Moments later there is a blinding fl ash as the horrifi c nuclear bomb is dropped. With great bravery the two boys fi nd Hiro’s fi veyear-old sister Keiko in the devastated and blasted landscape. With Hiro succumbing to his wounds, Ichirois now the only one who can take care of Keiko. But in the chaos Ichiro loses her when he sets off to fi nd help.Seventy years later, the loss of Keiko and his broken promise to his dying friend are haunƟ ng the old man’s fading years. Mizuki, his grandaughter, is determined to help him. As the Japanese legend goes, if you have the patience to fold 1,000 paper cranes, you will fi nd your heart’s desire; and it turns out her grandfather has only one more origami crane to fold...Narrated in a compelling mix of straight straight narrative,free verse and haiku poems, this is a haunting and powerful novel of courage and survival, with full-page illustrations by Natsko Seki.

    Sachiko's family home was about half a mile from where the atomic bomb fell on August 9, 1945. Her family experienced devastating loss. When they returned to the rubble where their home once stood, her father miraculously found their serving bowl fully intact. This delicate, green, leaf-shaped bowl--which once held their daily meals--now holds memories of the past and serves as a vessel of hope, peace, and new traditions for Sachiko and the surviving members of her family.

    A moment later, everything went black as the house collapsed on her and her family. Their world, and everyone else's, changed as the first atomic bomb was detonated over a city. From Russian nobility, the Palchikoff's barely escaped death at the hands of Bolshevik revolutionaries until her father, a White Russian officer, hijacked a ship to take them to safety in Hiroshima. Safety was short lived. Her father, a talented musician, established a new life for the family, but the outbreak of World War II created a cloud of suspicion that led to his imprisonment and years of deprivation for his family. After the bombing, trapped in the center of previously unimagined devastation, Kaleria summoned her strength to come to the aid of bomb victims, treating the never-before seen effects of radiation. Fluent in English, Kaleria was soon recruited to work with Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s occupation forces in a number of secretarial positions until the family found a new life in the United States. Heavily based on quotes from Kaleria's memoirs written immediately after World War II, and transcripts of United States Army Air Force interviews with her.

    The walk of this book begins in the city of Kamakura, just south of Tokyo. From there we head to Tokyo, and then from Tokyo all the way to Kyoto via the old Nakasendō highway, snaking through Saitama, over to Nagano, down through the bucolic Kiso Valley along the Kiso-ji road, into the plains of Gifu, alongside Lake Biwa, and to Kyoto. Along the way we meet farmers, gardeners, and a host of incredible and inspiring café owners. Kissa by Kissa is not a guide. It sits somewhere between travelogue, photo book, and bizarro ethnographic field study of old café — kissaten — culture.Those kissaten — or kissa — served up toast. I ate that toast. So. Much. Toast. Much of it pizza toast. If you buy this book, you'll learn more than you ever dared to know about this variety of toast available all across Japan. It's a classic post-war food staple. Kissa by kissa, and slice by thick slice of beautiful, white toast, I took a heckuva affecting and long walk. This book is my sharing with you, of that walk, the people I met along the way, and the food I ate.

    Then a catastrophic 1990 stock-market crash ushered in what the Japanese call their "lost decades." The end of the boom times should have plunged Japan into irrelevance. But in Pure Invention, Matt Alt argues that's precisely when things got interesting--when once again, Japan got to the future a little ahead of the rest of us.Japan made itself rich after the Second World War by selling the world what it needed, in the form of better cars, appliances, and microprocessors. But it conquered hearts through wildly creative pop culture that responded to modern life in new ways. As social compacts and safety nets evaporated, in rushed a revolution of geeky gadgets, gizmos, and flights of fancy. Hello Kitty, the Nintendo Entertainment System, and illustrated entertainment empires like Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z were more than marketing hits. They transformed Japan into the world's forge of fantasies, and they transformed us as we consumed them: karaoke making everyone a star, emoji rewriting the rules of human communication, virtual game-worlds offering escapes from reality and new perspectives on it.By turns a nostalgia trip and a secret history, Pure Invention is the story of an indelible group of Japanese craftsmen, artists, businesspeople, geniuses, and oddballs. It is also an unsung chapter of globalization, in which Japanese dreams formed a new blueprint for global pop culture--and may have created the modern world as we know it.

    This first volume of all-new material continues the saga of Usagi Yojimbo with the three-part "Bunraku," where Usagi becomes embroiled in a puppet drama where the players are not quite what they seem! Will the aid of a supernatural ally be enough for Usagi to prevent more death?Collects the first seven issues of Usagi Yojimbo published by IDW.

    From day one, the magazine has maintained a Tokyo bureau, which today also encompasses a Monocle shop and radio studio.Over the past decade, the magazine and its team have continued to build upon their appreciation for and understanding of the nation of Japan. Monocle’s stories have covered everything from a live journey on the emperor’s jet and the tastiest places to eat in Kagoshima to the fashion designers challenging conventions and the businesses with remarkable stories untold outside Japan.The Monocle Book of Japan reveals the best of the country in the run-up to the 2021 Olympics. Complete with striking photography and captivating essays, this volume showcases some of Japan’s most intriguing splendors.

    Originally designed as a reference for his students to emulate, it surpassed all expectations and became a bestseller, eventually expanding to fifteen volumes and over four thousand images.This three-volume edition is an extensive selection of Hokusai’s sketches, which present all the themes, motifs, and techniques found in his art. Although they are not based around an ongoing narrative, the caricatures, satirical drawings, and multipanel illustrations can clearly be seen as a forerunner of manga as it is understood today.Volume 1 explores Edo Life, the everyday world of the city that would later become Tokyo, featuring people from all walks of life at work and at play. Volume 2 is devoted to The Wonders of Nature, including animals, birds, and sh as well as landscapes, weather, and scenes of natural beauty. Finally, volume 3, Flights of Fancy, is packed with mythical creatures, supernatural beings, and all sorts of weird and wonderful imagery from the master’s imagination. This collection has enchanted and inspired artists and art lovers for two centuries and is now ripe for rediscovery.

    To those who’ve ever wondered what their lives would be if they’d taken that road without a map, this is the book you need to read. The View From Breast Pocket Mountain gives us a glimpse of a life not designed or even imagined. As a motherless teenager raised by a caring albeit strict father, we see Anton’s developing awareness of the world beyond the boundaries of her New York City neighborhood before she goes on to live in a castle in 1960s Denmark and a cabin in 1970s Vermont. With a burning curiosity and vision of a life as yet unformed, she travels overland to Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and finally to the place she’ll come to call home, Japan. This memoir is filled with unexpected encounters with the very famous and those unknown and unnamed. On a journey through marriage and motherhood, love, laughter, tragedy and hope, we follow along as Anton makes her way through a life unplanned but well-lived. The View From Breast Pocket Mountain is a story for our time, reminding the reader of our interconnectedness, our shared humanity.

    Having settled on her own authentic, creative style, featuring line art and a palette of delicate, yet impactful, colors, Djamila has decided to write a book that charts her journey. Japanese art was a key influence from an early age, and the book illustrates how Djamila has fused her favorite aspects of anime with her own, the result being a unique style that has captured the attention of both art fans and the industry. Her approach to storytelling and ideation are covered in depth; although artists have different approaches, Djamila shares her own experiences and insights to help readers fine-tune their own early stages of creation. As a fantasy artist, symbolism and fantastical scenes have always been part of Djamila’s world, and here she shares how she works with these, as well as finding very personal connections to even the most general of concepts. The final leg of the journey is visiting Djamila’s own studio, where she discusses being an independent artist, her daily routine and workspace, and the practical aspect of time management and motivation.Djamila Knopf was working as an illustrator for gaming and books publishing until 2017, when she had an epiphany and dedicated herself to being an independent artist doing her own work. Mainly working digitally, Djamila was obsessed with 90s anime shows and anything else that had a fantastical twist to it, and her work today is an accumulation of these early influences. She is also an instructor for the online art school Schoolism. Djamila lives and works in Leipzig, Germany, surrounded by beautiful historical buildings and greenery. When she's not drawing or painting, Djamila enjoys karaoke, bouldering, and traveling.

