Gripping, action-packed, authentic, and filled with larger-than-life men and women of the Greatest Generation, CRASH DIVE puts you aboard a submarine during the war. You'll stand alongside Charlie as he proves himself time and again by keeping his wits and being decisive in crisis, though each encounter leaves him more heavily scarred for it. You'll attack a convoy in a daring night surface attack, emerge in a sea fog to ambush a battle group, and charge the battleship Yamato during the decisive Battle of Leyte Gulf. All the while, you'll live with the crew in the cramped, noisy, and challenging machine that was a diesel-electric submarine. CRASH DIVE: The Complete Series puts together for the first time all six episodes in Craig DiLouie's highly acclaimed historical military fiction series: CRASH DIVE, SILENT RUNNING, BATTLE STATIONS, CONTACT!, HARA-KIRI, and OVER THE HILL.

    Convinced the Japanese would abandon the city, he planned a victory parade down Dewey Boulevard—but the enemy had other plans. The Japanese were determined to fight to the death. The battle to liberate Manila resulted in the catastrophic destruction of the city and a rampage by Japanese forces that brutalized the civilian population, resulting in a massacre as horrific as the Rape of Nanking. Drawing from war-crimes testimony, after-action reports, and survivor interviews, Rampage recounts one of the most heartbreaking chapters of Pacific War history.

    Peter Harmsen uses his renowned ability to weave together complex events into an entertaining and revealing narrative, including facets of the war that may be unknown to many readers of WWII history, such as the war in Subarctic conditions on the Aleutians, or the mass starvations that cost the lives of millions in China, Indochina, and India, and offering a range of perspectives to reflect what war was like both at the top and at the bottom, from the Oval Office to the blistering sands of Peleliu.Storm Clouds begins the story long before Pearl Harbor, showing how the war can only be understood if ancient hatreds and long-standing geopolitics are taken into account. Peter Harmsen demonstrates how Japan and China's ancient enmity grew in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries leading to increased tensions in the 1930s which exploded into conflict in 1937. The battles of Shanghai and Nanjing were followed by the battle of Taierzhuang in 1938, China's only major victory. A war of attrition continued up to 1941, the year when Japan made the momentous decision for all-out war; the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor catapulted the United States into the war, and the Japanese also overran British and Dutch territories throughout the western Pacific.

    This world record is supported by scientific studies conducted over the years.Centenarians express a high satisfaction level with their lives.. Okinawans know what it means to live a long and healthy lifespan. The book provides a great deal of history about the culture of Okinawa.Okinawa is one of the healthiest places in the world and one where people have the longest lifespans. The book provides a guideline for getting the most out of their lives.Readers don't find a hard time reading this book and it was very easy to understand by everyone, young or old.

    While in the hospital, Sadako learns to fold origami cranes and believes that folding the cranes might lead to the granting of a wish. A loving and compassionate child, Sadako's life inspires her classmates to create a memorial in her honor, to remember all the children impacted by war.Filled with new illustrations and photos of Sadako and her family never before seen by the public, Masahiro Sasaki, Sadako's older brother, and Sue DiCicco, founder of The Peace Crane Project, tell Sadako's complete story in English for the first time.Proceeds from this book are shared equally between The Sadako Legacy NPO and The Peace Crane Project.

    Into this tumultuous age of constant warfare came three remarkable individuals: Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598), and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616). Each would play a unique role in the re-unification of the disparate, fragmented collection of warring provinces which constituted Japan in the sixteenth and early seventeenth-centuries. This new narrative history of the sengoku era draws together the epic strands of their three stories for the first time. It offers a coherent survey of the Azuchi-Momoyama Period (1568-1600) under both Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, followed by the founding years of the Tokugawa shogunate (1600-1616). Every pivotal battle fought by each of these three hegemons is explored in depth from Okehazama (1560) and Nagashino (1575) to Sekigahara (1600) and the Two Sieges of Osaka Castle (1614-15). In addition, the political and administrative underpinnings of their rule is also examined, as well as the marginal role played by western foreigners ('nanban') and the Christian religion in early modern Japanese society. In its scope, the story of Japan's three unifiers ('the Fool', 'the Monkey', and 'the Old Badger') is a sweeping saga encompassing acts of unimaginable cruelty as well as feats of great samurai heroism which were venerated and written about long into the peaceful Edo/Tokugawa period.

    Curated by Jay Rubin (who has himself freshly translated several of the stories) and introduced by Haruki Murakami this is a book which will be a revelation to many of its readers. Short story writers already well-known to English-language readers are all included - Tanizaki, Akutagawa, Murakami, Mishima, Kawabata, Yoshimoto - but also many surprising new finds. From Tsushima Yuko's 'Flames' to Sawanishi Yuten's 'Filling Up with Sugar', from Hoshi Shin'ichi's 'Shoulder-Top Secretary' to Yoshimoto Banana's 'Bee Honey', The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories is filled with fear, charm, beauty and comedy.

    The iconic and regional traditions of Japan are organized by course and contain insightful notes alongside the recipes. The dishes - soups, noodles, rices, pickles, one-pots, sweets, and vegetables - are simple and elegant.

    He is going to quit his advertising job and, when his money runs out, he is going to die. He just has one final mission: A trip to Japan. It’s a trip he was supposed to take with his girlfriend, Sara. It’s a trip inspired by his regrets. And it’s a trip to pay homage to the Japanese, the inventors of his chosen suicide technique.In preparation for his final voyage, Jonathan enrolls in a Japanese language class where he meets Riko, who has her own plans to visit her homeland, for very different reasons. Their unexpected and unusual friendship takes them to Japan together, where they each struggle to make peace with their past and accept that happiness, loneliness, and grief come and go―just like the cherry blossoms.Haunted by lost love, Jonathan must decide if he can embrace the transient nature of life, or if he must choose the certainty of death.

    From supernatural creatures to medical mishaps, horrific crimes to secrets of the entertainment industry, nobody does horror quite like Japan. Find out the hidden secrets behind these legends and how they came to be. After all, the truth is often stranger than fiction.

    That's what the crew of the USS Indianapolis experienced after it was torpedoed at the very end of the Second World War.Show Notes:1. "In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors" by Doug Stanton2. "The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why" by Amanda RipleyThis episode is brought to you by Audible

    In a series of pilgrimages, Shimoda records the search to find his grandfather, and unfolds, in the process, a moving elegy on memory and forgetting.Praise for The Grave on the Wall "Shimoda brings his poetic lyricism to this moving and elegant memoir, the structure of which reflects the fragmentation of memories. ... It is at once wistful and devastating to see Midori's life come full circle ... In between is a life with tragedy, love, and the horrors unleashed by the atomic bomb."--Booklist, starred review"In a weaving meditation, Brandon Shimoda pens an elegant eulogy for his grandfather Midori, yet also for the living, we who survive on the margins of graveyards and rituals of our own making."--Karen Tei Yamashita, author of Letters to Memory"Sometimes a work of art functions as a dream. At other times, a work of art functions as a conscience. In the tradition of Juan Rulfo's Pedro P�ramo, Brandon Shimoda's The Grave on the Wall is both. It is also the type of fragmented reckoning only America could instigate."--Myriam Gurba, author of Mean"Within this haunted sepulcher built out of silence, loss, and grief--its walls shadowed by the traumas of racial oppression and violence--a green river lined with peach trees flows beneath a bridge that leads back to the grandson."--Jeffrey Yang, author of Hey, Marfa: Poems"It is part dream, part memory, part forgetting, part identity. It is a remarkable exploration of how citizenship is forged by the brutal US imperial forces--through slave labor, forced detention, indiscriminate bombing, historical amnesia and wall. If someone asked me, Where are you from? I would answer, From The Grave on the Wall."--Don Mee Choi, author of Hardly War"Shimoda intercedes into the absences, gaps and interstices of the present and delves the presence of mystery. This mystery is part of each of us. Shimoda outlines that mystery in silence and silhouette, in objects left behind at site-specific travels to Japan and in the disparate facts of his grandpa's FBI file. Gratitude to Brandon Shimoda for taking on the mystery which only literature accepts as the basic challenge."--Sesshu Foster, author of City of the Future"Shimoda is a mystic writer ... He puts what breaches itself (always) onto the page, so that the act of writing becomes akin to paper-making: an attention to fibers, coagulation, texture and the water-fire mixtures that signal irreversible alteration or change. ... he has written a book that touches the bottom of my own soul."--Bhanu Kapil, author of Ban en Banlieue

    He explores the etymology of key Reiki terminology and presents a complete discussion of the origins of the symbols used in the second degree, providing new historical, cultural, and spiritual context. He examines the core teachings of Reiki founder Usui Mikao, who taught that Reiki Ryoho enacted healing at the soul level, as well as insights from other important Reiki masters such as Hawayo Takata. Explaining what Reiki is and how it heals, the author outlines the six core characteristics that all varieties of Reiki share, including initiations and the Five Precepts. He details effective hand positions, self-healing exercises, spiritual development meditations, and the Japanese Reiki techniques introduced in first degree and second degree practice. He also explores a number of other techniques that have been adapted by Western lineages, such as aura sweeping, chakra tune-ups, and charging and programming crystals with Reiki. He provides a thorough introduction to the five levels of byosen, the energetic mechanism used to scan an individual’s energy field and locate areas of disharmony, allowing you to increase your ability to sense centers of toxic imbalance as well as begin dislodging them, thereby increasing the effectiveness of Reiki treatment. Offering Reiki tools to transform your life from the inside out, Pearson shows how Reiki Ryoho is a healing system that focuses on the inner and spiritual aspects of your being first, allowing you to polish the heart so it reflects the shining light of the soul.

