only to the empirical study of the Japanese empire and its effects on the daily lives of Japanese and Chinese, but also to postcolonial theory as it applies to the use of memory.

    The late seventh and eighth centuries were a time of momentous change in Japan, much of it brought about by the short-lived Tenmu dynasty. Two new capital cities, a bureaucratic state led by an imperial ruler, and Chinese-style law codes were just a few of the innovations instituted by the new regime. Herman Ooms presents both a wide-ranging and fine-grained examination of the power struggles, symbolic manipulations, new mythological constructs, and historical revisions that both defined and propelled these changes.In addition to a vast amount of research in Japanese sources, the author draws on a wealth of sinological scholarship in English, German, and French to illuminate the politics and symbolics of the time. An important feature of the book is the way it opens up early Japanese history to considerations of continental influences. Rulers and ritual specialists drew on several religious and ritual idioms, including Daoism, Buddhism, yin-yang hermeneutics, and kami worship, to articulate and justify their innovations. In looking at the religious symbols that were deployed in support of the state, Ooms gives special attention to the Daoist dimensions of the new political symbolics as well as to the crucial contributions made by successive generations of immigrants from the Korean peninsula. From the beginning, a liturgical state sought to co-opt factions and clans (uji) as participants in the new polity with the emperor acting as both a symbolic mediator and a silent partner. In contrast to the traditional interpretation of the Kojiki mythology as providing a vertical legitimation of a Sun lineage of rulers, an argument is presented for the importance of a lateral dimension of interdependency as a key structural element in the mythological narrative.An enlightening line of interpretation woven into the author's analysis centers on purity. This eminently politico-ritual value central to Chinese Daoism and Buddhism was used by Tenmu as the emblematic expression of his regime and new political power. The concept of purity was most fully realized in the world of the Saio princess in Ise and was later used by Ise ritualists to defend themselves against Buddhist rivals. At the end of the Tenmu dynasty, it was widely believed that avenging spirits were the principal source of danger and pollution, notions understood here as statements about the bloody political battles that were waged in Tenmu court circles.The Tenmu dynasty began and ended in bloodshed and was marked throughout by instability and upheaval. Constant succession struggles between two branches of the royal line and a few outside lineages generated a host of plots, uprisings, murders, and accusations of black magic. This aspect of the period gets full treatment in fascinatingly detailed narratives, which the author skillfully alternates with his trademark structural analysis.Imperial Politics and Symbolics in Ancient Japan is a boldly imaginative, carefully and extensively researched, and richly textured history that will reward reading by Japan specialists and students in several disciplines as well as by scholars with an interest in the role of religious symbolism in state formation.

    Throughout his extraordinary life, Ueshiba mastered an array of martial arts and techniques, including jujutsu and kendo, and endlessly devoted himself to the philosophies of Japan's martial schools. He also had a deep knowledge of the practice of Shinto. Refining these traditions into a wholly new system, he founded Aikido--the way of harmony. Aikido goes far beyond simple methods of attack or self-defense, seeking to dispel aggression by creating a sense of oneness, thus ultimately promoting peace. Through its unique aspect of both preserving the heritage of the classical fighting arts and applying them within the context of contemporary society, Aikido has quickly become one of the most respected martial arts in the world.In this engaging and compelling biography, the Founder's son Kissomaru Ueshiba (the second Aikido Doshu) details the life of this remarkable man, from his early years as a youth in the turbulent Meiji era to his death in 1969. Incorporating many first-hand accounts and anecdotes as well as historical documents, the author weaves a fascinating narrative of the Founder's life, and with great fondness tells of his own memories of the man who would come to be known as O Sensei--great master.Ueshiba reveals much about the character and temperament of his father, painting a picture of a man of formidable commitment and spirituality, in both his practice of Aikido and his message of peace. Indeed, his dedication to his art was so strong that through his techniques he was able to attain kami-waza; an ability that transcends the human and reaches the divine. This book will appeal to any reader with an interest in the life of Morihei Ueshiba and a desire to discover the real person behind the legend.