    A 750-mile walk through Japan. A life that will never be the same.Todd Wassel fled a normal life just after graduation. Over half a decade later he’s lost in Japan, unable go home but unwilling to give up. Convinced there was more to life, he risks everything to return to the one place he found answers years before: the ancient Shikoku Henro pilgrimage. Walking the 750-mile henro path, sleeping outside each night, Todd is armed with only a Japanese map. Between the 88 Buddhist temples he finds help from a wandering ascetic hiding from the Freemasons; naked Yakuza trying to shake him down; a scam artist pilgrim; and a vengeful monk. Can he find what he’s looking for before the path, or his new friends, break him? Walking in Circles is an addictive, fun, inspirational travel memoir set in a Japan few outsiders ever get to see. Award-winning writer Todd Wassel draws on over twenty years in Japan to retell his epic journey through the contradictions of contemporary Japan while overcoming the forces that keep us from living a truly happy life. Buy the book today to join Todd Wassel on his unforgettable Japanese adventure!

    

    Dazed, he follows Kiyomi Oshiro, a war widow struggling to care for her young daughter, Ai. Food is scarce, work at the factory is brutal, and her in-laws treat her like a servant. Watching Kiyomi and Ai together, Micah reconsiders his intolerance for the people he’d called the enemy. As his concern for the mother and daughter grows, so does his guilt for his part in their suffering. Micah finds a new reality when Kiyomi and Ai dream—one which allows him to interact with them. While his feelings for Kiyomi deepen, imminent destruction looms. Hiroshima is about to be bombed, and Micah must warn Kiyomi and her daughter. In a place where dreams are real, Micah races against time to save the ones he loves the most. In the Realm of Ash and Sorrow is a tale about love in its most extraordinary forms—forgiveness, sacrifice, and perseverance against impossible odds.

    The legendary warlord, Nobunaga Oda, a man obsessed with the unification of Japan, is responsible for the devastation upon the shinobi’s home village. In order to avenge their clan, two young brothers make a pact with the former comrades of their father. Unaware, the shinobi are dragged into a mysterious journey in search of a legacy left by their departed mentor that will change the destiny of a nation.Real people and events that delves deep into the culture of an epic era, packaged into an entertaining story of adventure and mystery.

    In modern-day Tokyo, Robin Swann’s life has sputtered to a stop. She’s stuck in a dead-end job testing antiquities for an auction house, but her true love is poetry, not pottery. Her stalled dissertation sits on her laptop, unopened in months, and she has no one to confide in but her goldfish. On the other side of town, Nori Okuda sells rice bowls and tea cups to Tokyo restaurants, as her family has done for generations. But with her grandmother in the hospital, the family business is foundering. Nori knows if her luck doesn’t change soon, she’ll lose what little she has left. With nothing in common, Nori and Robin suddenly find their futures inextricably linked to an ancient, elusive tea bowl. Glimpses of the past set the stage as they hunt for the lost masterpiece, uncovering long-buried secrets in their wake. As they get closer to the truth—and the tea bowl—the women must choose between seizing their dreams or righting the terrible wrong that has poisoned its legacy for centuries.

    A kind old man finds the fox and gives it to his granddaughter, Kiko. As she recovers from an injury of her own, Kiko mends the fox lovingly with golden thread.As the seasons pass, Kiko cares for the fox as her own. But after discovering his origins, she sets out, with her grandfather’s help, to bring the fox back to its original home. Once together, Emi and Kiko piece together the fox’s journey and find delight in their newly forged connections.Golden Threads is inspired by the Japanese art form of kintsugi, or golden joinery, where broken pottery is repaired with resin painted gold. Kintsugi values repairing, rather than replacing, believing that the cracks give the broken item its story. This book is also a warm celebration of wabi-sabi, the Japanese idea that there is beauty in things that may be incomplete or imperfect.

    A crime so brutal and shocking that it caused Japan to finally change its stubborn laws. Yet the criminal’s bizarre actions after the murders have yet to be truly understood or explained, and he remains free to this day.Ever wondered if someone could successfully vanish into thin air? How about the strangest place a body could be hidden? Or what it would take for a single person to pull off the largest heist in Japanese history?Kaihan: Bizarre Crimes That Shook Japan looks at 21 different cases from Japan that were so baffling, so bizarre, so mystifying that most remain unsolved to this day. From murders to disappearances to robberies, these strange crimes defy explanation and have puzzled both detectives and the public for decades. What really happened? Why? How were so many criminals able to get away with it? What makes them so strange and, the more you think about it, so terrifying? Hit that Buy Now button to find out!

    Others never end at all, but only cut away, at the moment of extreme crisis, to a butterfly, or the wind, or the moon.”—Brian PhillipsVisitors from the West look with amazement, and sometimes concern, at Japan’s social structures and unique, complex culture industry; the gigantic scale of its tech corporations and the resilience of its traditions; the extraordinary diversity of the subcultures that flourish in its “post-human” megacities. The country nonetheless remains an intricate and complicated jigsaw puzzle, an inexhaustible source of inspiration for stories, reflections, and reportage. The subjects in this volume range from the Japanese veneration of the dead to the Tokyo music scene, from urban alienation to cinema, from sumo to toxic masculinity. Caught between an ageing population and extreme post-modernity, Japan is an ideal observation point from which to understand our age and the one to come.

    Fluent in Japanese language and culture, she was assigned to work with the delegation writing the new post-war constitution. Thanks to her bravery in speaking up for the women of Japan, the new constitution ended up including equal rights for all women.

    In the ever-expansive margins of dominant literary culture, translation links up with performance, repetition, failure, process, collaboration, feminism, polyphony, conversation, deviance, punk, and improvisation.

    Often viewed as a simple, unchanging garment, the kimono has been equated with“ tradition” and seen as something static and timeless. This book, published to accompany a major exhibition at the V&A, London, presents the kimono as dynamic and fashionable, and explores its significance in historical and contemporary contexts, both in Japan and in the West. Beautifully illustrated,it includes more than 200 kimono from collections at the V&A and around the world, as well as examples of the ways in which they have been represented in paintings, prints, and photographs, and interpreted more recently in popular culture and fashion, from Björk to David Bowie, John Galliano to Issey Miyake.

    MONKEY publishes short fiction and poetry by writers such as Hideo Furukawa, Hiromi Ito, Mieko Kawakami, Sachiko Kishimoto, Hiromi Kawakami, Aoko Matsuda, and Yōko Ogawa; interviews and essays by writers such as Haruki Murakami; new translations of the work of earlier writers such as Okamoto Kanoko, Sōseki Natsume, and Naoya Shiga; and graphic stories by Satoshi Kitamura and collaborations between Japanese authors and North American graphic artists, such as “The Visitor,” with a graphic narrative by Jon Klassen and text by Yōko Ogawa.First formed under the name Monkey Business: New Writing from Japan, in collaboration with A Public Space, Monkey Business published 7 volumes from 2011 to 2017.Rebranded in 2020 as MONKEY New Writing from Japan, MONKEY is the English-language offspring of the Tokyo-based Japanese literary journal MONKEY, founded by Motoyuki Shibata, one of Japan’s most acclaimed translators of American fiction.Vol. 1 of the brand new MONKEY will be 152 pages of full color and printed at a larger trim size, allowing you to enjoy MONKEY like never before. The first issue features Food: A Monkey's Dozen, and includes translations into English of work from various issues of the Japanese MONKEY, as well as other works both old and new by writers, artists, and translators from Japan, England, Canada, and the U.S.

    A samurai’s daughter seeks truth. Pitfalls lie ahead in mid-nineteenth-century Japan. Sumi Taguchi, a samurai’s daughter, eagerly anticipates the arrival of foreigners from the West, who will end Japan’s centuries-long isolation from the world. Maybe these foreigners will bring answers to life’s troublesome riddles. But to be free to meet these newcomers, she must first avoid a nightmarish betrothal and the fallout from her rash curiosity. The young New York merchant, John Cardiff, risks his inheritance by sailing to the far side of the world. His fascination with Japan leads to a tantalizing, but dangerous trading venture. As trouble mounts, he dreads the shipwreck of not only his sail ship but his life. Elizabeth Ann Boyles won the ACFW national Genesis award and the ACFW Virginia Crown award for historical romance / historical fiction.