    Rather than retreating from suffering, Wasteland to Pureland dives into the heart of the uncertainty and busyness of our modern world, and provides clear steps to greater fulfillment and spiritual growth.In this book, you will discover: How your career, creativity, sex, relationship and daily life can become your spiritual practice. How the ego and trauma may be holding you back - and how to transcend it. Discover new ways to push your awakening edge. Maps of the self that draw from Buddhist philosophy, Western psychology and wisdom traditions such as karma yoga, astrology and tantra. By learning to embrace "what is" we can transform ourselves, our relationships, and our world from the inside out. And much, much more! (Look inside for table of contents.) Wasteland to Pureland is packed with straightforward, heartfelt, accessible teachings and truths that are explained in a way that is both engaging and fun. This book will become a gem which you'll pick up over and over until it's pages are dog-eared, at which point you'll gift it to a friend.So if you want to develop more meaningful relationships and establish a fulfilling career, if you want more freedom in both your work and personal life, and you want to lean into your unfoldment with a sense of humor, you simply can't afford to miss this essential and deeply enjoyable guide to the Pureland.Unlock the next chapter on your path to awakening and buy your copy of Wasteland to Pureland today!

    The guardians of foxfire are the remarkable kitsune, legendary shapeshifting foxes who work with the Shinto deity Inari. Loyal, wise, and very clever, kitsune bring good fortune and give sage advice for all matters of the mind, body, and soul. This enchanting oracle lets you unlock their strong, protective energies and receive their many gifts and blessings.

    (adverb) under one umbrella 2. (noun) a romantically shared umbrella.Here, under one umbrella, shared by author and illustrator, are poems, zuihitsu (essays) and illustrations from a three-week sojourn in Japan in the autumn of 2015.Covering over a dozen locations between Osaka in the south and Naruko in the north, this travelogue now and then crosses the older path of Basho, geographically, and the footsteps of the travellers awaken echoes of the past, both cultural and personal.Far from a guidebook, this is a bewilderment of detours and digressions, a celebration of the intersections of shared experience, and a time-steeped medit

    An exciting adventure of a boy who was born from a giant peach with a dog, a monkey and a pheasant. *This book is written in Japanese.

    How did this happen and what are the secrets of the master distillers? This whisky book divulges these secrets for the first time.Japanese Whisky features never-before-published archival images and interviews chronicling the forgotten stories of Japan's pioneering whisky makers. It reveals the unique materials and methods used by the Japanese distillers including mizunara wood, Japanese barley, and novel only-in-Japan production methods. It also examines the close cultural connections between Japanese whisky drinkers and their favorite tipples. For the first time in English, this book presents over a hundred independently scored whisky tastings from leading Japanese whisky blogger, Yuji Kawasaki, shedding new light on Japan's most famous single malts as well as grain whiskies and blends. Japan expert Brian Ashcraft and photographer Idzuhiko Ueda crisscrossed Japan visiting all the major makers to talk about past and present whisky distillers, blenders and coopers. This Japanese whisky bible features their exclusive interviews with the people involved in the early beginnings of the Japanese whisky industry over seventy years ago. Japanese Whisky not only explains how the country's award-winning whiskies are made but also the complete whisky history and culture, so readers can truly appreciate the subtle Japanese whiskies they're drinking and buying. Kanpai!

    This beautifully-illustrated book introduces you to the art of this Japanese cuisine and teaches you how to cook this way in your own home, whether cooking on an authentic robata grill, your own barbecue or your oven grill. Choose from classic yakitori (chicken cooked on skewers), traditional Japanese fish robata dishes such as Miso Black Cod or a wonderful selection of vegetarian robata dishes. Then choose from the incredible selection of traditional side dishes, pickles and salads to accompany your robata, in this comprehensive cookbook of Japanese slow grilling recipes.

    But the past isn’t finished with them. A new threat arises in the form of an army of vengeful warriors—each of whom has a grudge against Kenshin from his days as the ruthless assassin Battōsai. Forced to face his old sins, Kenshin must find a way to make peace with the victim he most regrets hurting: his wife.

    His travel books, The Roads to Sata (1985), and the posthumously published Looking for the Lost (1995), are considered classics of commentary on modern Japanese culture and society. Booth was also the author of some extraordinarily perceptive journalism. This book consists of a rich selection of reviews and articles he wrote for magazines and newspapers in Japan, its topics covering Japanese film, festivals, and folk-songs. It is a remarkable volume, written with keen insight and a wickedly wry humor–a work any Japanophile will appreciate

    As a city, it's dynamic, exciting and resolutely individual - a mesmerising and unrivalled parade of fashion, design, architecture, and high culture experiences and, of course, the best pop culture in the world. It's also a city of fascinating contrasts; whether you're standing in the middle of the Shibuya scramble, a blur of pedestrians rushing by, or standing before a small shrine, quiet and contemplative, you will feel Tokyo's intensity.This stunning travel and cultural guide is a celebration of the roots and the marvels of contemporary Tokyo. It's a tightly curated list of must-see places and experiences and must-do walks as well as the authors' tried-and-tested favourites. It's for people who want to get an up close and personal look at the real Tokyo - the food, the crafts, the hidden finds, the architectural marvels, where to go to get into the thick of it and where to go to escape the madness.

    Lindquist, and Edgar Award winner Naomi Hirahara comes a nuanced account of the “Resettlement”: the relatively unexamined period when ordinary people of Japanese ancestry, having been unjustly imprisoned during World War II, were finally released from custody. Given twenty-five dollars and a one-way bus ticket to make a new life, some ventured east to Denver and Chicago to start over, while others returned to Southern California only to face discrimination and an alarming scarcity of housing and jobs. Hirahara and Lindquist weave new and archival oral histories into an engaging narrative that illuminates the lives of former internees in the postwar era, both in struggle and unlikely triumph. Readers will appreciate the painstaking efforts that rebuilding required, and will feel inspired by the activism that led to redress and restitution—and that built a community that even now speaks out against other racist agendas.

    The Life of Tea also follows Michael and Timothy's travels in China, Japan, India and Sri Lanka, featuring the producers of some of the world's finest teas and the characteristics that make these teas so sought after.This book is the ultimate guide for tea enthusiasts, following the journey from plantationto pot.

    Sanosuke takes on weapons expert Inui Banjin and his indestructible gauntlets. Yahiko faces off against Otowa Hyōko, who specializes in the secret techniques of assassination. And Kenshin has a rematch with the puppet master Gein, who’s invented a deadly new toy. All the while, Enishi, the architect of the attacks, watches the chaos from above…

    His bright, contemporary boisterousness, however, belies his deep scholarship and engagement with traditional Japanese art. Takashi Murakami: Lineage of Eccentrics presents key examples of Murakami's work alongside a rich selection of Japanese masterpieces spanning several centuries and arranged here according to concepts laid out by his mentor and foil, leading Japanese art historian Nobuo Tsuji. These include works by Kawanabe Kyosai, Soga Shohaku, Kano Eino, Ito Jakuchu and Hishikawa Moronobu. Beautifully illustrated with Tsuji's selections from the peerless Japanese art collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, as well as some of the artist's best-known works of painting and sculpture, the combination of old and new in this groundbreaking volume enriches our understanding of each, and ultimately shows us how contemporary art can be seen as part of a continuum or lineage.Takashi Murakami (born 1962) is an internationally acclaimed artist and the founder and president of Kaikai Kiki, an art production and management company based in Tokyo with a studio in New York City. He was the first person to earn a PhD in Nihonga--a form of Japanese paintings created using traditional materials and techniques--at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. Over the last two decades, he has presented numerous exhibitions around the world, from Versailles to Qatar. His first major solo exhibition at a US museum was held in 2001 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, titled Takashi Murakami: Made in Japan. Murakami is well known for his corporate branding projects with Louis Vuitton, VANS, shu uemura, Issey Miyake, Lucien Pellat-Finet, Roppongi Hills and ComplexCon, as well as collaborations with musicians such as Kanye West and Pharrell Williams. In 2008, he was selected as one of TIME magazine's "100 Most Influential People." More recently, he has been working on film and animation productions, releasing his first live-action film, Jellyfish Eyes, in 2013 and an animated television series, 6HP (Six Hearts Princess), in 2017.

