Religious talisman came fluttering down out of the empty sky. Men dressed as women. Women dressed as men. The town's people dancing through the village. The villagers cavorting in towns. Whole populations drunk. Orgiastic behavior in the streets and paper talismans falling from the Heavens, like cherry blossoms in the wind. The world was coming to an end. A new one was apparent." ~ Iwakura Tomomi. Western winds blow revolution across Japan as Emperor Meiji seeks to modernize his country. The changes, the whispers of siege and war in retaliation, sweep over Ono Aia. Her small world, wound and bound like the kimono around her body, revolves around the geishas she serves and the geisha she hopes to be. But upheaval cannot be stopped. Aia is flung into the arms of a swordsman with obsidian eyes and a blade that can cut more than mortal flesh. His name is Nen. At his side, not only does Aia learn of a mythical realm beyond human comprehension, she learns where her heart may truly lie. Perhaps it is not in the study and perfection of the geisha tradition. Perhaps, it beside a man larger than life. His size terrifies and thrills her. His black eyes dazzle and delight her. But the spirits of Japanese lore could destroy man's reality. Can the fates of the mortal and fantastical world remain in balance? Or will Aia find her heart only to lose it in the uproar? Lose yourself in the sweep of this historical fantasy romance from author Bree M. Lewandowski!

    Disappointed, he’s surprised to discover Mirai’s subtle pursuit of a life and career in Tokyo, a city he dislikes. Harmony is further disrupted when Emmitt’s search for a more meaningful life in Japan leads him to quit an unsatisfying job at a local university. In the fallout, he finds himself helping his mother-in-law translate Kanazawa’s most famous author, Izumi Kyoka, into English.While continually resisting Mirai’s efforts to move to Tokyo, Emmitt becomes drawn into the mysterious death thirty years prior of a mutual friend of Mirai’s parents. It is only when he and his father-in-law climb the mountain where the man died that he learns the somber truth, and in turn discovers what the future holds for him and his wife.Packed with subtle literary allusion and closely observed nuance, with an intimacy of emotion inexorably tied both to the cityscape and Japan’s mountainous terrain, Kanazawa reflects the mood of Japanese fiction in a fresh, modern incarnation.

    

    Seeking to counter Chinese ambitions toward regional hegemony, Japan has taken an increasingly assertive role in East Asia and the world. During the tenure of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, the country pursued closer security cooperation with the United States and other democracies, established a more centralized national defense system, and advanced rules and norms to preserve the open regional order in the Indo-Pacific that is crucial to its prosperity and survival--all while managing an important economic relationship with China.In Line of Advantage, Michael J. Green provides a groundbreaking and comprehensive account of Japan's strategic thinking under Abe. He explains the foundational logic and the worldview behind this approach, from key precedents in Japanese history to the specific economic, defense, and diplomatic priorities shaping contemporary policy toward China, the United States, the two Koreas, and the Indo-Pacific region. Drawing on two decades of access to Abe and other Japanese political, military, and business leaders, Green provides an insider's perspective on subjects such as how Japan pursued competition with China without losing the benefits of economic cooperation. Assessing the strengths and weaknesses of Japan's new active role, Line of Advantage sheds new light on a period with profound implications for the future of U.S. competition with China and international affairs in Asia more broadly.

    Imprisonment came as a surprise to the soldiers, who thought they were being shipped home.The Japanese prisoners became a workforce for the rebuilding Soviets, as well as pawns in the Cold War. Alongside other Axis POWs, they did backbreaking jobs, from mining and logging to agriculture and construction. They were routinely subjected to “reeducation” glorifying the Soviet system and urging them to support the newly legalized Japanese Communist Party and to resist American influence in Japan upon repatriation. About 60,000 Japanese didn’t survive Siberia. The rest were sent home in waves, the last lingering in the camps until 1956. Already laid low by war and years of hard labor, returnees faced the final shock and alienation of an unrecognizable homeland, transformed after the demise of the imperial state.Sherzod Muminov draws on extensive Japanese, Russian, and English archives―including more than a hundred memoirs and survivor interviews―to piece together a portrait of life in Siberia and in Japan afterward. Eleven Winters of Discontent reveals the real people underneath facile tropes of the prisoner of war and expands our understanding of the Cold War front. Superpower confrontation played out in the Siberian camps as surely as it did in Berlin or the Bay of Pigs.

    It's just another day in Japan, where the futuristic and zany stands side-by-side with the rooted and the venerable, and there's a festival going on somewhere almost every day of the year.In Uniquely Japan, Abby Denson—author of Cool Japan Guide and Cool Tokyo Guide—uses her own personal drawings and photos to highlight the things that make Japan truly different from every other place on the planet. From the ramen and sushi we've all come to love to the fantastic creatures who now star in their own video games and anime, the comic artist takes you on a romp through Japan's distinctive popular and traditional culture.

    Described by British scholar Timothy Clark as “an individualist and an independent, perhaps the last virtuoso in traditional Japanese painting," Kyōsai saw Japan transform itself from a feudal country into a modern state. The politically turbulent times in which he lived are reflected in his riotous images, in which skeletons, demons and ghosts rub shoulders with classically rendered ukiyo-e courtesans.Among his most charming and inventive works are his brilliant depictions of animals—crows, frogs and elephants, among many others—which often stand in for political figures of the day. Overlooked for decades, particularly compared to his earlier counterparts Hokusai and Hiroshige, Kyōsai is now celebrated for his ability to bridge popular culture and traditional art. His important place in the art of Japan is here explored in depth by Koto Sadamura, a leading authority on the artist, in this catalog of the exceptionally rich holdings of the Israel Goldman Collection, one of the finest Kyōsai collections in the world.