A time when losing a battle meant losing it all. The Sword Saint, Isshin Ashina, aims for world domination... That is until he encounters a certain samurai...

    Told from the Japanese perspective, The Rising Sun is, in the author’s words, “a factual saga of people caught up in the flood of the most overwhelming war of mankind, told as it happened—muddled, ennobling, disgraceful, frustrating, full of paradox.”In weaving together the historical facts and human drama leading up to and culminating in the war in the Pacific, Toland crafts a riveting and unbiased narrative history. In his Foreword, Toland says that if we are to draw any conclusion from The Rising Sun, it is “that there are no simple lessons in history, that it is human nature that repeats itself, not history.”

    B. Mitford traveled widely with his parents as a youth and lived in various European countries. From 1866-70, he served as an attaché with the British legation at Edo (Tokyo) — one of the first foreign diplomats to do so. During his brief stay there, Mitford lived through a period of dramatic and tumultuous change in Japanese history. A feudal nation on his arrival, Japan had entered the era of “Westernization” before he left some three years later. During that time, however, he quickly and thoroughly mastered the Japanese language and acted as an interpreter between the young Japanese Emperor and British royalty.Mitford’s famous collection of classic tales (the first to appear in English) covers an engrossing array of subjects: grisly accounts of revenge, knightly exploits, ghost stories, fairy tales, folklore, a fascinating eyewitness account of a hara-kiri ceremony, gripping narratives of vampires and samurai, Buddhist sermons, and the plots of four Noh plays.A treasury, as well, of information on most aspects of Japanese life, with information on locales, customs, and characters, the illustrated volume delights as it entertains, chronicling acts of heroism, devotion, ruthlessness, and chivalry that illuminate the island nation's culture.“One of the first and in many ways still one of the best books on Japan.” — The Japanese Times.“An excellent introduction to Japanese literature.” — Mainichi Daily News.

    In the course of little more than a hundred years from the day Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in his black ships, this insular, preindustrial realm mutated into an expansive military dictatorship that essentially supplanted the British, French, Dutch, and American empires in Asia before plunging to utter ruin, eventually emerging under American tutelage as a pseudo-Western-style democracy and economic dynamo.What explains the seismic changes that thrust this small island nation so violently onto the world stage? In part, Ian Buruma argues, the story is one of a newly united nation that felt it must play catch-up to the established Western powers, just as Germany and Italy did, a process that involved, in addition to outward colonial expansion, internal cultural consolidation and the manufacturing of a shared heritage. But Japan has always been both particularly open to the importation of good ideas and particularly prickly about keeping their influence quarantined, a bipolar disorder that would have dramatic consequences and that continues to this day. If one book is to be read in order to understand why the Japanese seem so impossibly strange to many Americans, Inventing Japan is surely it.From the Hardcover edition.

    Readers of this book will gain a clear understanding of what really makes the Japanese, and their society, tick. Among the topics explored: aimai (ambiguity), amae (dependence upon others' benevolence), amakudari (the nation's descent from heaven), chinmoku (silence in communication), gambari (perseverence), giri (social obligation), haragei (literally, "belly art"; implicit, unspoken communication), kenkyo (the appearance of modesty), sempai-kohai (seniority), wabi-sabi (simplicity and elegance), and zoto (gift giving), as well as discussions of childrearing, personal space, and the roles of women in Japanese society. Includes discussion topics and questions after each chapter.

    Another thing that makes Japan unique in the gaming world is the prevalence of game arcades. While the game arcade scene has died in the U.S., there are 9,500 "game centers" in Japan with more than 445,000 game machines. Arcade Mania introduces overseas readers to the fascinating world of the Japanese gemu senta. Organized as a guided tour of a typical game center, the book is divided into nine chapters, each of which deals with a different kind of game, starting with the UFO catchers and print club machines at the entrance and continuing through rhythm games, fighting games, shooting games, retro games, gambling games, card-based games, and only-in-Japan games. Covering classic games from Space Invaders to Street Fighter, games that are familiar to Americans in their home console versions (Rock Band, Guitar Hero and Dance, Dance Revolution), as well as the unique, quirky games found only in Japan, Arcade Mania is crammed full of interviews with game makers and star players, and packed with facts about the history, background and characteristics of each game, all lavishly illustrated with photographs and game graphics. This book is a must-have for gamers everywhere.