    Yet even though generations of Japanese high school students have been expected to memorize passages from his novels and he is routinely voted the most important Japanese writer in national polls, he remains less familiar to Western readers than authors such as Kawabata, Tanizaki, and Mishima.In this biography, John Nathan provides a lucid and vivid account of a great writer laboring to create a remarkably original oeuvre in spite of the physical and mental illness that plagued him all his life. He traces Sōseki's complex and contradictory character, offering rigorous close readings of Sōseki's groundbreaking experiments with narrative strategies, irony, and multiple points of view as well as recounting excruciating hospital stays and recurrent attacks of paranoid delusion. Drawing on previously untranslated letters and diaries, published reminiscences, and passages from Sōseki's fiction, Nathan renders intimate scenes of the writer's life and distills a portrait of a tormented yet unflaggingly original author. The first full-length study of Sōseki in fifty years, Nathan's biography elevates Sōseki to his rightful place as a great synthesizer of literary traditions and a brilliant chronicler of universal experience who, no less than his Western contemporaries, anticipated the modernism of the twentieth century.

    In exploring Japanese philosophy, a dependable guide is essential. The present volume, written by a renowned authority on the subject, offers readers a historical survey of Japanese thought that is both comprehensive and comprehensible.Adhering to the Japanese philosophical tradition of highlighting engagement over detachment, Thomas Kasulis invites us to think with, as well as about, the Japanese masters by offering ample examples, innovative analogies, thought experiments, and jargon-free explanations. He assumes little previous knowledge and addresses themes--aesthetics, ethics, the samurai code, politics, among others--not in a vacuum but within the conditions of Japan's cultural and intellectual history. For readers new to Japanese studies, he provides a simplified guide to pronouncing Japanese and a separate discussion of the language and how its syntax, orthography, and linguistic layers can serve the philosophical purposes of a skilled writer and subtle thinker. For those familiar with the Japanese cultural tradition but less so with philosophy, Kasulis clarifies philosophical expressions and problems, Western as well as Japanese, as they arise.Half of the book's chapters are devoted to seven major thinkers who collectively represent the full range of Japan's historical epochs and philosophical traditions: Kūkai, Shinran, Dōgen, Ogyū Sorai, Motoori Norinaga, Nishida Kitarō, and Watsuji Tetsurō. Nuanced details and analyses enable an engaged understanding of Japanese Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintō, and modern academic philosophy. Other chapters supply social and cultural background, including brief discussions of nearly a hundred other philosophical writers. (For additional information, cross references to material in the companion volume Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook are included.) In his closing chapter Kasulis reflects on lessons from Japanese philosophy that enhance our understanding of philosophy itself. He reminds us that philosophy in its original sense means loving wisdom, not studying ideas. In that regard, a renewed appreciation of engaged knowing can play a critical role in the revitalization of philosophy in the West as well as the East.

    However, she came to question not only contemporary American values but also traditional monastic ones. This book is about becoming an adult—about sexuality, religion, work, ethics, and individuality—but it is also about being a human being trying to be happy. Questioning is a theme that runs throughout the book: how can I be happy? What is true? What is authentic? The reader is invited along a journey that is difficult, inspiring, sad, funny, and sincere.

    With each fierce battle, the mysterious, blood-splattered "hero" sinks closer to his prey, ready to strike. This while a sinister form watches and records his every move...The original Redman television series from Tsuburaya Productions debuted April 24, 1972. It ran for 138 episodes, ending in October of the same year. Its penchant for unusual treatment of its main hero as well as for the creatures he dispatched each episode led to the show finding status as a cult hit and internet phenomenon. Now artist Matt Frank (Godzilla, Transformers) and colorist Gon�alo Lopes (Bio Wars, Dodge City) bring the tokusatsu hero back to life in the pages of a new comic series and no kaiju is safe!

    The intentions of the designer can be found in the slightest detail, but none are overworked, preferring spare elegance to busy excess. Mixing traditional art and philosophy with contemporary design to create a material and visual culture that blends seamlessly into their lives at home. With this strong national identity and focus on design, it is no wonder their creative output is admired and imitated throughout the world. Made in Japan highlights more than 40 creatives from different fields who exemplify this design character through their work in graphic design and branding, illustration, packaging, fashion, product and spatial design.

    The religion is best known for its affiliated political party, Komeito (the Clean Government Party), which comprises part of the ruling coalition in Japan’s National Diet, and it exerts considerable influence in education, media, finance, and other key areas. Levi McLaughlin’s comprehensive account of Soka Gakkai draws on nearly two decades of archival research and non-member fieldwork to account for its institutional development beyond Buddhism and suggest how we should understand the activities and dispositions of its adherents. McLaughlin explores the group’s Nichiren Buddhist origins and turns to insights from religion, political science, anthropology, and cultural studies to characterize Soka Gakkai as mimetic of the nation-state. Ethnographic vignettes combine with historical evidence to demonstrate ways Soka Gakkai’s twin Buddhist and modern humanist legacies inform the organization’s mimesis of the modern Japan in which the group took shape. To make this argument, McLaughlin analyzes Gakkai sources heretofore untreated in English-language scholarship; provides a close reading of the serial novel The Human Revolution, which serves the Gakkai as both history and de facto scripture; identifies ways episodes from members’ lives form new chapters in its growing canon; and contributes to discussions of religion and gender as he chronicles the lives of members who simultaneously reaffirm generational transmission of Gakkai devotion as they pose challenges for the organization’s future.Readers looking for analyses of the nation-state and strategies for understanding New Religions and modern Buddhism will find Soka Gakkai’s Human Revolution to be an especially thought-provoking study that offers widely applicable theoretical models.

    For thousands of years, Japanese hot springs (or onsen) have been revered for their relaxing and healing qualities, and this guidebook highlights 140 of the very best places for tourists to visit around the country. Onsen experiences include super sento (large bathing and relaxation centres), local bathhouses, ultra-chic spas, forest retreats and whole towns dedicated to onsen. The how-to guide will help you navigate the complex etiquette and customs of communal bathing, and easy checklists let you know what each onsen offers and whether tattoos are accepted. One thing is for sure, taking a bath will never be the same again.

    Drawing on a wide range of sources, from whaling ledgers to recipe books and gravestones for fetal whales, she traces how the images of whales and byproducts of commercial whaling were woven into the lives of people throughout Japan. Economically, Pacific Ocean resources were central in supporting the expanding Tokugawa state.In this vivid and nuanced study of how the Japanese people brought whales ashore during the Tokugawa period, Arch makes important contributions to both environmental and Japanese history by connecting Japanese whaling to marine environmental history in the Pacific, including the devastating impact of American whaling in the nineteenth century.

    In the Edo period (1603-1868), many artists, such as Hokusai Katsushika or Kuniyoshi Utagawa, created works featuring yokai that were inspired by folklore or their own imaginations. This book contains a lot of art works of Japanese yokai from the Edo period to today and includes not only paintings but also wood block prints, scrolls, ceramics, kimonos, wooden sculptures, magazines, toys for children, such as board games, and more. This is the second series from the Yokai Museum and showcases a new collection of works, including never-before-seen works. All of the works featured in this book are from the personal collection of Koichi Yumoto, who will be opening the Yokai Museum in Hiroshima in 2018. Yumoto's own commentary on the works and the history of yokai are also included. This book will certainly appeal to Japanese art lovers, fans of yokai and also to those who are new to these fascinating supernatural creatures. It is also a valuable reference and source of inspiration for designers and illustrators.