    

    As a prolific creator, his influence and admirers include Steven Spielberg, Wes Anderson, and Akira Kurosawa. Curated by Spoke Art Gallery, My Neighbor Hayao features work from more than 250 artists in celebration of the acclaimed Japanese filmmaker and animator. Showcasing a diverse array of original painting, embroidery, sculpture, and limited edition prints that were first exhibited at Spoke during three highly popular group exhibitions attracting more than 10,000 attendees, this beautiful book grants fans of Miyazaki another creative avenue to explore his inspired worlds through interpretations of characters and themes found in iconic films including My Neighbor Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke.

    The book has 300 pages of useful content:– Practical advice – on how to get around, types of food, what to expect and how to survive in Japan.– Trip planner – right from the start, there’s help with booking your flights, where to stay and checklists so you don’t forget anything.– Ideas for things to do & hidden – build your perfect trip with things that interest you, as well as how to book popular attractions like Studio Ghibli tickets.– Travel journal – for recording your memories and all the little things you might otherwise forget.– Backed up by videos – watch videos of places featured in the book on YouTube, where you can always contact me in the comments.The book’s focused on Tokyo, with a section of highlights from other areas around Japan.Based on thousands of questions from viewersCakes with Faces’ Japan travel videos on YouTube have over 4 million views. Every day there are questions from viewers about planning their trips to Japan, in messages and in the comments. The information in the book’s based on all the things you want to know, plus 10 years’ experience of travelling to Japan.

    

    For the most part the images they produced were censored or confiscated, but many were preserved in secret. Some were published widely in Japan during the 1950s, though not in the United States. Later, prints and negatives were gathered by groups such as the Anti-Nuclear Photographers' Movement of Japan, whose collection is now housed at the Briscoe Center for American History. The center's Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Photographs Archive consists of more than eight hundred photographs, over one hundred of which are seen here for the first time in an English-language publication.To mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the bombings, Flash of Light, Wall of Fire features the work of twenty-three Japanese photographers who risked their lives to capture the devastation. Together these images serve as a visual record of nuclear destruction, the horrific effects of radiation exposure, and the mass suffering that ensued. A preface by Briscoe Center Executive Director Don Carleton, an essay by Michael B. Stoff, and an afterword by Japanese journalist Michiko Tanaka explore how the images were collected and preserved as well as how they helped provoke calls for peace and the abolishment of nuclear weapons.

    Behind it lay a debate that had been raging for some weeks prior among American military and political leaders. The surrender fulfilled the commitment that Franklin Roosevelt had made in 1943 at the Casablanca conference that it be "unconditional." Though readily accepted as policy at the time, after Roosevelt's death in April 1945 support for unconditional surrender wavered, particularly among Republicans in Congress, when the bloody campaigns on Iwo Jima and Okinawa made clear the cost of military victory against Japan. Germany's unconditional surrender in May 1945 had been one thing; the war in the pacific was another. Many conservatives favored a negotiated surrender.Though this was the last time American forces would impose surrender unconditionally, questions surrounding it continued through the 1950s and 1960s--with the Korean and Vietnam Wars--when liberal and conservative views reversed, including over the definition of "peace with honor." The subject was revived during the ceremonies surrounding the 50th anniversary in 1995, and the Gulf and Iraq Wars, when the subjects of exit strategies and "accomplished missions" were debated. Marc Gallicchio reveals how and why the surrender in Tokyo Bay unfolded as it did and the principle figures behind it, including George C. Marshall and Douglas MacArthur. The latter would effectively become the leader of Japan and his tenure, and indeed the very nature of the American occupation, was shaped by the nature of the surrender. Most importantly, Gallicchio reveals how the policy of unconditional surrender has shaped our memory and our understanding of World War II.

    One thing is clear: For those without a god to serve as their guardian, life is a constant struggle for survival.Thus begins the epic tale of a young boy’s ascent into a vast world filled with magic, bloodshed, and mystery.

    In this sense, everyday objects become more than their function: they are to be reflected upon, to be touched and cherished. As mass manufacture became widespread in the postwar period, fascinating cross-cultural exchanges began to take place between Japan and the West. And in recent years, a new generation of designers has taken Japanese creativity into entirely new territory, reconceptualizing the very meaning of design. Showcasing hundreds of objects and contributions from both Japanese and Western designers inspired by Japan, this volume will remain the definitive work on the subject for many years to come.

    Find inspiration in the exploration of handmade processes using sustainable materials and discover the lengths these makers go to in ensuring every product is perfect. From hand-painted kimono dyeing to wooden trays carving, Handmade in Japan meets the craftspeople of Japan's diverse regions with unique insights into their traditions and how they work.

    In 2007, seemingly overwhelmed, he resigned after only a year as prime minister. Yet, following five years of reinvention, he masterfully regained the premiership in 2012, and now dominates Japanese democracy as no leader has done before. Abe has inspired fierce loyalty among his followers, cowing Japan’s left with his ambitious economic programme and support for the security and armed forces. He has staked a leadership role for Japan in a region being rapidly transformed by the rise of China and India, while carefully preserving an ironclad relationship with Trump’s America. The Iconoclast tells the story of Abe’s meteoric rise and stunning fall, his remarkable comeback, and his unlikely emergence as a global statesman laying the groundwork for Japan’s survival in a turbulent century.

    Kane Araki is also the name of a man who, mysteriously, sprouts a pair of black raven’s wings overnight. Margaret Morri is the name of the aging healer who treats embarrassing conditions (smelly feet and excessive flatulence). It’s also the name of an eleven-year-old girl who communes with the devil, trading human teeth for divine wishes.   In The Book of Kane and Margaret, dozens of Kane Arakis and Margaret Morris populate the Canal and Butte camp divisions in Gila River. Amidst their daily rituals and family dramas, they find ways to stage quiet revolutions against a domestic colonial experience. Some internees slip through barbed wire fences to meet for love affairs. Others attempt to smuggle whiskey, pornography, birds, dogs, horses, and unearthly insects into their family barracks. And another seeks a way to submerge the internment camp in Pacific seawater.

    

    Once a means of explaining the unexplainable, they have been kept alive in stories and artworks. Evolving into a form of entertainment ranging from horror to the comical, they have maintained an ongoing presence in Japanese novels, films, anime, manga, and games.Drawn from around the world, the artworks illustrated in Japan Supernatural date from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century and include fantastically detailed ukiyo-e woodblock prints, miniature netsuke, wall-sized scrolls, and large-scale contemporary photographs, paintings, and installations. Some of the greatest Japanese artists of the past, including Katsushika Hokusai, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, and Kawanabe Kyosai, are featured alongside contemporary artists such as Chiho Aoshima, Miwa Yanagi, and Takahashi Murakami, who update the tradition for the present.

    A page turning suspense novel.Money blows across a field, the notes slapping against the stubble of dry rice stalks. Mr Ito walks towards the irrigation ditch at the end of his field, his rubber boots kicking up dust.When he gets there, he remembers the rumour; the one about the missing English woman.But this is Mari’s story. She knows it's her fault that her sister died, and trying to move on, she takes a dream job teaching English in small-town Japan. It turns into a nightmare when Mari learns that she’s employed by the yakuza (Japanese mafia), and that the man she loves has his own dark secrets. When the yakuza play their final hand, Mari believes that once again, it's all her fault.If you like a novel that builds suspense, is set in an unusual location, has a strong female lead, and a pinch of romance; then this book is for you.An intriguing story in a vividly realised exotic setting." Cherith Baldry, author