    On the following day the US declared war on Japan and for those of Japanese decent, most of whom were American Citizens, life would never be the same. This book focuses on a dark time in our history.

    The author draws upon his extensive collection of Japanese wartime publications to reconstruct the government-controlled media's narrative of the war's goals and progress - thus providing a close-up look at how the war was shown to Japanese on the home front. Many of these visual and written sources are rare in Japan and were previously unavailable in the West. Strikingly, the narrative remains consistent and convincing from victory to retreat, and even as defeat looms large. Earhart's nuanced reading of Japan's wartime media depicts a nation waging war against the world and a government terrorizing its own people. At once informed, scholarly, and readily accessible, this lavishly illustrated volume offers an accurate representation of the official Japanese narrative of the war in contemporary terms. The images are fresh and compelling, revealing a forgotten world by turns familiar and alien, beautiful and stark, poignant and terrifying.

    The essays examine the canonization of the work from the late Heian through the medieval, Edo, Meiji, Taisho, Showa, and Heisei periods, revealing its profound influence on a variety of genres and fields, including modern nation building. They also consider parody, pastiche, and re-creation of the text in various popular and mass media. Since the Genji was written by a woman for female readers, contributors also take up the issue of gender and cultural authority, looking at the novel's function as a symbol of Heian court culture and as an important tool in women's education. Throughout the volume, scholars discuss achievements in visualization, from screen painting and woodblock prints to manga and anime. Taking up such recurrent themes as cultural nostalgia, eroticism, and gender, this book is the most comprehensive history of the reception of The Tale of Genji to date, both in the country of its origin and throughout the world.

    - Offers a wide range of learning opportunities from early reading and spelling to dictionary use- Foreign language editions include dictionaries and phonetic pronunciation guides; some have online pronunciation guides.

    It ?is exquisitely and abundantly illustrated and ?traces the influences that came from many sources including various religions and the Kama Sutra. Shunga uniquely places the images in groups relating to different sexual practices, allowing the reader to find his or her area of erotic interest. It ?explains the cultural forces behind some of Shunga images and why the Japanese find them so erotic and ?reveals Shungas influence on some of the great Western art movements, such as, Impressionism. ?It shows how it is still possible to buy fine Shunga wood block prints without breaking the bank and gives excellent practical advice for would-be collectors. ?An invaluable guide for museum-goers, anyone interested in the arts of Japan and connoisseurs of erotic art.

    Humble priest Kagetsuya must stand against the evil, with his friends. But can he defy one who defies even the gods?

    That so little is known outside of Japan about their great beauty and brilliant craftsmanship prompted the author to undertake the two decades of study, research, and writing that has culminated in this work. The result is nearly 800 pages of text and images published in a two-volume boxed edition limited to 1200 copies. Volume 1 consists of an extended treatise on the history of Noh and the evolution of its masks, including mask forms and functions, types and roles, nomenclature and taxonomy, mask carvers and their lineages, signatures, and other markings. It includes plot and character synopses of the plays most often staged as well as others rarely performed, with particulars about the masks used by various troupes for the principal roles. Volume 2 is an album showcasing in full color over 140 of the finest masks of Noh, both ancient and more recent, with detailed information on their creation, character, and significance, as well as photos of their backs showing inscriptions and artists' signatures. An extensive bibliography, glossary, and index round out this presentation of an exquisite, centuries-old art form. No existing publication on the subject, in either English or in Japanese, remotely compares in scope and depth to the present work.

    This title examines the narratives of women writers who travelled to Japan from the mid-1850s onwards, when Japan was first opened to the West, and became a highly desirable travel destination for decades thereafter.