    For each animal or object, children will be able to read the haiku, enjoy a corresponding work from the British Museum collection, and then make the origami figure! With clear, simple directions for thirteen animals or objects and fifty sheets of origami paper, this is the perfect introduction to the art of paper folding.

    And within Yoshiwara was the Hidden House. A place that only the very wealthiest could afford. The place where the geisha were…special.The Secrets From The Hidden House Trilogy brings the three novels telling the stories of the geisha of the Hidden House together in one volume. The Geisha With The Green Eyes:In the Hidden House lived Midori No Me. Half Japanese, half foreign Barbarian, born to captivity. She was trained to dedicate her life to serving the wealthiest men in Japan. Defiled at thirteen when her virginity was sold to the highest bidder. Possessed by the greatest actor in the kabuki theater. Stolen from him by the most powerful yakuza in Edo.The geisha who escaped from the Floating World.The Geisha with the Green Eyes.The Geisha Who Could Feel No Pain:Out of all the geisha, only Mineko´s strangeness was hidden from the world.Mineko was the geisha who could not feel pain. She was the geisha that no man could hurt, no matter how hard they tried. And not only was Mineko unable to feel physical pain, she was also unable to feel the emotions of love and longing and need. Until she met the Samurai who became her lover; the man who—just as she was—was owned body and soul by Mineko's master, the terrible yakuza Akira.As her desires were awoken by Ken, her Samurai lover, Mineko begins to dream of another life, one of freedom. The Dragon Geisha:A new world full of beautiful possibilities, but old scars run deep. Midori No Me, the Geisha with the Green Eyes, has finally escaped the Floating World and is living her dream performing in a kabuki troop as it travels the United States. But she cannot outrun the ghosts of the past. Jealousy and deceit threaten the new life she is trying to build. And when she learns of the cruelty her old master, the yakuza Akira, is inflicting on her friends back in Edo, she cannot ignore their plight. She must somehow find the courage to venture back to the Floating World to help others escape from the prison that was once hers.The Geisha with the Green Eyes must become The Dragon Geisha.

    With a full range of four character folios, a fully realized adventure book, a set of custom dice, a map of Rokugan, a variety of tokens, and a complete set of rules, the Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying – Beginner Game gives new players and veterans alike the perfect door to the Emerald Empire.

    Melissa McCormick provides a unique companion to Murasaki's tale that combines discussions of all fifty-four of its chapters with paintings and calligraphy from the Genji Album (1510) in the Harvard Art Museums, the oldest dated set of Genji illustrations known to exist.In this book, the album's colorful painting and calligraphy leaves are fully reproduced for the first time, followed by McCormick's insightful essays that analyze the Genji story and the album's unique combinations of word and image. This stunning compendium also includes English translations and Japanese transcriptions of the album's calligraphy, enabling a holistic experience of the work for readers today. In an introduction to the volume, McCormick tells the fascinating stories of the individuals who created the Genji Album in the sixteenth century, from the famous court painter who executed the paintings and the aristocrats who brushed the calligraphy to the work's warrior patrons and the poet-scholars who acted as their intermediaries.Beautifully illustrated, this book serves as an invaluable guide for readers interested in The Tale of Genji, Japanese literature, and the captivating visual world of Japan's most celebrated work of fiction.

    With a large choice of discount passes, tax-free shopping and an unbelievable exchange rate, now is the time to come! Unlike other Tokyo guides, this book shows you exactly how, where and when you can save money. Grab a traditional Japanese meal for $3, buy clothes in fashion heaven Harajuku for under $10, spend next to nothing on a day's hiking or relax in a free Japanese garden; it's all here in this easy-to-use travel guide. Inside the Super Cheap Tokyo guide book: Budget food - comprehensive listings of low-cost restaurants, take-outs, supermarkets, so you'll never be lost for a cheap meal Budget shopping - 100 yen ($1) shops, free sample hotspots, how and where to go tax-free shopping, all the best attraction discounts and freebies Color maps for budget travelers, making it easy and stress-free to get around Highlights and itineraries based on discount subway and train passes, so you can keep costs down while exploring all across the region Tokyo's hidden treasures - walking routes via historic neighborhoods to cut down on train fares, inexpensive side trips and free alternatives to busy, overpriced spots Essential help for budget travelers - free tours, simple to understand directions, simplified transportation maps, translations for places that don't have English support and basic Japanese phrases to help you get better prices on your trip Cheap accommodation - the best and cheapest hostels, family-friendly hotels, capsule hotels, net cafes, overnight spas, campsites and more Guides to central Tokyo and the Imperial Palace, Harajuku, Shibuya, Akihabara, Asakusa, the Skytree, Odaiba, Shinjuku, Shin-Okubo, Ueno, Mount Fuji, Kamakura, Yokohama, Nikko, Hakone, Mount Takao, Mount Mitake, as well as many other highlights and off-the-beaten-track spots nearby Based on the top-selling Super Cheap Japan guidebook (ISBN 978-1-9998100-0-9), this book is perfect for backpackers, budget travelers, families on a tight budget, students and those who are new to Tokyo. You'll have an amazing time, without blowing all your money away!

    

    His magnum opus, the Go-Rin-Sho or Book of Five Rings is a classic that is still read by tens of thousands of people each year—Japanese and foreigners alike.Alex Bennett's groundbreaking new translation of The Book of Five Rings reveals the true meaning of this text for the first time. Like Sun Tzu's The Art of War, Musashi's book offers unique insights, not just for warriors, but for anyone wanting to apply the Zen Buddhist principle of awareness to achieve success in their endeavors. This book sheds new light on Japanese history and on the philosophical meaning of Bushido—the ancient "code of the Japanese warrior."Unlike other translations that are based on incomplete and inaccurate versions of Musashi's work, Bennett's is the first to be based on a careful reconstruction of the long-lost original manuscript. Capturing the subtle nuances of the original Japanese classic, the result is a far more accurate and meaningful English version of The Book of Five Rings text. Richly annotated and with an extensive introduction to Musashi's life, this version includes a collection of his other writings—translated into English for the first time. A respected scholar, as well as a skilled martial artist, Bennett's understanding of Musashi's life and work is unparalleled. This book will be widely read by students of Japanese culture, history. military strategy, and martial arts. It sets a new standard against which all other translations will be measured.

    But in Japan, a bow is the traditional gesture to greet another person. This country close-up teaches upper-elementary students Japanese customs and much more about the Asian island nation.

    Japan's former capital has its own distinct identity, dialect and dishes, and beyond the Buddhist temples and Zen gardens you'll find a dynamic city that's constantly evolving.The Monocle Travel Guide series reveals our favourite places in each city we cover, from the ideal route for an early-morning run to the best spots for independent retail. Full of surprises and quirks, they also feature detailed design and architecture pages, neighbourhood walks to get you away from the crowds and our favourite places to eat everything be it tasty fast food or something truly celebratory.

    Sacred Mandates, edited by Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt van Praag, and Miek Boltjes, redresses this oversight by examining the complex history of inter-polity relations in Inner and East Asia from the thirteenth century to the twentieth, in order to help us understand and develop policies to address challenges in the region today.   This book argues that understanding the diversity of past legal orders helps explain the forms of contemporary conflict, as well as the conflicting historical narratives that animate tensions. Rather than proceed sequentially by way of dynasties, the editors identify three “worlds”—Chingssid Mongol, Tibetan Buddhist, and Confucian Sinic—that represent different forms of civilization authority and legal order. This novel framework enables us to escape the modern tendency to view the international system solely as the interaction of independent states, and instead detect the effects of the complicated history at play between and within regions. Contributors from a wide range of disciplines cover a host of topics: the development of international law, sovereignty, state formation, ruler legitimacy, and imperial expansion, as well as the role of spiritual authority on state behavior, the impact of modernization, and the challenges for peace processes. The culmination of five years of collaborative research, Sacred Mandates will be the definitive historical guide to international and intrastate relations in Asia, of interest to policymakers and scholars alike, for years to come.

    

     With pitch-dark humor and light-hearted romance, My (Almost) Life as a Hikikomori shares glints of our contemporary lives, as well as the old dilemma of death.