    While the attack was a tactical success for Japanese Admiral Yamamoto, it was also one of the most reckless strategic decisions in the history of warfare, for it awakened a sleeping giant—the US military—and triggered some of the most harrowing and ferocious military actions the world had ever seen.Hide Full DescriptionFor the United States, the war started and ended in the Pacific Theater, with the war against Japan. From 1941 to 1945, Japan and the United States waged the largest naval war in history—and in the end, it changed the course of history and re-made the modern world.World War II: The Pacific Theater takes you inside the sweeping story of the American fight against the Japanese. Taught by Professor Craig L. Symonds, a distinguished military historian at the US Naval War College, and former chairman of the History Department at the US Naval Academy, these 24 vivid lectures chronicle the global trajectory of the war in the Pacific: the epic battles, the military strategy and tactics, the leaders and commanders, the amphibious landings, the air attacks, and the submarine campaigns.Professor Symonds transports you to the rolling seas of the Pacific, into the jungles of Guadalcanal and the Philippines, and across the black sands of Iwo Jima. You’ll meet fascinating figures such as General Douglas MacArthur, Admiral William Halsey, Admiral Chester Nimitz, the codebreakers at Station Hypo, and countless others, including Marines, soldiers, sailors, and airmen.Produced by The Great Courses in partnership with HISTORY®, World War II: The Pacific Theater gives you an inside look at the strategy of the war on both sides and explores the tactical advantages each nation held, from industrial dynamism to advanced technology to sheer willpower.Witness the Strategy of War in ActionBesides giving a comprehensive survey of the Pacific War, this course offers a deep dive into military strategy. For instance, though Japan’s primary goal in the 1930s was the conquest of China, Admiral Yamamoto insisted on attacking the American fleet in Pearl Harbor. Why?Professor Symonds reveals Japan’s complex calculus: how the country needed a supply line of oil from the South Pacific to fuel a war in China, how the United States controlled the Philippines, and why it therefore seemed to make sense to attack the US base in Hawaii.Yamamoto believed that preemptively taking out a significant portion of the American fleet would cripple the United States and allow Japan free reign of the ocean. Although the “day of infamy” was tactically successful, America maintained its handful of aircraft carriers, which six months later allowed the US Navy to alter the direction of the Pacific War with a furious 10-minute onslaught during the Battle of Midway.World War II in the Pacific was the largest naval war in history, and throughout this course, Professor Symonds leads you through the evolving nature of naval warfare. Among other topics, Professor Symonds unpacks:The crucial importance of aircraft carriers;The division of command in the Pacific between General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz;The relationship among the Navy, the Marines, the Army, and the Air Force;The grinding campaign in Guadalcanal and the island-hopping campaign in the Central Pacific;The role of codebreakers stationed in Hawaii—and the limits of their intel; andThe particular roles of strategic air power and submarine warfare.Delve into Battles from Pearl Harbor to OkinawaThe Pacific Theater includes some of the most famous (and occasionally infamous) names in modern warfare, inspiring legions of Hollywood films and haunting the halls of military colleges for generations. Strap on your packs and lace up your boots, and travel with Professor Symonds back to some of the most epic battles in history:The Philippines. Reflect on General MacArthur’s missteps early in the war that culminated in the Bataan Death March and MacArthur’s escape to Australia. Then witness his triumphant return three years later.Midway. Find out why the Japanese were so interested in a tiny American base in the middle of the ocean. This story of codebreaking, a surprise attack, and 10 minutes that changed the course of the war is truly breathtaking.Guadalcanal. Delve into the thick jungle and bitter fighting for this critical island outpost in the Solomon Islands.Tarawa. Find out why a little bad luck with the tides turned this battle into one of the most harrowing and costly assaults in the history of the US Marine Corps.Iwo Jima. Look beyond the iconic photograph of Marines hoisting the American flag on Mount Suribachi and examine the tragic consequences of this important battle.Okinawa. See how this bloody battle—known as Operation Iceberg—crushed any prospect for a Japanese victory and watch as kamikaze fighters nonetheless continued to hurl themselves at American ships.A Dynamic StoryOne of the most fascinating aspects of this course is how it reveals the way supply chains and industrial output affected the trajectory of the war. For example, Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor had more to do with supplies of oil and rubber from South Asia than with any interest in conquering American territory. As these lectures show, only a few years later, the lack of supplies wrecked Japan’s ability to wage war effectively.Meanwhile, American manufacturing output was truly staggering: millions of tons of new shipping, from destroyers and tank landing ships to cargo ships and aircraft carriers. Thanks to American industry, the military was able to resupply the Navy and the Marines as they hopped from island to island, and battle to battle.The story of the Pacific Theater is a dizzying sequence of raids and battles, invasions and onslaughts, all aided by the deadly tools of war. Professor Symonds clarifies the war and offers a remarkable military history of the conflict. World War II: The Pacific Theater is an absolute must for military buffs, history enthusiasts, and anyone wishing to deepen their knowledge of world history. Settle in for a thrilling ride.

    

    

    She won’t let it happen again. After a year away to reaffirm her commitment to her clan, she returns home to find her leaders forging a disturbing path: allying themselves with the Faction, a ruthless, anti-imperial organization leading the country to war. Protecting the clan is her primary duty. Supporting honorless, warmongering tyrants? Not a chance. Bound by a lifetime of loyalty... To prove her allegiance, Ema is tasked to eliminate a rogue assassin targeting the Faction’s leaders. She has no choice but to accept. Orders are orders, after all. But when a high lord arrives to oversee the mission, he reveals a devastating truth, shattering what she’s always believed about her true purpose. Compelled by the coming storm… A promise is broken, honor is no longer sacred, and trust is as fleeting as blossoms in bloom. As the world she once knew darkens, Ema must find a way to stop the Faction from controlling her clan and fracturing the rest of the country. And the one who can help her may be the very person she’s tasked to kill…

    As a reporter he covered domestic development and overseas wars, while also marrying a traditional geisha, eventually becoming a playwright and author. In addition to a number of well-received plays, he also penned more than fifty horror stories over a roughly ten-year period starting in the mid-1920s. Just prior to this period, the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923 destroyed almost everything in Tokyo that remained from the Edo era, and Japanese horror itself was transitioning from the traditional uncanny stories to more modern horror structures.While many of Kidō’s stories are retellings of tales from China and other nations, he also drew on a diverse range of traditions, including the heritage of Edo-era storytellers such as Ueda Akinari and Asai Ryōi, to produce a dazzling array of work covering the entire spectrum from time-honored ghost tropes to modern horror. The majority of his stories were collected in four volumes: Seiadō kidan (1926), Kindai iyō hen (1926), Iyō hen (1933), and Kaijū (1936).Kidō remains popular for his elegant, low-key style, subtly introducing the “other” into the background, and raising the specter of the uncanny indirectly and often indistinctly. His fiction spans an enormous range of material, much of it dealing with the uncanny, and as a pioneer in the field his work formed the foundation for the new generation of Japanese authors emerging in post-Restoration literature.This selection presents a dozen of his best stories: pieces which remain in print almost a century later, and continue to enchant readers—and writers—today. Finally, English-reading audiences can enjoy his strange visions as well.Contents The Kiso Traveler (木曽の旅人) The Green Frog God (青蛙神) Tone Crossing (利根の渡) The Monkey’s Eyes (猿の眼) The Snake Spirit (蛇精) The Clear-Water Well (清水の井) Crabs (蟹) The One-Legged Woman (一本足の女) Here Lies a Flute (笛塚) The Shadow-Stepping Game (影を踏まれた女) The White-Haired Demon (白髪鬼) The Man Cursed by an Eel (鰻に呪われた男)

    The annotations are especially valuable: they show a solid grasp of the author’s life, work, and times, and provide rich and detailed background information about allusions to Chinese and Japanese classics. Along with the high quality of the translations themselves, this thorough commentary makes the book a significant scholarly resource and will help readers appreciate the density and delicacy of Bashō’s writing. A very welcome addition to the English-language literature on one of the central poets of the Japanese tradition." —David B. Lurie, Columbia University

    Schodt has had a mysterious, half-century-long fascination with the simple mantra that is chanted at the end of the Buddhist “Heart Sutra.” On a normally routine flight that unexpectedly developed mechanical difficulties, he resolved to memorize the sutra and to finally seriously study it.The Heart Sutra, beloved by millions in East Asia for over 1,400 years, is used as solace, protection, and a gateway to another mode of thinking. Schodt realized that it could also be his entry into a world of faith.In My Heart Sutra, Schodt explores his lifelong fascination with the sutra: its mesmerizing mantra, its ancient history, the “emptiness" theory, and the way it is used around the world as a metaphysical tool to overcome chaos and confusion and reach a new understanding of reality--a perfection of wisdom. To help put this ancient sutra into a modern context, Schodt's journey takes him to caves in China, American beats declaiming poetry, speculations into the sutra's true origins, and even a robot Avalokiteśvara at a Kyoto temple.