    An Age of Melodrama examines four enormously popular novels from this period by interweaving two threads of argument. Using approaches to melodrama developed in Western literary and film criticism, it first shows how these texts used their binary morality to construct a semblance of moral certainty in a moment of social transformation. It then examines how the novels responded to a particular set of ideologies of the family, which the Japanese state attempted to use as an instrument of social control. The melodramatic novels of the Meiji period generated a plethora of alternative family models that explored the myriad ways in which human beings could connect in a modernizing culture. The fictional families in these works revealed the ties of the family to the nation, delineated traumatic changes in social hierarchy, and showed the effects of new discourses of gender. These powerful portrayals and the social discourses that surround them reveal that melodrama was a central mode of sensibility in Meiji culture.

    A quarterly mook (magazine/book hybrid) that's a combination fashion magazine, culture guide, and art book, the Bible caters to fans of two separate but related fashions: Gothic and--to a greater extent--Lolita. Volume 1 of the U.S. edition offers content from four volumes of this definitive Japanese mook for the first time in English, along with exciting original content covering the Gothic and Lolita culture in North America.

    Currently 80% of states have mandates regarding character education. This apparent support for moral education, however, masks a high degree of controversy surrounding the meaning and the methods of moral and/or character education. The purpose of this Handbook is to replace the ideological rhetoric that infects this field with a comprehensive, research-oriented volume that includes the extensive changes that have occurred over the last fifteen years. Coverage includes the latest applications of developmental and cognitive psychology to moral and character education from preschool to college settings.

    Little, however, has been written about Naruse in English, and much of the writing about him in Japanese has not been translated into English. With The Cinema of Naruse Mikio, Catherine Russell brings deserved critical attention to this under-appreciated director. Besides illuminating Naruse’s contributions to Japanese and world cinema, Russell’s in-depth study of the director sheds new light on the Japanese film industry between the 1930s and the 1960s.Naruse was a studio-based director, a company man renowned for bringing films in on budget and on time. During his long career, he directed movies in different styles of melodrama while displaying a remarkable continuity of tone. His films were based on a variety of Japanese literary sources and original scripts; almost all of them were set in contemporary Japan. Many were “women’s films.” They had female protagonists, and they depicted women’s passions, disappointments, routines, and living conditions. While neither Naruse or his audiences identified themselves as “feminist,” his films repeatedly foreground, if not challenge, the rigid gender norms of Japanese society. Given the complex historical and critical issues surrounding Naruse’s cinema, a comprehensive study of the director demands an innovative and interdisciplinary approach. Russell draws on the critical reception of Naruse in Japan in addition to the cultural theories of Harry Harootunian, Miriam Hansen, and Walter Benjamin. She shows that Naruse’s movies were key texts of Japanese modernity, both in the ways that they portrayed the changing roles of Japanese women in the public sphere and in their depiction of an urban, industrialized, mass-media-saturated society.

    A sweeping survey, this volume covers everything from rural vernacular architecture, temples, shrines and gardens to innovative solutions for contemporary urban architectural issues by Kengo Kuma, Kenzo Tange and Kazuyo Sejima, among others. An important hallmark of Japanese architecture is its juxtaposition of traditional styles and materials with contemporary concerns and aesthetics. Primary aspects include the frequent use of organic materials, a lack of cluttered decoration and a timeless sense of openness. In this affordable paperback, informed yet intimate photographs and texts by Japanese architect Yuichiro Edagawa offer a glowing insider's view of Japanese cultural history. It is a pleasure to read, whether as a travel guide, a straight architectural photography book or an introduction to Japanese cultural history.

    This dispute over the place of women in Buddhism was often played out in the realm of medieval preachers’ and storytellers’ apocryphal tales of the lives, deaths, and inevitable religious awakenings of prominent female literary figures of an earlier age. Inspired by the folklorist Yanagita Kunio’s groundbreaking work of the early 1930s, Preachers, Poets, Women, and the Way explores the ways in which such fictional and usually scandalous stories of the Heian women authors Izumi Shikibu, Ono no Komachi, Murasaki Shikibu, and Sei Shōnagon were employed in the competitive preaching and fund-raising of late-Heian and medieval Japan.The book draws upon a broad range of medieval textual and pictorial sources to describe the diverse and heretofore little-studied roles of itinerant and temple-based preacher-entertainers in the formation and dissemination of medieval literary culture. By plumbing the medieval roots of Heian women poets’ contemporary fame, Preachers, Poets, Women, and the Way illuminates a forgotten world of doctrinal and institutional rivalry, sectarian struggle, and passionately articulated belief, revealing the processes by which Izumi Shikibu and her peers came to be celebrated as the national cultural icons that they are today.