    Deftly illustrating the use of more than 1,500 commonly used Japanese words and phrases, author Timothy Stout gives learners a clear, easy-to-use introduction to this fascinating language. Containing culture-specific Japanese words and images not found in other picture dictionaries, Stout provides the Japanese script forms along with Romanized pronunciations and English definitions. The words are grouped into 38 themes or topics, each with 35 to 45 words, and several sentences, covering all the essential vocabulary—including the 1,500 critical Japanese words and sentences that students need to know to pass the AP Japanese Language and Culture Exam and the JLPT proficiency exams. The book also includes a brief introduction to the Japanese language and an index. Online, students will find free companion audio recordings by Japanese native speakers demonstrating the correct pronunciation of all the vocabulary and sentences. Richly illustrated with more than 750 color photographs, the Japanese Picture Dictionary convenient format and highly visual presentation make it easy for readers to boost their proficiency quickly and to remember it all for their next visit to Japan!

    Short but powerful, haiku poems are easy and fun to write and share with your friends. Haiku has become increasingly popular in school curriculums around the world, particularly among teachers introducing students to the art of poetry as well as Asian history and heritage. The activities in this haiku-for-kids book will show you how to create haiku and will help you to think up meaningful words and images with which you can write beautiful poetry. Write Your Own Haiku For Kids introduces four styles of haiku to readers with clear explanations and numerous examples. This book includes chapters on:Your first haiku—how to get started writing this classic form of poetryHaiku about Nature—a traditional element in haikuHaibun—Haiku with a short storyHaiga—Haiku with a drawingRenga—Haiku that you write together with friendsThe study and creation of haiku is a great way to have fun with both writing and reading poetry while exploring remarkable aspects of Japanese culture.

    John Whittier Treat takes up both canonical and forgotten works, the non-literary as well as the literary, and pays special attention to the Japanese state’s hand in shaping literature throughout the country’s nineteenth-century industrialization, a half-century of empire and war, its post-1945 reconstruction, and the challenges of the twenty-first century to modern nationhood.   Beginning with journalistic accounts of female criminals in the aftermath of the Meiji civil war, Treat moves on to explore how woman novelist Higuchi Ichiyo’s stories engaged with modern liberal economics, sex work, and marriage; credits Natsume Soseki’s satire I Am a Cat with the triumph of print over orality in the early twentieth century; and links narcissism in the visual arts with that of the Japanese I-novel on the eve of the country’s turn to militarism in the 1930s. From imperialism to Americanization and the new media of television and manga, from boogie-woogie music to Yoshimoto Banana and Murakami Haruki, Treat traces the stories Japanese audiences expected literature to tell and those they did not. The book concludes with a classic of Japanese science fiction a description of present-day crises writers face in a Japan hobbled by a changing economy and unprecedented natural and manmade catastrophes. The Rise and Fall of Japanese Literature reinterprets the “end of literature”—a phrase heard often in Japan—as a clarion call to understand how literary culture worldwide now teeters on a historic precipice, one at which Japan’s writers may have arrived just a moment before the rest of us.

    His political career was marked mostly by setbacks, yet he became a cult figure in China after his death. Today he is the only 20th-century Chinese leader to be widely revered on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. In contrast, many Western historians see little in his ideas or deeds to warrant such high esteem. This book presents the most balanced account of Sun to date, one that situates him within the historical events and intellectual climate of his time. Born in the shadow of the Opium War, the young Sun saw China repeatedly humiliated in clashes with foreign powers, resulting in the loss of territory and sovereignty. When his efforts to petition the decrepit Manchu court to institute reforms failed, Sun took to revolution. Sun traversed the globe to canvass support for his cause. A notable feature of the book is its coverage of the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and their contributions to his uprisings on the mainland, which set the stage for the overthrow of two millennia of imperial rule in 1911. But Sun’s vision of China was not to be. Within a few years the republic was hijacked and plunged into chaos. This fascinating and immensely readable work illuminates the man and his achievements, his strengths and his weaknesses, revealing how he came to spearhead the revolution that would transform his country and yet, at his death in 1925 and still today, remain agonizingly unfinished."I've read at least 30 or 40 biographies of Sun Yat Sen in my life, so I was intrigued to find out what Kayloe had to say that's new. I was fascinated. He really tells the story afresh. Through a lively series of chapters that capture different phases of Sun's life and career, Kayloe tries to understand and to convey to us what made this remarkable man tick. A very readable book... I strongly recommend it." — Prof Wang Gungwu, Founding Chairman?, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, and University Professor, National University of Singapore

    Sake, as we conceive of it here, is therefore "nihonshu", a traditional Japanese alcoholic beverage, usually translucent, colorless and containing 15-17% alcohol, resulting from the fermentation of rice. It should not be confused with baijiu or meikueilu, distilled 40% alcohols presented in shooter glasses with suggestive drawings in many Asian restaurants, or with shochu, a (great) Japanese distilled spirit. Easy-to-read yet scrupulously precise, this book is the fruit of more than 6 years of research, a season of sake-making in Japan and countless exchanges with industry professionals. It meticulously unveils all the mysteries of sake. This book is intended for anyone who wishes to understand sake, its ingredients and its production method, whether they be neophytes, amateurs or professionals. Four themes are covered: raw materials, fermentation, fining and tasting. "An extremely detailed but approachable bible [of sake]" SommelierS International "The reference book on Japanese sake" Mikael Rodriguez, Head Sommelier, La Mamounia Palace, Morocco "A dense, rich and complete book that allow you to better understand and become familiar with Japanese sake." Philippe Faure-Brac, best sommelier of the world, RIO 1992 "One of the best explanatory book for Sake in the world." Toru Akita, Toji "5 stars, A bible to always keep by your side, one of the best books on the subject. Treated with scientific knowledge and in a structured way, I warmly recommend!" Adrien Nonameuh Facebook rating "This book is above and beyond what I hoped to find.The informations provided and the level of detail is fantastic." Paolo Tucci, Reader

    He was present at and integral to the free jazz scene and his memoir has all of the info. All new photos not in the original Japanese edition! Introduction by Otomo Yoshihide. Public Bath Press is very proud to add this book to out catalog.

    From abandoned shrines and hospitals to rundown homes and haunted forests, discover some of the most famous haunted locations Japan has to offer and learn how they became haunted to begin with.These aren’t your regular haunted houses. Click the buy button and discover the real terror lurking in the dark right now.

    Empire pursue this question by examining empire as an unequally shared present. Here empire stands as an entrenched, if often invisible, part of everyday life central to making and remaking a world in which it is too often presented as an aberration rather than as a structuring condition. This volume presents scholarship from across U.S. imperial formations: settler colonialism, overseas territories, communities impacted by U.S. military action or political intervention, Cold War alliances and fissures, and, most recently, new forms of U.S. empire after 9/11. From the Mohawk Nation, Korea, and the Philippines to Iraq and the hills of New Jersey, the contributors show how a methodological and theoretical commitment to ethnography sharpens all of our understandings of the novel and timeworn ways people live, thrive, and resist in the imperial present. Contributors: Kevin K. Birth, Joe Bryan, John F. Collins, Jean Dennison, Erin Fitz-Henry, Adriana María Garriga-López, Olívia Maria Gomes da Cunha, Matthew Gutmann, Ju Hui Judy Han, J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, Eleana Kim, Heonik Kwon, Soo Ah Kwon, Darryl Li, Catherine Lutz, Sunaina Maira, Carole McGranahan, Sean T. Mitchell, Jan M. Padios, Melissa Rosario, Audra Simpson, Ann Laura Stoler, Fa’anofo Lisaclaire Uperesa, David Vine

    She shows how questions about waste were deeply embedded in the decisions of everyday life, reflecting the priorities and aspirations of the historical moment, and revealing people's ever-changing concerns and hopes.Over the course of the long postwar, Japanese society understood waste variously as backward and retrogressive, an impediment to progress, a pervasive outgrowth of mass consumption, incontrovertible proof of societal excess, the embodiment of resources squandered, and a hazard to the environment. Siniawer also shows how an encouragement of waste consciousness served as a civilizing and modernizing imperative, a moral good, an instrument for advancement, a path to self-satisfaction, an environmental commitment, an expression of identity, and more. From the late 1950s onward, a defining element of Japan's postwar experience emerged: the tension between the desire for the privileges of middle-class lifestyles made possible by affluence and dissatisfaction with the logics, costs, and consequences of that very prosperity. This tension complicated the persistent search for what might be called well-being, a good life, or a life well lived. Waste is an elegant history of how people lived--how they made sense of, gave meaning to, and found value in the acts of the everyday.