    This amazing story of two boys – Kenji named them Giovanni and Campanella – who find themselves on a miraculous train running through the heavens, has entranced Japanese readers for many years. What happens to the boys is a tale of both immense sorrow and equally immense hope.In addition, Pulvers offers nine other translations, all of them appearing in print outside Japan for the first time. The comical character Gauche, whose cello playing soothes the animals at his humble little cottage. The two hunters who find the tables literally turned on them as they are about to be served up to the animals they have been hunting. The pig at the Frandon Agricultural School who refuses to die. The nighthawk who, rejected by the other birds, chooses immortality in the form of a star … and more.Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933) has been compared to Lewis Carroll, Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. But his profound compassion, stemming from his Buddhist faith and his scientific background, makes him that unique combination of East and West that symbolizes Japan’s great gifts to the world. A dedicated vegetarian (a rarity even in today’s Japan) and a staunch believer in animal rights mark him as a pioneer of his time and a writer who speaks directly to the greatest concerns of the twenty-first century.

    She's no stranger to moving around, and at least in Japan she can embrace a culture she's already obsessed with.What she doesn't expect is that when she rescues a weasel from getting trampled at her school, and gives it the name Sakuya, she enters into a binding contract. And not just any contract. By saving the animal, she earns a mark of favor, which she discovers is a marriage proposal from a powerful Yokai.Unwillingly, Ember is whisked away and thrust into the Spirit Realm, a supposed myth of Japanese Folklore. Though Sakuya is kind and offers anything to make her happy, she knows it's just a rouse to ensure she marries him. The more she learns about Sakuya and his past as an Izuna Yokai, the more she realizes that everything she knows about Japan might be wrong.If she hopes to survive and see her family again, she'll have to adapt--not only to her new relationship, but to the overall role she plays in the world of Yokai.

    This value-priced collection features 640 pages of shock and awe!After earning enough combat points, the Gantz alien fighters are given three choices: freedom, better weapons, or resurrect a dead Gantz warrior. Each fighter has suffered greatly, and each has experienced devastating loss. But are they willing to further risk their own lives to bring back a fallen friend, and can they bring themselves to abandon the comrades who have bravely fought beside them? Collects Gantz volumes 19, 20, 21.

    Hammond places Sino-Muslims at the center of imperial Japan’s challenges to Chinese nation-building efforts. Revealing the little-known story of Japan’s interest in Islam during its occupation of North China, Hammond shows how imperial Japanese aimed to defeat the Chinese Nationalists in winning the hearts and minds of Sino-Muslims, a vital minority population. Offering programs that presented themselves as protectors of Islam, the Japanese aimed to provide Muslims with a viable alternative—and, at the same time, to create new Muslim consumer markets that would, the Japanese hoped, act to subvert the existing global capitalist world order and destabilize the Soviets.This history can be told only by reinstating agency to Muslims in China who became active participants in the brokering and political jockeying between the Chinese Nationalists and the Japanese Empire. Hammond argues that the competition for their loyalty was central to the creation of the ethnoreligious identity of Muslims living on the Chinese mainland. Their wartime experience ultimately helped shape the formation of Sino-Muslims’ religious identities within global Islamic networks, as well as their incorporation into the Chinese state, where the conditions of that incorporation remain unstable and contested to this day.

    The novel depicts 13-year-old Satoshi Matsumoto as he learns to adjust to life in rural Japan after living in Atlanta for three years. Publication is slated for March 2020.

    The work is celebrated both for its poetic style and philosophical depth. The simplicity and consistency of the writing makes it ideal for teaching Classical Japanese. For its reflection on impermanence and non-attachment, Hōjōki is a model of Buddhist thought. Mindful of the fleeting nature of this world, Chōmei demands that readers reconsider what is most important in life. The message is as evocative as it is universal.

    This book provides readers with the rare opportunity to examine historical clothing, from breathtaking Edo-period kimono, court robes, and No— theatre costumes to indigo-dyed utilitarian garments and exciting contemporary designs.Featuring both garments and accessories, this book is an extraordinary exploration of the beauty and complexity of Japanese fashion. Specially commissioned close-up photography and authoritative texts accompany each garment, and front-and-back line drawings make this publication an invaluable resource for students, collectors, designers, fashion lovers, and Japanophiles.

    Eye contact with the ghosts is unwise.But when a friend's shed is being haunted by a violent spirit, Yumiko decides it's time to set her fears aside and help him. As the dark aura of the ghost grows larger and the noise inside the shed escalates, Yumiko realizes the spirit is more powerful than she first imagined.Before the ghost gets out of control, Yumiko contacts a paranormal investigator. But the spirit refuses to cross over and something is keeping it tied inside the shed.Will they be able to solve the mystery before it's too late?

    

    As the Cold War turned hot in the Pacific, antifascist critique disclosed a continuity between U.S. police actions in Asia and a rising police state at home. Writers including James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, and W.E.B. Du Bois discerned in U.S. domestic strategies to quell racial protests and urban riots the same logic of racial counterintelligence structuring America's devastating hot wars in Asia.Christine Hong examines the centrality of U.S. militarism to the Cold War cultural imagination. She assembles a transpacific archive--including war writings, Japanese accounts of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, black radical human rights petitions, Korean War-era G.I. photographs, Filipino novels on guerrilla resistance, and Marshallese critiques of U.S. human radiation experiments--and places these materials alongside U.S. government documents to theorize these works as homologous responses to unchecked U.S. war and police power. In so doing, Hong shows how the so-called Pax Americana laid the grounds for solidarity--for imagining collective futures of total liberation.

    I'm only an artist," and Sarasvati answered, "Help will be provided." This book is the culmination of a life devoted to responding to Sarasvati's call to cultivate a path of peace, justice, and compassion.Known as the "Matisse of Japan," Mayumi Oda is a painter, environmental activist, and Buddhist practitioner whose life reflects both the brilliance and shadows of modernity. Sarasvati's Gift explores her upbringing in Japan, her tumultuous marriage and the death of her son, her immigration to the country responsible for the destruction of her home, her inspiration for both her Buddhist practice and her art, and ultimately her commitment to the planet that gives her life both hope and meaning. This raw, heartfelt, and powerful memoir shares Mayumi's story of finding her place and her mission to transform the world.

    

    Possession and jealousy. Dominance and submission. Disobey the rules and get punished...This book contains graphic descriptions of sex and is definitely intended for an 18+ Audience.

    The sayings include:Pay attention to what is right in front of your eyesNothing happens by chance. Every encounter has its meaningBe careful not to confuse the means and the purposeKeep flowing just like waterNothing will control youEven a bad day is a good dayCheck the ground beneath your feet when you're in troubleYou'll never walk aloneThese 52 mindful sayings mirror the 52 steps traditionally taken to achieve Buddhist enlightenment, and they also coincide with the 52 weeks of the year—passing through the seasons, both in the natural world and our lives. Each page has an illustration and a simple, meditative reflection to help you see into your own heart, accept your current state of being, reduce anxiety and find peace.Whatever the time of year, whatever your time of life, by browsing the pages of this book you are sure to quickly find a piece of universal wisdom that will resonate with your soul.

    How to Read Buddhist Art introduces this complex visual tradition to a general audience by examining sixty seminal works. Beginning with the origins of representations of the Buddha in India, and moving on to address the development of Buddhist art as the religion spread across Asia, this book conveys how Buddhist philosophy affected artistic works and practice across cultural boundaries.    Reliquaries, sculptures, and paintings produced in China, the Himalayas, Japan, Korea, and South and Southeast Asia provide insight into the rich iconography of Buddhism, the technical virtuosity of their makers, and the social and political climate in which they were created. Beautiful photographs of the artworks, maps, and a glossary of the major Buddhist deities offer an engaging and informative setting in which readers—regardless of their familiarity with Buddhism—can better understand the art related to the religion’s practices and representations.

    This new volume in the "Eyewitness Series" reconstructs how pre-war scientists laid the bomb's theoretical foundations, provides the details of the Manhattan Project, and bears witness to the Japanese experience of the bombings and their legacy. Media attention.