    The Imperial Museums of Meiji Japan documents Japan's unification of national art and cultural resources to forge a modern identity influenced by European museum and exhibition culture. Japan's Imperial Museums were conceived of as national self-representations, and their creation epitomized the Meiji bureaucracy's mission to engage in the international standards and practices of the late nineteenth century. The architecture of the museums, by incorporating Western design elements and construction methods, effectively safeguarded and set off the nation's unique art historical lineage.Western paradigms and expertise, coupled with Japanese resolve and ingenuity, steered the course of the museums' development. Expeditions by high-ranking Japanese officials to Europe and the United States to explore the burgeoning world of art preservation and exhibition, and throughout Japan to inventory important cultural treasures, led to the establishment of the Imperial Museums in the successive imperial cities of Nara, Kyoto, and Tokyo.Over the course of nearly four decades, the English architect Josiah Conder, known as "the father of modern Japanese architecture," and his student Katayama Tokuma, who became the preeminent state architect, designed four main museum buildings to house the national art collection. These buildings articulated the museums' unified mission to preserve and showcase a millennium-long chronology of Japanese art, while reinforcing the distinctive historical and cultural character of their respective cities.This book is the first English-language study of the art, history, and architecture of Japan's Imperial Museums, the predecessors of today's national museums in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Nara. The Imperial Museums of Meiji Japan examines the museums' formative period and highlights cross-cultural influences that enriched and complicated Japan's search for a modern yet historically grounded identity.

    Beginning with a section on exteriors, replete with tranquil zen gardens, the book segues into interiors and ends with photos of details, giving readers a wellspring of ideas and the distinct sense that they have been briefly transported to the Land of the Rising Sun.

    It considers the diverse dimensions of modern tourism including appropriation and consumption of history, nostalgia, identity, domesticated foreignness, and the search for authenticity and invention of tradition.Japanese people are one of the most widely travelling peoples in the world both historically and in contemporary times. What may be understood as incipient mass tourism started around the 17th century in various forms (including religious pilgrimages) long before it became a prevalent cultural phenomenon in the West. Within Asia, Japan has long remained the main tourist sending society since the beginning of the 20th century when it started colonising Asian countries. In 2005, some 17.8 million Japanese travelled overseas across Europe, Asia, the South Pacific and America. In recent times, however, tourist demands are fast growing in other Asian countries such as Korea and China. Japan is not only consuming other Asian societies and cultures, it is also being consumed by them in tourist contexts. This book considers the patterns of travelling of the Japanese, examining travel inside and outside the Japanese archipelago and how tourist demands inside influence and shape patterns of travel outside the country. Overall, this book draws important insights for understanding the phenomenon of tourism on the one hand and the nature of Japanese society and culture on the other.

    Bird was recommended an open-air life from an early age as a cure for her physical and nervous difficulties. She toured the United States and Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the Sandwich Islands, before travelling to the Far East in order to strengthen herself to marry Dr John Bishop and live in Edinburgh. Created out of the letters Bird wrote home, primarily to her sister, Volume 1 recounts her experiences as a solo woman traveller living among the Japanese in Yokohama and Niigata. It includes descriptions of clothing, food and drink, education, housing, theatre, women's lifestyles, religion, plant life, medicine, shopping and other day-to-day activities, as well as the vicissitudes and excitement of the conditions and process of travelling, including by boat and pack-horse.