    Ito's memorable account, informal and uncompromisingly jovial, of an important interlude in the history of early twentieth-century Anglophone modernism includes encounters not only with Pound and Yeats but also Edmund Dulac, Claude Debussy, Auguste Rodin, Vaslav Nijinsky, Isadora Duncan, and Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, amongst others, and has been recognized as a significant primary source in the scholarship of Pound, Yeats, and Modernist studies more generally. The translation is by postgraduate students in the Department of Literature and Culture in English at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University, edited by David Ewick and Dorsey Kleitz. It includes a biographical and critical introduction and critical and contextualizing notes by Ewick and Kleitz, a preface by Michele Ito, Itō’s granddaughter and Director of the Michio Ito Foundation, a foreword by John Gery, and an authorized reprint of the original Japanese text of the talk as it appeared in 1956.

    Suspended in a state of exception, Okinawans have never been officially classified as colonial subjects of the Japanese empire or the United States, nor have they ever been treated as equal citizens of Japan. As a result, they live amid one of the densest concentrations of U.S. military bases in the world. By bringing Foucauldian biopolitics into conversation with Japanese Marxian theorizations of capitalism, Alegal uncovers Japan's determination to protect its middle class from the racialized sexual contact around its mainland bases by displacing them onto Okinawa, while simultaneously upholding Okinawa as a symbol of the infringement of Japanese sovereignty figured in terms of a patriarchal monoethnic state.This symbolism, however, has provoked ambivalence within Okinawa. In base towns that facilitated encounters between G.I.s and Okinawan women, the racial politics of the United States collided with the postcolonial politics of the Asia Pacific. Through close readings of poetry, reportage, film, and memoir on base-town life since 1945, Shimabuku traces a continuing failure to "become Japanese." What she discerns instead is a complex politics surrounding sex work, tipping with volatility along the razor's edge between insurgency and collaboration. At stake in sovereign power's attempt to secure Okinawa as a military fortress was the need to contain alegality itself--that is, a life force irreducible to the legal order. If biopolitics is the state's attempt to monopolize life, then Alegal is a story about how borderland actors reclaimed the power of life for themselves.In addition to scholars of Japan and Okinawa, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in postcolonialism, militarism, mixed-race studies, gender and sexuality, or the production of sovereignty in the modern world.

    This vibrant collection of Japanese garden design and landscaping photographs introduces a wide variety of traditional houses, from aristocratic villas, temple residences, and merchant townhouses, to ryokan inns and private retreats—each uniquely equipped with a garden space. Houses And Gardens of Kyoto features residences—many of which have never before been photographed or shown in any other book—hand-picked by photographer Akihiko Seki. The accompanying text is informative and is sure to be a standard reference guide on the topic for years to come. Each entry in this Japanese gardening and landscape design book is a colorful example of the most exquisite classic Japanese houses and garden styles and will serve as a lasting inspiration to anyone who is captivated by Japanese architecture and design.

    Drawing on extensive research, Lena Fritsch traces the development of Japanese photography chronologically, from the severity of post-war Realism to the diverse ingenuity of photography in contemporary Japan. Interspersed are fascinating original interviews with some of the most influential photographers of each era, including Daido Moriyama.Ravens and Red Lipstick offers a visually bold survey of Japanese photography’s recent history. Fritsch masterfully frames each movement with their business, education, and art-institutional backdrops—she shows the consumerism and intense political debates of 1960s and ’70s Japan, for example, to be central to the rough style of the “Provoke” artists. Fritsch’s great achievement is to bring observations from a range of disciplines to bear on her commentary with imagination and clarity. As a result, this comprehensively illustrated volume is both an accessible introduction and an illuminating work of analysis of Japanese photography since 1945.

    From ancient goddesses and queens to modern singers and writers, this edited volume critically reconsiders the female icon, tracing how she has been offered up for emulation, debate or censure. The research in this book culminates from curiosity over the insistent presence of Japanese female figures who have refused to sit quietly on the sidelines of history. The contributors move beyond archival portraits to consider historically and culturally informed diva imagery and diva lore. The diva is ripe for expansion, fantasy, eroticization, and playful reinvention, while simultaneously presenting a challenge to patriarchal culture. Diva Nation asks how the diva disrupts or bolsters ideas about nationhood, morality, and aesthetics.

    In addition, it demonstrates how Japan has led efforts to contend with several social and economic challenges facing the entire developed world, including demographic aging, rising healthcare costs, and wasteful consumption. Using these accomplishments as evidence, it argues that, in an era of questions surrounding the capability of American leadership, the time has come for Japan to step into a new role as a purveyor of models and values better suited to today's multipolar and diverse world.

    Why would he? His great-grandfather left Japan in 1923, and the last vestige of the old country is the sword he brought with him. That changes when a tragic accident leaves Matt's body broken and his heart shattered.Matt finds himself with a one-way ticket to Japan, to a remote village named Kenoshiro, and to a house without electricity or plumbing. It's as if he stepped back in time.He counts the days until his eighteenth birthday, when he can return to America, but simply surviving seems unlikely. Matt gets an education about his heritage he doesn't want, learns real monsters aren't cute or pocket-sized, and that sometimes the sweetest smile masks a mouthful of long, sharp teeth.If you're looking for a contemporary fantasy adventure that blends the myths of ancient Japan with urban legends... read 100 Gates today!

    Since then Godzilla and other monsters, such as Mothra and Gamera, have gained cult status around the world. This book provides a new interpretation of these monsters, or kaiju-ū, and their respective movies. Analyzing Japanese history, society and film, the authors show the ways in which this monster cinema take on environmental and ecological issues--from nuclear power and industrial pollution to biodiversity and climate change.

    In 2014, Stacy Thomas decided to fulfill one of her childhood dreams by moving to South Korea. In this book, she related the challenges she encountered while teaching English as a Second Language to Korean school children in grades one-six, during which she felt a kind of rage that was similar to that of the Incredible Hulk on a daily basis. After the completion of her one-year teaching contract, she decided to travel to Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand for three months as a belated 30th birthday gift to herself. Come along with Stacy as she shares the many priceless experiences that she was fortunate and unfortunate to come across during her journey through nine different countries. Author_Bio: Stacy Thomas is a professional voice actor based out of Dallas, Texas with an eternal passion for travel and food. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of North Texas in Speech-Language Pathology. Stacy worked as a speech-language pathologist for two years in King City, California before she moved to South Korea in 2014 to teach English for a year. Always On The Way is her first book. Keywords: Travel, Expat, Overseas, Asian, Oceania, Backpacking, ESL, Teaching, Excursions, Trips

    Diehl explores the genesis of narratives surrounding the atomic bombing of August 9, 1945, by following the individuals and groups who contributed to the shaping of Nagasaki City's postwar identity. Municipal officials, survivor-activist groups, the Catholic community, and American occupation officials all interpreted the destruction and reconstruction of the city from different, sometimes disparate perspectives. Diehl's analysis reveals how these atomic narratives shaped both the way Nagasaki rebuilt and the ways in which popular discourse on the atomic bombings framed the city's experience for decades.

    Haiku is an ancient literary form seemingly made for the Twittersphere—Jack Kerouac and Langston Hughes wrote them, Ezra Pound and the Imagists were inspired by them, Hallmark’s made millions off them, first-grade students across the country still learn to write them. But what really is a haiku? Where does the form originate? Who were the original Japanese poets who wrote them? And how has their work been translated into English over the years? The haiku form comes down to us today as a cliché: a three-line poem of 5-7-5 syllables. And yet its story is actually much more colorful and multifaceted. And of course to write a good one can be as difficult as writing a Homeric epic—or it can materialize in an instant of epic inspiration.In On Haiku, Hiroaki Sato explores the many styles and genres of haiku on both sides of the Pacific, from the classical haiku of Basho, Issa, and Zen monks, to modern haiku about swimsuits and atomic bombs, to the haiku of famous American writers such as J. D. Salinger and Allen Ginsburg. As if conversing over beers in your favorite pub, Sato explains everything you wanted to know about the haiku in this endearing and pleasurable book, destined to be a classic in the field.

    The most comprehensive compendium of short medieval Japanese fiction in English, Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds illuminates a rich world of literary, Buddhist, and visual culture largely unknown today outside of Japan.These stories, called otogizōshi, or Muromachi tales (named after the Muromachi period, 1337 to 1573), date from approximately the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries. Often richly illustrated in a painted-scroll format, these vernacular stories frequently express Buddhist beliefs and provide the practical knowledge and moral education required to navigate medieval Japanese society. The otogizōshi represent a major turning point in the history of Japanese literature. They bring together many earlier types of narrative--court tales, military accounts, anecdotes, and stories about the divine origins of shrines and temples--joining book genres with parlor arts and the culture of itinerant storytellers and performers. The works presented here are organized into three thematically overlapping sections titled, "Monsters, Warriors, and Journeys to Other Worlds," "Buddhist Tales," and "Interspecies Affairs." Each translation is prefaced by a short introduction, and the book features images from the original scroll paintings, illustrated manuscripts, and printed books.