    Each project is profiled through photographs and architectural drawings that explore Ando's unprecedented use of concrete, wood, water, light, space, and natural forms.Featuring designs from award-winning private homes, churches, museums, and apartment complexes to cultural spaces throughout Japan, South Korea, France, Italy, Germany, Mexico, and the USA, this compact edition brings you up close and personal with a Modernist master.About the seriesTASCHEN is 40! Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible publishing, helping bookworms around the world curate their own library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia at an unbeatable price. Today we celebrate 40 years of incredible books by staying true to our company credo. The 40 series presents new editions of some of the stars of our program--now more compact, friendly in price, and still realized with the same commitment to impeccable production.

    The present work focuses on the years in which bourgeois culture first emerged in Japan, telling the story of the rising commoner arts of Kamigata, or the “Upper Regions” of Kyoto and Osaka, which harkened back to Japan’s middle ages even as they rebelled against and competed with that earlier era. Both cities prided themselves on being models and trendsetters in all cultural matters, whether arts, crafts, books, or food. The volume also shows how elements of popular arts that germinated during this period ripened into the full-blown consumer culture of the late-Edo period. The tendency to imagine Japan’s modernity as a creation of Western influence since the mid-nineteenth century is still strong, particularly outside Japan studies. A Kamigata Anthology challenges such assumptions by illustrating the flourishing phenomenon of Japan’s movement into its own modernity through a selection of the best examples from the period, including popular genres such as haikai poetry, handmade picture scrolls, travel guidebooks, kabuki and joruri plays, prose narratives of contemporary life, and jokes told by professional entertainers. Well illustrated with prints from popular books of the time and hand scrolls and standing screens containing poems and commentaries, the entertaining and vibrant translations put a spotlight on texts currently unavailable in English.

    

    Shot in sensuous black and white, primarily in Tokyo, these previously unpublished images--by photographer Takay--respond to the iconic black designs and silhouettes of Yamamoto's clothing, featuring some of Japan's most accomplished actors, musicians and models, such as stage director Yukio Ninagawa, photographer Daido Moriyama, actress Rie Miyazawa, media artist Yoichi Ochiai and musician Char. The locations hark back to Japan of the 1980s, the end of the Showa era.The seed for this book was planted many years ago, at the start of Takay's career, when he worked on a Yamamoto project, and came to fruition after he was offered the use of the Yamamoto archive, which spans 40 years of designs. For Takay, Yohji Yamamoto's work exemplifies a strong, avant-garde, masculine style, mixed with a keen Japanese sensibility and elegance.Takay (born 1973) is a Japanese photographer based in New York, whose photographs have been featured in major fashion publications such as Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, L'Uomo Vogue and I-D, as well as in global advertising campaigns. His work has appeared in the Victoria & Albert Museum's exhibition Men in Skirts, which traveled to the Metropolitan Museum in 2003; the Couture Chanel exhibition at the National Museum of China in Beijing; and the Met's Spring 2013 Costume Institute exhibition Punk: Chaos to Couture. In 2016 Takay published the monograph Echos.

    This brief poem on emptiness has exerted immense influence throughout Asia since the seventh century and is woven into the fabric of daily life. Yet even though it rivals the teachings of Laozi and Confucius in importance, this ancient Buddhist scripture remains barely known in the West. During the many years he has spent living in Japan, Alex Kerr has been on a quest after the secrets of the Heart Sutra. Travelling from Japan, Korea, and China, to India, Mongolia, Tibet and Vietnam, this book brings together Buddhist teaching, talks with friends and mentors, and acute cultural insights to probe the universe of thought contained within this short but intense philosophical work.'Marvellous ... a life's work ... a brilliant literary form, weaving reflections of the sutra with those on Alex's own magical mystery tour' Alexandra Munroe, Asian Art scholar and curator

     Learn about the history of boro and how it is being revived for a new audience using contemporary fabrics including denim, linen and shibori tie dye as well as sashiko and other embroidery stitches.The word boro comes from the Japanese boroboro meaning something tattered or repaired. It refers to textiles that have been mended or patched together for utilitarian, not decorative, purposes to make the fabric stronger and warmer, and to mend torn and threadbare areas.The techniques section includes a short stitch directory with traditional stitches (running stitch and applique) and contemporary stitches (herringbone stitch, blanket stitch, chain stitch and whipped running stitch). Other techniques include instructions on improvisational patchwork; applique: raw, turned edge and reverse; darning techniques and methods for distressing and ageing fabrics to achieve an authentic boro finish. We also look at how boro is being revived for a new audience using contemporary fabrics including denim, linen and shibori tie dye as well as sashiko and embroidery threads. The techniques section includes a short stitch directory with traditional stitches (running stitch and applique) and contemporary stitches (herringbone stitch, blanket stitch, chain stitch and whipped running stitch). Other techniques include: Instructions on improvisational patchwork Applique: raw and turned edges and reverse Darning Methods for distressing and ageing your finished boro

    His graphic works include leftist and antiwar illustrations in socialist bulletins, wrenching portrayals of Tokyo after the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, and fashionable images of beautiful women--referred to as "Yumeji-style beauties"--in books and magazines that targeted a new demographic of young female consumers. Yumeji also played a key role in the reinvention of the woodblock medium. As his art and designs proliferated in Japan's mass media, Yumeji became a recognizable brand.In the first full-length English-language study of Yumeji's work, Nozomi Naoi examines the artist's role in shaping modern Japanese identity. Addressing his output from the start of his career in 1905 to the 1920s, when his productivity peaked, Yumeji Modern introduces for the first time in English translation a substantial body of Yumeji's texts, including diary entries, poetry, essays, and commentary, alongside his illustrations. Naoi situates Yumeji's graphic art within the emerging media landscape from 1900s through the 1910s, when novel forms of reprographic communication helped create new spaces of visual culture and image circulation. Yumeji's legacy and his present-day following speak to the broader, ongoing implications of his work with respect to commercial art, visual culture, and print media.

    At the center of the narrative is the 2013 inscription of “Washoku, traditional dietary cultures of the Japanese, notably for the celebration of New Year” on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The authors challenge the very definition of washoku as it was presented in the UNESCO nomination, and expose the multitude of contradictions and falsehoods used in the promotion of Japanese cuisine as part of the nation-branding agenda.Cwiertka and Yasuhara argue further that the manipulation of historical facts in the case of washoku is actually a continuation of similar practices employed for centuries in the branding of foods as iconic markers of tourist attractions. They draw parallels with gastronomic meibutsu (famous products) and edible omiyage (souvenirs), which since the early modern period have been persistently marketed through questionable connections with historical personages and events. Today, meibutsu and omiyage play a central role in the travel experience in Japan and comprise a major category in the practices of gift exchange. Few seem to mind that the stories surrounding these foods are hardly ever factual, despite the fact that the stories, rather than the food itself, constitute the primary attraction. The practice itself is derived from the intellectual exercise of evoking specific associations and sentiments by referring to imaginary landscapes, known as utamakura or meisho. At first restricted to poetry, this exercise was expanded to the visual arts, and by the early modern period familiarity with specific locations and the culinary associations they evoked had become a fixed component of public collective knowledge.The construction of the myths of meibutsu, omiyage, and washoku as described in this book not only enriches the understanding of Japanese culinary culture, but also highlights the dangers of tweaking history for branding purposes, and the even greater danger posed by historians remaining silent in the face of this irreversible reshaping of the past into a consumable product for public enjoyment.

    Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the city that is now Tokyo was a sprawling fishing town by the bay named Edo. Earlier still, in the Middle Ages, it was Edojuku, an outpost overlooking farmlands. And thousands of years ago, its mudflats and marshes were home to elephants, deer, and marine life.  In this compact history, Jonathan Clements traces Tokyo’s fascinating story from the first forest clearances and the samurai wars to the hedonistic “floating world” of the last years of the Shogunate. He illuminates the Tokyo of the twentieth century with its destruction and redevelopment, boom and bust without forgoing the thousand years of history that have led to the Eastern Capital as we know it. Tokyo is so entwined with the history of Japan that it can be hard to separate them, and A Short History of Tokyo tells both the story of the city itself and offers insight into Tokyo’s position at the nexus of power and people that has made the city crucial to the events of the whole country.