    This book/CD pack offers the opportunity to learn to read, listen to and speak Japanese script whilst also featuring the more familiar romajji (roman) script, in which all grammar explanations of Japanese terms are written. Topics covered in the course include Japanese name conventions, workplace, transport, media, aspects of modern society and environmental issues, and the language is taught via realistic and interesting dialogues. The accompanying audio CDs allow listeners to hear authentic Japanese spoken by native Japanese speakers in everyday situations. They provide approximately 2 hours of listening material. The CDs (978 0 340 94171 3) and book (978 0 340 94173 7) can also be purchased separately. Previous edition: 9780340870808

    The author interprets Endo s central works such as Silence (1966), The Samurai (1980), and Deep River (1996), from a theological point of view as documents of inculturation of Christianity in Japan. Analysing the social and religious context of Japan in a global perspective, the author identifies a central role for koshinto - a traditional Japanese ethos - in Endo's thought on inculturation. Endo s change from a critical to a positive acceptance of the koshinto tradition partly accounts for his move from a pessimistic attitude of Christian inculturation in his early years to the growing theocentric and pneumatic concerns of his later years. Essential for Western readers."

    The posters—most of them never before published—feature barnstormers, gliders, and flying boats, the earliest passenger flights, the first luxury-liners, mail carriers, jets, and much more. Spanning a century and a half, they combine the popular art and the commerce of their eras, with both explored in the entertaining, informative text by a longstanding National Air and Space Museum curator. From 19th-century circus impresarios offering rides in gaudy hot-air balloons to the sleek 21st-century airliners, the posters provide a fascinating illustrated history of flight as it evolved from an exotic realm inhabited only by visionaries and daredevils into our modern world of speedy jets and frequent flyers—no longer extraordinary, perhaps, but still echoing with the exhilarating thrill and glamorous excitement captured here.Countless visitors to the museum’s traveling poster exhibition and the permanent exhibition "America by Air" will delight in the gorgeous and wonderful graphics collected in this appealing, affordable book—and so will aviation buffs, armchair travelers, and poster connoisseurs everywhere.

    Using a mixture of historical documents, mythology, archaeological data, and ethnographic studies of contemporary shamans, she builds a case for shamans being the driving force behind the blossoming of complex societies. More interesting, shamans in East Asia are generally women, who used their access to the spirit world to take leadership roles. This work challenges traditional interpretations growth of Asian states, which is overlaid with later Confucian notions of gender roles. Written at a level accessible for undergraduates, this concise work will be fascinating reading for those interested in East Asian archaeology, politics, and society; in gender roles, and in shamanism.

    This remarkable achievement came about because of a transformation of Japanese business practices. This transformation was guided by strategies that enabled Japan's leading corporations, previously diversified to an exceptionally high degree, to become leaner, more nimble, and more competitive at home and in the global economy.In Choose and Focus, the first in-depth account of this strategic inflection point in Japanese business, Ulrike Schaede argues that the emerging practices and attitudes have created a New Japan. Drawing on profiles of several corporations, including Panasonic, Takeda and Astellas, Softbank, kakaku.com, and SBI E*Trade, Schaede explains how the fundamental principles of Japan's economy have been overturned. Choose and focus strategies, whereby corporations concentrate on core areas and spin off unrelated businesses, have completely altered the strategic logic of Japan's previous industrial architecture. These surprisingly aggressive moves, Schaede finds, have created new market opportunities for start-up enterprises and foreign investors, as well as a wave of mergers, acquisitions, and hostile takeovers that have shaken Japanese companies out of complacency.Unlike the advances made by Japanese firms in the 1970s and 1980s, the current transformation is taking root in component and materials industries rather than in consumer products. Because of the relative obscurity of the changes and the overshadowing story of China's ascent, the Japanese corporate revolution has gone largely unnoticed among Western observers. Choose and Focus is required reading for anyone doing business in Japan or trying to understand how contemporary Japanese business works and how Japanese corporations have reinvented themselves to face the challenges--and realize the opportunities--of the 21st century.