    Why and how did so many colonial youth become passionate supporters of Japanese imperial nationalism? And what happened to these youth after the war? Nation-Empire investigates these questions by examining the long-term mobilization of youth in the rural peripheries of Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. Personal stories and village histories vividly show youth’s ambitions, emotions, and identities generated in the shifting conditions in each locality. At the same time, Sayaka Chatani unveils an intense ideological mobilization built from diverse contexts—the global rise of youth and agrarian ideals, Japan’s strong drive for assimilation and nationalization, and the complex emotions of younger generations in various remote villages.Nation-Empire engages with multiple historical debates. Chatani considers metropole-colony linkages, revealing the core characteristics of the Japanese Empire; discusses youth mobilization, analyzing the Japanese seinendan (village youth associations) as equivalent to the Boy Scouts or the Hitler Youth; and examines society and individual subjectivities under totalitarian rule. Her book highlights the shifting state-society transactions of the twentieth-century world through the lens of the Japanese Empire, inviting readers to contend with a new approach to, and a bold vision of, empire study.

    The historic first showing outside Japan of Itō Jakuchū's thirty-scroll series titled Colorful Realm of Living Beings (ca. 1757–66) in 2012 prompted a reimagining of artists and art making in this context. These essays give attention to Jakuchū’s spectacular series as well as to works by a range of contemporary artists. Selected contributions address issues of professional roles, including copying and imitation, display and memorialization, and makers’ identities. Some explore the new form of painting, ukiyo-e, in the context of the urban society that provided its subject matter and audiences; others discuss the spectrum of amateur and professional Edo pottery and interrelationships between painting and other media. Together, they reveal the fluidity and dynamism of artists’ identities during a time of great significance in the country’s history.

    He enthusiastically assembled a collection of the prints with the idea of dealing in them, and soon was captivated by their colorful and cheerful imagery and style, which began to exert a dramatic influence on his own work. Gradually this enchanted world became his main artistic reference point. From then on, he positioned himself as an artist in the Japanese tradition in order to gain a reputation with the avant-garde of the day.   This gorgeous publication offers a detailed reassessment of the impact Japanese printmaking had on Van Gogh’s creative output. Featuring essays by the world’s leading Van Gogh experts, this book details the ways in which the artist constructed his understanding of a Japanese aesthetic and his utopian ideal of a so-called primitive society, and incorporated these into his own vision and practice. The size, nature, and importance of Van Gogh’s own collection of Japanese prints are also explored. Lavish illustrations include oil paintings and drawings by Van Gogh as well as a selection of the Japanese works that so captured his imagination.

    This move triggered the largest popular backlash in the nation's modern history. These protests, Nick Kapur argues in Japan at the Crossroads, changed the evolution of Japan's politics and culture, along with its global role.The yearlong protests of 1960 reached a climax in June, when thousands of activists stormed Japan's National Legislature, precipitating a battle with police and yakuza thugs. Hundreds were injured and a young woman was killed. With the nation's cohesion at stake, the Japanese government acted quickly to quell tensions and limit the recurrence of violent demonstrations. A visit by President Eisenhower was canceled and the Japanese prime minister resigned. But the rupture had long-lasting consequences that went far beyond politics and diplomacy. Kapur traces the currents of reaction and revolution that propelled Japanese democracy, labor relations, social movements, the arts, and literature in complex, often contradictory directions. His analysis helps resolve Japan's essential paradox as a nation that is both innovative and regressive, flexible and resistant, wildly imaginative yet simultaneously wedded to tradition.As Kapur makes clear, the rest of the world cannot understand contemporary Japan and the distinct impression it has made on global politics, economics, and culture without appreciating the critical role of the "revolutionless" revolution of 1960--turbulent events that released long-buried liberal tensions while bolstering Japan's conservative status quo.

    We kept the top 30, so that each experience described in this guide would alone make your trip worthwhile.

    Taking an interdisciplinary approach, Gregory Smits makes extensive use of scholarship in archaeology and anthropology and leverages unconventional sources such as the Omoro sōshi (a collection of ancient songs) to present a fundamental rethinking of early Ryukyu. Instead of treating Ryukyu as a natural, self-contained cultural or political community, he examines it as part of a maritime network extending from coastal Korea to the islands of Tsushima and Iki, along the western shore of Kyushu, and through the Ryukyu Arc to coastal China. Smits asserts that Ryukyuan culture did not spring from the soil of Okinawa: He highlights Ryukyu’s northern roots and the role of wakō (pirate-merchant seafarers) in the formation of power centers throughout the islands, uncovering their close historical connections with the coastal areas of western Japan and Korea. Unlike conventional Ryukyuan histories that open with Okinawa, Maritime Ryukyu starts with the northern island of Kikai, an international crossroads during the eleventh century. It also focuses on other important but often overlooked territories such as the Tokara islands and Kumejima, in addition to bringing the northern and southern Ryukyu islands into a story that all too often centers almost exclusively on Okinawa. Readers interested in the history of the Ryukyu islands, premodern Japan, and East Asia, as well as maritime history, will welcome this original and persuasive volume.

    Raechel Dumas examines the role of female monsters in selected works of fiction, manga, film, and video games, offering a trans-genre, trans-media analysis of this enduring trope. The book focuses on several iterations of the monstrous-feminine in contemporary Japan: the self-replicating shōjo in horror, monstrous mothers in science fiction, female ghosts and suburban hauntings in cinema, female monsters and public violence in survival horror games, and the rebellious female body in mytho-fiction. Situating the titles examined here amid discourses of crisis that have materialized in contemporary Japan, Dumas illuminates the ambivalent pleasure of the monstrous-feminine as a trope that both articulates anxieties centered on shifting configurations of subjectivity and nationhood, and elaborates novel possibilities for identity negotiation and social formation in a period marked by dramatic change.

    Kouta Takeda who just started working at XOX Corporation, meets his new boss, a beautiful woman with big breasts named Kyouko Takizawa.

    He has also been called the Hans Christian Andersen of Japan because of how his works were influenced by that author. This collection contains a fresh, modern translation of one of Mimei Ogawa’s most famous works, "The Red Candle and the Mermaid", as well as several other stories that have never been translated and published in English before. All stories are listed in parallel translation, with alternating paragraphs of English and Japanese, to serve as a study resource for Japanese learners. The entire set of stories is also listed in English-only form for readers only interested in the translation. These stories, ranging from a dark tale about the power of nature to an inspiring tale about the world viewed through the eyes of a child, show a unique side of Japanese literature that has remained mostly unknown to western audiences until now.

    Files are lost and mislaid. But this book seeks to shine a light, offering a collection of cutting edge pieces of historical research detailing some of the most fascinating arms and armament projects from the 1920s to the end of the 1940’s, nearly all of which had previously been lost to history.Included here are records from the UK’s MI10 (the forerunner of GCHQ) which tell the story of the mighty Japanese heavy tanks and their service during the Second World War. Other chapters expand on the development of British armour, including the story of infantry tanks from the 1920’s right through to the end of the Second World War and beyond.Other items placed beneath the microscope in this fascinating history include a wide variety of guns, rocket launchers, super heavy tanks and countless pieces of specialised armour. Previously overlooked, hidden under layers of dust in archives up and down the country, the histories of these objects has finally been uncovered.