    

    These online entertainers have seen a surge of popularity, capturing the hearts of millions across the internet.But none of them have quite become as much of a household name as Kizuke Yai, the so-called 'Queen of VTubers.'Takashi, an average high-school student, is one of her biggest fans. He always tunes in to her broadcasts, and he might even have a little crush on her...Kizuke Yai is the real deal, an actual cute girl behind the screen, at least according to the rumors... But reality is often disappointing.The Queen of all VTubers is actually Takashi's dad.The hapless youngster stumbles upon his old man's dark secret, and soon finds himself flung into a nightmarish world of virtual song, dance, and endless cringe.Will Takashi succeed in getting his dad to quit, or will he find himself drawn deeper into the booming virtual scene despite this disillusionment?

    Embrace this invitation to become enveloped. Your breathing slows to a controlled pant before settling into its new tingling default, a hum of vacant reception, a reassuring murmur of inviolate presence, an ontology of de facto delirium. You mind meld with Dale Brett’s narrator, lapse into a state of mind malleably purposed to your bagged bones and jerky, spastic energy. Cruise control with unblinking techno-addled fascination in an oblivion of echoing sorrows passing epsilons of diaphanous clarity through a carnival of lewd and cerebral pleasures decadent and ancient, a love letter to an amorphous city of reverie rendered as bleary-eyed consumer simulation, a reveille for the overwhelmingly sensate, atomized into arresting poetic narrative constellations. Brett’s nameless metropolis is a promised land for active psychonauts and enthusiasts of stupefacient pastimes, veteran readers with a taste for narcotic drip allures, the world-weary human tourist pining for exotic lands while wired to a modem. For the wandering alien of existence whose faith tabernacles are a vivid, stroboscopic carousel of interpassivity, a Bohemian Bermuda gesturing at a Xanadu of qualia, the shambles of eternity but echophenomena. Chasm or cataract, all terra incognita, microdosing damnation, a gospel for raffish waywards of Otaku and other esoteric persuasions, continuity as tundra of pulsing melancholy. A lucid high for burnout syndrome. Exhilarating, charming mythopoeia for the modern computer mode sentients of the new decade, an aesthetic rarefaction to a world beat. By turns whimsical and winsome, by orders alchemical, etheric, cosmic, alethic- ride the inexorable plunge to lush latitudes, sink into egalitarian opulence, not substance impairment but rapt surrender, a living end reminder you haven’t lived ’til you’ve downloaded this sim, this proto-dystopian technological Mecca, this deconstructive underworld, brain molten and photosensitive, erogenously tactile. Quintessentially vibe-compatible. Comical, blissed out. Incomparably lovely. Dale Brett collapses wide-eyed wanderlust with the Promethean inertia of the zeitgeist. A word machine marvel. A seismic arrival for a protean raw talent. A resonant confirmation that visionary gusto remains unabated in literature.

    But anyone who has gone through a divorce knows the additional public dimensions of breaking up, from intense shame and societal criticism to friends’ and relatives’ unsolicited advice. In Intimate Disconnections, Allison Alexy tells the fascinating story of the changing norms surrounding divorce in Japan in the early 2000s, when sudden demographic and social changes made it a newly visible and viable option. Not only will one of three Japanese marriages today end in divorce, but divorces are suddenly much more likely to be initiated by women who cite new standards for intimacy as their motivation. As people across Japan now consider divorcing their spouses, or work to avoid separation, they face complicated questions about the risks and possibilities marriage brings: How can couples be intimate without becoming suffocatingly close? How should they build loving relationships when older models are no longer feasible? What do you do, both legally and socially, when you just can’t take it anymore?   Relating the intensely personal stories from people experiencing different stages of divorce, Alexy provides a rich ethnography of Japan while also speaking more broadly to contemporary visions of love and marriage during an era in which neoliberal values are prompting wide-ranging transformations in homes across the globe.

    

    With his recent top prize at the Cannes Film Festival for Shoplifters, Kore-eda is arguably Japan's greatest living director with an international viewership. He approaches difficult subjects (child abandonment, suicide, marginality) with a realistic and compassionate eye.The lyrical tone of the writing of Japanese film scholar Linda C. Ehrlich perfectly complements the understated, yet powerful, tone of the films. From An Elemental Cinema, readers will gain a special understanding of Kore-eda's films through a novel connection to the natural elements as reflected in Japanese traditional aesthetics.An Elemental Cinema presents Kore-eda's oeuvre as a connected whole with overarching thematic concerns, despite frequent generic experimentation. It also offers an example of how the poetics of cinema can be practiced in writing, as well as on the screen, and helps readers understand the films of this contemporary director as works of art that relate to their own lives.

    Contributors explore how mountains have been abodes of deities, a resting place for the dead, sources of natural bounty and calamities, places of religious activities, and a vast repository of symbols. The book shows that many peoples have chosen them as sites for ascetic practices, claiming the potential to attain supernatural powers there. This book discusses the history of scholarship on Shugendo, the development process of mountain worship, and the religious and philosophical features of devotion at specific sacred mountains. Moreover, it reveals the rich material and visual culture associated with Shugendo, from statues and steles, to talismans and written oaths.

    In Behold the Buddha, James Dobbins invites readers to imagine how premodern Japanese Buddhists understood and experienced icons in temple settings long before the advent of museums and the internet. Although widely portrayed in the last century as visual emblems of great religious truths or as exquisite works of Asian art, Buddhist images were traditionally treated as the very embodiment of the Buddha, his palpable presence among people. Hence, Buddhists approached them as living entities in their own right--that is, as awakened icons with whom they could interact religiously.Dobbins begins by reflecting on art museums, where many non-Buddhists first encounter images of the Buddha, before outlining the complex Western response to them in previous centuries. He next elucidates images as visual representations of the story of the Buddha's life followed by an overview of the physical attributes and symbolic gestures found in Buddhist iconography. A variety of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and other divinities commonly depicted in Japanese Buddhism is introduced, and their "living" quality discussed in the context of traditional temples and Buddhist rituals. Finally, other religious objects in Japanese Buddhism--relics, scriptures, inscriptions, portraits of masters, and sacred sites--are explained using the Buddhist icon as a model. Dobbins concludes by contemplating art museums further as potential sites for discerning the religious character of Buddhist images.Those interested in Buddhism generally who would like to learn more about its rich iconography--whether encountered in temples or museums--will find much in this concise, well-illustrated volume to help them "behold the Buddha."

    We encounter shamans and warlords, poets and revolutionaries, scientists, artists and adventurers - each offering insights of their own into this extraordinary place.For anyone new to Japan, this book is the ideal introduction. For anyone already deeply involved with it, this is a book filled with surprises and pleasures.

    

    Brian Victoria, himself a Zen priest, tells the story of a group of terrorists who were responsible for the assassination of three leading political and economic figures in 1932. Victoria provides a detailed introduction to the religious as well as political significance of the group's terrorist beliefs and acts, focusing especially on the life and times of the band's leader, Inoue Nisshō. A deeply troubled youth, Inoue became a spy in Manchuria for the Japanese Army in 1909, where he encountered Zen for the first time. When he returned to Japan in 1921, he determined to resolve his deep spiritual discontent through meditation practice, which culminated in an enlightenment experience that resolved his long-term doubts. After engaging in "post-enlightenment training" under the guidance of Rinzai Zen master Yamamoto Gempō, Inoue began a program of training the "patriotic youth" who formed the nucleus of his terrorist band. After the assassinations, Inoue and his band were sentenced to life imprisonment, only to be released just a few years later in 1940. Almost unbelievably, Inoue then became the live-in confidant of Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro, a position he held through the end of WWII. In the postwar era, Inoue reinvented himself again as the founder and head of yet another band of ultranationalists known as the "National Protection Corps." His eventful life came to an end in 1967.Victoria concludes with an assessment of the profound impact of the assassinations, which culminated in Japan's transformation into a totalitarian state and set the stage for Pearl Harbor. The author also examines the connection of Buddhism to terrorism more broadly, considering the implications for today's Islamic-related terrorism.

    Rather than exploring why the traditional Japanese house is built the way it is, Engel delves into the practical information: what the Japanese house is and how it is built.This book is not simply a description of the features of the Japanese house, but "an invitation to probe the possibilities of utilizing this architectural achievement of the Japanese...in modern living and building," according to the author, who further believes that the unique details of the Japanese house are better suited as a pattern for contemporary housing than any other form of residential structure.With a new foreword by architect and professor Mira Locher, Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, this updated hardcover edition brings this popular work to modern readers--in hopes that they may find ideas to adopt into their own home.