    Alongside these serial works are portraits and street photographs taken in the 1960s and 1970s. With these works Araki records Japanese society during its period of intense economic growth. His new flower compositions and the classic bondage series are also included, which are responsible for making him famous throughout the world. His recent productions will be given broad exposure in the Tokyo Diary 2003–2007 series.

    Warring Clans, Flashing Blades picks up where Galloway’s fan-favorite Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves left off, delving deeper into the samurai film and its spin-off genres—yakuza, ninja, and matatabi. Anyone who enjoys high-action historical dramas will delight in these epic films. Warring Clans, Flashing Blades is an essential reference for fans, and even the most jaded film buff will discover new films to fall in love with.Includes:Canon classics, such as Ran by Akira KurosawaCult favorites like Samurai Spy and G.I. SamuraiFilm stills and poster artCool extras, such as historical tidbits, mini-biographies, and triviaDetailed production specsFull indexFilm critic Patrick Galloway won over readers with the film guides Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves: The Samurai Film Handbook and Asia Shock: Horror and Dark Cinema from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Thailand.

    Featuring full-size cutting templates, each design is accompanied by color step-by-step drawings, sensational photos, and easy-to-follow text. Although each project requires additional materials—such as a Styrofoam ball, a variety of colored fabric scraps, glue, and pretty ribbons or cords for embellishment—the fun, simple process assures that the first ball will be complete in just a couple of hours. Once the basics have been covered, a special section on creating and customizing new designs will allow crafters to branch out on their own to create ornaments and gifts for all occasions.

    Estevez-Abe develops an institutional, rational-choice model to solve this puzzle. She shows how Japan's electoral system generated incentives that led political actors to protect, if only for their own self-interested reasons, various groups that lost out in market competition. She explains how Japan's postwar welfare state relied upon various alternatives to orthodox social spending programs. The initial postwar success of Japan's political economy has given way to periods of crisis and reform. This book follows this story up to the present day. Estevez-Abe shows how the current electoral system renders obsolete the old form of social protection. She argues that institutionally Japan now resembles Britain and predicts that Japan's welfare system will also come to resemble Britain's. Japan thus faces a more market-oriented society and less equality.

    The discussions are based not only on the analysis of the legal texts alone, but also on the factors shaping such constructions and interpretations. Given the increasing international need for accurate and authoritative translation and use of legal documents, this important volume has considerable contemporary relevance in a globalized economy. It will appeal to discourse analysts, commercial consultants, legal trainers, translators, and applied researchers in professional communication, especially in the field of legal writing and languages for specific purposes.

    More than simply a landscape of trees and flowering shrubs, a Japanese garden provides a place of serenity and rest, filled with peaceful spots that lend themselves to meditation and contemplation. Japanese Gardens celebrates and illustrates this ideal, showcasing the exquisite natural beauty of more than 20 quintessentially Japanese gardens—big and small, urban and rural, traditional and contemporary.The expert author-and-photographer team behind this book excels at capturing and explaining the essential elements and techniques that distinguish Japanese garden design from that of other countries. The featured sites reflect a cross-section of Japanese culture and history including large feudal period gardens, temple and Zen gardens and private countryside gardens. The mountain flower garden, tea garden, rock garden and bonsai garden alike are all celebrated and appreciated in this beautiful book.

    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone

    It provides readings of major authors and texts set against a carefully researched presentation of the region's political and social history; at the same time, it thoughtfully engages with current critical perspective with perspectives on subaltern identity, colonialism, and post-colonialism, and the nature of "regional," "minority," and "minor" literatures.Is Okinawan fiction, replete with geographically specific themes such as language loss, identity, and war, a regional literature, distinct among Japanese letters for flourishes of local color that offer a reprieve for the urban-weary, or a minority literature that serves as a site for creative resistance and cultural renewal? This question drives the book's argument, making it interpretative rather than merely descriptive. Not only does the book provide a critical introduction to the major works of Okinawan literature, it also argues that Okinawa's writers consciously exploit, to good effect the overlap that exists between regional and minority literature. In so doing, they produce a rich body of work, a great deal of which challenges the notion of a unified nation that seamlessly rises from a single language and culture.