    Often overshadowed in historical literature by the Japanese diaspora on the West Coast, this community, which dates back to the 1870s, has its own fascinating history.   The New York Japanese American community was a composite of several micro communities divided along status, class, geographic, and religious lines. Using a wealth of primary sources—oral histories, memoirs, newspapers, government documents, photographs, and more—Daniel H. Inouye tells the stories of the business and professional elites, mid-sized merchants, small business owners, working-class families, menial laborers, and students that made up these communities. The book presents new knowledge about the history of Japanese immigrants in the United States and makes a novel and persuasive argument about the primacy of class and status stratification and relatively weak ethnic cohesion and solidarity in New York City, compared to the pervading understanding of nikkei on the West Coast. While a few prior studies have identified social stratification in other nikkei communities, this book presents the first full exploration of the subject and additionally draws parallels to divisions in German American communities.  Distant Islands is a unique and nuanced historical account of an American ethnic community that reveals the common humanity of pioneering Japanese New Yorkers despite diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and life stories. It will be of interest to general readers, students, and scholars interested in Asian American studies, immigration and ethnic studies, sociology, and history. Winner- Honorable Mention, 2018 Immigration and Ethnic History Society First Book Award

    Most of these individuals are now forgotten and do not feature in general histories except as bystanders, protestors, or subjects of exploitation. Yet despite their subordinate status, they actively participated in the Tokugawa polity because the state was built on the principle of reciprocity between privilege-granting rulers and duty-performing status groups. All subjects were part of these local, self-governing associations whose members shared the same occupation. Tokugawa rulers imposed duties on each group and invested them with privileges, ranging from occupational monopolies and tax exemptions to external status markers. Such reciprocal exchanges created permanent ties between rulers and specific groups of subjects that could serve as conduits for future interactions.This book is the first to explore how high and low people negotiated and collaborated with each other in the context of these relationships. It takes up the case of one domain--Ōno in central Japan--to investigate the interactions between the collective bodies in domain society as they addressed the problem of poverty.

    It explores the construction of Japan's modern cultural identity, highlighting the development of new social classes, and the transformation of cultural practices and production-consumption networks of the modern era. Taka Oshikri uses a wealth of Japanese source material - including diaries, newspaper, journal articles, maps, exhibition catalogues and official records – to explore the intricate relationships between the practice and practitioners of different social groups such as the old aristocracy, the emerging industrial elite, the local elite and government officials. She argues that the fabrication of a cultural identity during modernisation was influenced by various interest groups, such as the private commercial sector and foreign ambassadors. Although much is written on the practice of chanoyu in the pre-Tokugawa period and present-day Japan, there are few historical studies focusing on the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Gathering for Tea in Modern Japan thus makes a significant contribution to its field, and will be of great value to students and scholars of modern Japanese social and cultural history.

    In discussions that took place in Osaka and Kyoto from 1989 to 1990, these two penetrating and original observers of Japanese culture turn their attention to the long peace of the Edo period (1603-1868), when Japan developed in relative isolation from outside influence. From analysis of literary masters like Basho and Chikamatsu to critiques of the repressive aspects of Edo life, their exchanges bring much insight to this often romanticized period of Japanese history.

    She wrote more than 500 poems during her short life, which are characterized by innocence, purity, and empathy for all living things—the small and the weak. Her personal life was overshadowed by a series of unsettling events, including the adoption of her younger brother by her uncle (a family secret), her mother’s marriage to her uncle, a difficult marriage of her own to a delinquent husband, and his refusal to grant her custody of their daughter. Misuzu suddenly ended her life at age 26. This book resolves many secrets of her life, where she referred to herself as “a lonely princess.” It also introduces some of her definitive poems, which evoke works of such female poets as Emily Dickinson and Christina Rossetti.

    Featuring the cutting-edge work of over forty scholars from across the globe, The Routledge Handbook of the Global Sixties is breathtaking in its range, incisive in analyses, and revolutionary in method and evidence. Here, fifty years after that iconic "1968," Western Europe and North America are finally de-centered, if not provincialized, and we have the basis for a complete remapping, a thorough reinterpretation of the "Sixties."' --Jean Allman, J.H. Hexter Professor in the Humanities; Director, Center for the Humanities, Washington University in St. Louis'This is a landmark achievement. It represents the most comprehensive effort to date to map out the myriad constitutive elements of the "Global Sixties" as a field of knowledge and inquiry. Richly illustrated and meticulously curated, this collection purposefully "provincializes" the United States and Western Europe while shifting the loci of interpretation to Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. It will become both a benchmark reference text for instructors and a gateway to future historical research.' --Eric Zolov, Associate Professor of History; Director, Latin American & Caribbean Studies, Stony Brook University'This important and wide-ranging volume de-centers West-focused histories of the 1960s. It opens up fresh and vital ground for research and teaching on Third, Second, and First World transnationalism(s), and the many complex connections, tensions, and histories involved.' --John Chalcraft, Professor of Middle East History and Politics, Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science'This book globalizes the study of the 1960s better than any other publication. The authors stretch the standard narrative to include regions and actors long neglected. This new geography of the 1960s changes how we understand the broader transformations surrounding protest, war, race, feminism, and other themes. The global 1960s described by the authors is more inclusive and relevant for our current day. This book will influence all future research and teaching about the postwar world.' --Jeremi Suri, Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs; Professor of Public Affairs and History, The University of Texas at AustinAs the fiftieth anniversary of 1968 approaches, this book reassesses the global causes, themes, forms, and legacies of that tumultuous period. While existing scholarship continues to largely concentrate on the US and Western Europe, this volume will focus on Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. International scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds explore the global sixties through the prism of topics that range from the economy, decolonization, and higher education, to forms of protest, transnational relations, and the politics of memory.

    

    Hori makes clear that the Japanese cinema of the time was in fact almost wholly built on a foundation of Russian and British film theory as well as American film genres and techniques. Hori provides a range of examples that illustrate how maternal melodrama and animated features, akin to those popularized by Disney, were adopted wholesale by Japanese filmmakers.Emperor Hirohito's image, Hori argues, was inseparable from the development of mass media; he was the first emperor whose public appearances were covered by media ranging from postcards to radio broadcasts. Worship of the emperor through viewing his image, Hori shows, taught the Japanese people how to look at images and primed their enjoyment of early animation and documentary films alike. Promiscuous Media links the political and the cultural closely in a way that illuminates the nature of twentieth-century Japanese society.

    in 20 thematic books, was the first imperial anthology of Japanese poetry. It was an enormous success, becoming a cultural touchstone that defined the acceptable topics, diction, imagery, and style of court poetry for the next thousand years. Haiku poets took many cues from this tradition, including giving primacy to seasonal imagery.Ice Melts in the Wind is an exciting new translation of the six books of seasonal poems, depicting the progression from New Year

    What might we find if we look for trans* before trans*? While some historians have rejected the category of transgender to speak of experiences before the mid-twentieth century, others have laid claim to those living gender-non-conforming lives before our contemporary era. By using the concept of trans*historicity, this volume draws together trans* studies, historical inquiry, and queer temporality while also emphasizing the historical specificity and variability of gendered systems of embodiment in different time periods. Essay topics include a queer analysis of medieval European saints, discussions of a nineteenth-century Russian religious sect, an exploration of a third gender in early modern Japanese art, a reclamation of Ojibwe and Plains Cree Two-Spirit language, and biopolitical genealogies and filmic representations of transsexuality. The issue also features a roundtable discussion on trans*historicities and an interview with the creators of the 2015 film Deseos. Critiquing both progressive teleologies and the idea of sex or gender as a timeless tradition, this issue articulates our own desires for trans history, trans*historicities, and queerly temporal forms of historical narration. Contributors. Kadji Amin, M. W. Bychowski, Fernanda Carvajal, Howard Chiang, Leah DeVun, Julian Gill-Peterson, Jack Halberstam, Asato Ikeda, Jacob Lau, Kathleen P. Long, Maya Mikdashi, Robert Mills, Carlos Motta, Marcia Ochoa, Kai Pyle, C. Riley Snorton, Zeb Tortorici, Jennifer Louise Wilson

    Yet it has also been marginalized within Japanese literature for reasons including the gender of its author, the work’s complex textual history, and its thematic and stylistic depth. In Unbinding The Pillow Book, Gergana Ivanova offers a reception history of The Pillow Book and its author from the seventeenth century to the present that shows how various ideologies have influenced the text and shaped interactions among its different versions.Ivanova examines how and why The Pillow Book has been read over the centuries, placing it in the multiple contexts in which it has been rewritten, including women’s education, literary scholarship, popular culture, “pleasure quarters,” and the formation of the modern nation-state. Drawing on scholarly commentaries, erotic parodies, instruction manuals for women, high school textbooks, and comic books, she considers its outsized role in ideas about Japanese women writers. Ultimately, Ivanova argues for engaging the work’s plurality in order to achieve a clearer understanding of The Pillow Book and the importance it has held for generations of readers, rather than limiting it to a definitive version or singular meaning. The first book-length study in English of the reception history of Sei Shōnagon, Unbinding The Pillow Book sheds new light on the construction of gender and sexuality, how women’s writing has been used to create readerships, and why ancient texts continue to play vibrant roles in contemporary cultural production.

    Takeda, but a workplace policy and societal taboos have been preventing them from pursuing their desires. The sexual tension builds and they finally agree to meet in secret, but how far will they let things go?