    From ramen and flower parks, to hidden bars and novelty cafes, Tokyo: Day by Day is jam-packed with fresh ideas and inspiring photography. Featuring: • Daily tips and suggestions on where and what to eat• Essential sights and activities• The very best places to shop This is the ultimate travel companion for both frequent and first-time visitors!

    

    

    Thousands of service members, their families, and local residents have been exposed - but the US has hidden the damage and refused to help victims. This book reveals the enormous extent of contamination and the lengths the Pentagon will go to conceal it.

    Under the banner of "forest love," the colonial government set out to restructure the rhythms and routines of agrarian life, targeting everything from home heating to food preparation. Timber industrialists, meanwhile, channeled Korea's forest resources into supply chains that grew in tandem with Japan's imperial sphere. These mechanisms of resource control were only fortified after 1937, when the peninsula and its forests were mobilized for total war.In this wide-ranging study David Fedman explores Japanese imperialism through the lens of forest conservation in colonial Korea--a project of environmental rule that outlived the empire itself. Holding up for scrutiny the notion of conservation, Seeds of Control examines the roots of Japanese ideas about the Korean landscape, as well as the consequences and aftermath of Japanese approaches to Korea's "greenification." Drawing from sources in Japanese and Korean, Fedman writes colonized lands into Japanese environmental history, revealing a largely untold story of green imperialism in Asia.

    In this volume, leading historians from North America, Europe, and Japan employ global history in novel ways to offer fresh economic, social, political, cultural, and military perspectives on the Meiji Restoration and the subsequent creation of the modern Japanese nation-state. Seamlessly mixing meta- and micro-history, the authors examine how the Japanese state and Japanese people engaged with global trends of the early nineteenth century. They also explore the internal military conflicts that marked the 1860s and the process of reconciliation after 1868. They conclude with discussions of how new political, cultural, and diplomatic institutions were created as Japan emerged as a global nation, defined in multiple ways by its place in the world.

    Examining a variety of Japanese theorists working in the fields of film, literature, avant-garde art, Marxism, and philosophy, Naoki Yamamoto offers a new approach to cinematic realism as culturally conditioned articulations of the shifting relationship of film to the experience of modernity. In this study, long-held oppositions between realism and modernism, universalism and particularism, and most notably, the West and the non-West are challenged through a radical reconfiguration of the geopolitics of knowledge production and consumption.

    But for the first chronicle in the Japanese vernacular, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes (Eiga monogatari), there was more to worry about than a good yarn. The health of the community was at stake. Flowering Tales is the first extensive literary study of this historical tale, which covers about 150 years of births, deaths, and happenings in late Heian society, a golden age of court literature in women’s hands. Takeshi Watanabe contends that the blossoming of tales, marked by The Tale of Genji, inspired Eiga’s new affective history: an exorcism of embittered spirits whose stories needed to be retold to ensure peace.Tracing the narrative arcs of politically marginalized figures, Watanabe shows how Eiga’s female authors adapted the discourse and strategies of The Tale of Genji to rechannel wayward ghosts into the community through genealogies that relied not on blood but on literary resonances. These reverberations, highlighted through comparisons to contemporaneous accounts in courtiers’ journals, echo through shared details of funerary practices, political life, and characterization. Flowering Tales reanimates these eleventh-century voices to trouble conceptions of history: how it ought to be recounted, who got to record it, and why remembering mattered.

    Examining nearly 1,500 Lumière films, Miyao contends that more than being documents of everyday life, they provided a medium for experimenting with aesthetic and cinematic styles imported from Japan. Miyao further analyzes the Lumière films produced in Japan as a negotiation between French Orientalism and Japanese aesthetics. The Lumière films, Miyao shows, are best understood within a media ecology of photography, painting, and cinema, all indebted to the compositional principles of Japonisme and the new ideas of kinetic realism it inspired. The Lumière brothers and their cinematographers shared the contemporaneous obsession among Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists about how to instantly and physically capture the movements of living things in the world. Their engagement with Japonisme, he concludes, constituted a rich and productive two-way conversation between East and West.

    Race and Media adopts a wide range of methods to make sense of specific occurrences, from the corporate portrayal of mixed-race identity by 23andMe to the cosmopolitan fetishization of Marie Kondo. As a whole, this collection demonstrates that all forms of media-from the sitcoms we stream to the Twitter feeds we follow-confirm racism and reinforce its ideological frameworks, while simultaneously giving space for new modes of resistance and understanding.In each chapter, a leading media scholar elucidates a set of foundational concepts in the study of race and media-such as the burden of representation, discourses of racialization, multiculturalism, hybridity, and the visuality of race. In doing so, they offer tools for media literacy that include rigorous analysis of texts, ideologies, institutions and structures, audiences and users, and technologies. The authors then apply these concepts to a wide range of media and the diverse communities that engage with them in order to uncover new theoretical frameworks and methodologies. From advertising and music to film festivals, video games, telenovelas, and social media, these essays engage and employ contemporary dialogues and struggles for social justice by racialized communities to push media forward.Contributors include:Mary Beltr�nMeshell SturgisRalina L. JosephDolores In�s CasillasJennifer Lynn StoeverJason Kido LopezPeter X FengJacqueline LandMari Casta�edaJun OkadaAmy VillarejoAymar Jean ChristianSarah FloriniRaven Maragh-LloydSulafa ZidaniLia WolockMeredith D. ClarkJillian M. B�ezMiranda J. BradyKishonna L. GraySusan Noh

    Likewise, Inaka: Portraits of Life in Rural Japan includes a look at small-town life and areas in the urban–rural zone of interaction rather than only purely remote settings; a messy mix of city and country is much more representative than hermits hiding in the wilderness.A combination of brilliant, experienced writers and fresh young talent makes Inaka a delight to read, and an absolute must for anyone interested in life outside the crowded Japanese cities.

    

    Lovingly rendered with a critical introduction by the translator, this collection of three stories, written in 1989, sits on the thinnest part of Japan's economic bubble and provides and cautionary glimpse into the malaise of its impending collapse.From the aging regulars of a shabby snack bar in "Galactic City" to the mental breakdowns of "A Slender Back," and the family secrets lurking within the title story between them, Sagisawa offers a trilogy of laser-focused character studies. Exploring dichotomies of past versus present, young versus old, life versus death, and countless shades of meaning beyond, she elicits vibrant commonalities of the human condition from some of its most ennui-laden examples. A curious form of affirmation awaits her readers, who may just come out of her monochromatic word paintings with more colorful realizations about themselves and the world at large. Such insight is rare in a writer so young, and this book is a fitting testament to her premature death, the legacy of which is sure to inspire a new generation of readers in the post-truth era.

    

    Most of the holiday house he designed for the poet Shuntarō Tanikawa consists of a room that is hardly usable: A roof spans a patch of sloping terrain like a large tent, enclosing two wooden logs, a ladder, a bench and the sculpture of a rooster. The poet soon gave up using this impractical house. But for the architect it generated a slew of new ideas and terminology, which he transformed into radically new concepts and spaces in his subsequent essays and designs.Tibor Joanelly’s treatise deconstructs the terms that appear in Shinohara’s theoretical texts about the poet’s house – terms like “naked reality”, “machine” and “meaning”. Using the tools of contemporary philosophy, Joanelly develops an ontology of architectural space, of metaphor, and of the hidden mechanisms that lie behind all art.

    Economic and political turmoil in the early 1920s led Japan down the path of militarism, culminating in her conquest of large parts of the Asian and Pacific region. The beginning of this path can be traced back to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, when Japan's proposal for racial equality was supported and approved by the other members, but overruled by the American President, Woodrow Wilson. Was this rebuttal by the West, and in particular the United States, the moment that changed the course of history?During the empire's existence, Japan was involved in some sixteen conflicts, resulting in the occupation of numerous countries and islands throughout Asia and the Pacific regions. Thousands were under the emperor's control, not all of whom were treated as they should have been.The book culminates with the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which finally brought about Japan's surrender and the end of the war in Asia and the Pacific.