    Its status as a regional landmark among its devotees was boosted by its proximity to the shogunal capital and the wide appeal of its amalgamation of Buddhism, Shinto, mountain asceticism, and folk beliefs. The influence of the Ōyama cult--the intersecting beliefs, practices, and infrastructure associated with the sacred site--was not lost on the ruling Tokugawa shogunate, which saw in the pilgrimage an opportunity to reinforce the communal ideals and social structures that the authorities espoused.Barbara Ambros provides a detailed narrative history of the mountain and its place in contemporary society and popular religion by focusing on the development of the Ōyama cult and its religious, political, and socioeconomic contexts. Richly illustrated and carefully researched, this study emphasizes the importance of "site" or "region" in considering the multifaceted nature and complex history of religious practice in Tokugawa Japan.

    Because the detective story had no pre-existing native equivalent in Japan, the genre's formulaic structure acted as a distinctive cultural marker, making plain the process of its incorporation into late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japanese letters. Mark Silver tells the story of Japan's adoption of this new Western literary form at a time when the nation was also remaking itself in the image of the Western powers. His account calls into question conventional notions of cultural domination and resistance, demonstrating the variety of possible modes for cultural borrowing, the surprising vagaries of intercultural transfer, and the power of the local contexts in which imitation occurs.Purloined Letters considers a fascinating range of primary texts populated by wise judges, faceless corpses, wily confidence women, desperate blackmailers, a fetishist who secrets himself for days inside a leather armchair, and a host of other memorable figures. The work begins by analyzing Tokugawa courtroom narratives and early Meiji biographies of female criminals (dokufu-mono, or poison-woman stories), which dominated popular crime writing in Japan before the detective story's arrival. It then traces the mid-Meiji absorption of French, British, and American detective novels into Japanese literary culture through the quirky translations of muckraking journalist Kuroiwa Ruiko. Subsequent chapters take up a series of detective stories nostalgically set in the old city of Edo by Okamoto Kido (a Kabuki playwright inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes) and the erotic, grotesque, and macabre works of Edogawa Ranpo, whose pen-name punned on Edgar Allan Poe.

    In this book, the author explains how Aikido is both the spirit of love and the study of that spirit. In unique and incisive language, Ueshiba discusses the arcane aspects of Aikido's aims and techniques, as well as the central importance of breathing, ki (chi), and Aikido's relationship to the spirit and body - these form the very essence of Aikido.He goes on to consider the virtues of this revered martial art, urging the reader to link to the universe through Aikido, and ultimately to unify the divine and human. He also explains the essence of Takemusu aiki (valorous force of procreation and harmony), and Misogi (the ritual of purifying oneself).The book includes many rare photos of the author - on both his techniques and his everyday life. Also included are his twenty-five doka (spiritual Japanese-style poems) in Japanese, English, and Romanization. The introduction was written by his grandson, Moriteru Ueshiba, the present Aikido Doshu.

    The book examines Kierkegaard in terms of Shinto, Pure Land Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, the Samurai, the famous Kyoto school of Japanese philosophers, and in terms of pivotal Japanese thinkers who were influenced by Kierkegaard.

    The book traces a history development of anti-Christian ideas in Japan from the banning of Christianity by the Tokugawa shogunate in the early 1600s, to the use of Christian and anti-Christian ideology in the construction of modern Japanese state institutions at the end of the 1800s. Kiri Paramore recasts the history of Christian-related discourse in Japan in a new paradigm showing its influence on modern thought and politics and demonstrates the direct links between the development of ideology in the modern Japanese state, and the construction of political thought in the early Tokugawa shogunate. Demonstrating hitherto ignored links in Japanese history between modern and early-modern, and between religious and political elements this book will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese history, religion and politics.