    One of the late Shusaku Endo’s finest works, The Samurai tells of the journey of some of the first Japanese to set foot on European soil and the resulting clash of cultures and politics.

    Despite their criminal nature, the yakuza are accepted by fellow Japanese to a degree guaranteed to shock most Westerners. Here is the first book to reveal the extraordinary reach of Japan's Mafia. Originally published in 1986, Yakuza was so controversial in Japan that it could not be published there for five years. But in the West it has long served as the standard reference on Japanese organized crime, inspiring novels, screenplays, and criminal investigations. David E. Kaplan and Alec Dubro spent nearly two decades conducting hundreds of interviews with everyone from street-level hoodlums and police to Japan's most powerful godfathers. The result is a searing indictment of corruption in the world's second-largest economy.This updated, expanded, and thoroughly revised edition of Yakuza tells the full story of Japan's remarkable crime syndicates, from their feudal start as bands of medieval outlaws to their emergence as billion-dollar investors in real estate, big business, art, and more.

    In this one celebratory volume, the reader is exposed to the free-ranging thoughts of one of the century's most brilliant minds--Kenzaburo Oe, winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature--who offers his message for mankind as well as a selection of his most penetrating essays on themes varying from Hiroshima to the state of modern fiction.

    Broadly labeled yokai, these creatures come in infinite shapes and sizes, from tengu mountain goblins and kappa water spirits to shape-shifting foxes and long-tongued ceiling-lickers. Currently popular in anime, manga, film, and computer games, many yokai originated in local legends, folktales, and regional ghost stories.Drawing on years of research in Japan, Michael Dylan Foster unpacks the history and cultural context of yokai, tracing their roots, interpreting their meanings, and introducing people who have hunted them through the ages. In this delightful and accessible narrative, readers will explore the roles played by these mysterious beings within Japanese culture and will also learn of their abundance and variety through detailed entries, some with original illustrations, on more than fifty individual creatures. The Book of Yokai provides a lively excursion into Japanese folklore and its ever-expanding influence on global popular culture. It also invites readers to examine how people create, transmit, and collect folklore, and how they make sense of the mysteries in the world around them. By exploring yokai as a concept, we can better understand broader processes of tradition, innovation, storytelling, and individual and communal creativity.

    Bushido has played a significant role in shaping the behavior of modern Japanese government, corporations, society, and individuals, as well as in developing modern Japanese martial arts within Japan and internationally. The Japanese original of this book, Bushido Shoshinshu, (Bushido for Beginners), has been one of the primary sources on the tenets of Bushido, a way of thought that remains fascinating and relevant to the modern world, East and West. This handbook, written after five hundred years of military rule in Japan, was composed to provide practical and moral instruction for warriors, correcting wayward tendencies and outlining the personal, social, and professional standards of conduct characteristic of Bushido, the Japanese chivalric tradition.With a bright, conversational narrative by Thomas Clear,y and powerfully evocative line drawings by master illustrator Oscar Ratti, this book is indispensable to corporate executives, students of Asian Culture, martial artists, or anyone sincerely interested in Japan and its people.

    Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge.

    In Legends of the Samurai, Hiroaki Sato confronts both the history and the legend of the samurai, untangling the two to present an authentic picture of these legendary warriors. Through his masterful translations of original samurai tales, laws, dicta, reports, and arguments accompanied by insightful commentary, Sato chronicles the changing ethos of the Japanese warrior from the samurai's historical origins to his rise to political power. A fascinating look at Japanese history as seen through the evolution of the samurai, Legends of the Samurai stands as the ultimate authority on its subject.

    He takes students from the days of the shogunate--the feudal overlordship of the Tokugawa family--through the modernizing revolution launched by midlevel samurai in the late nineteenth century; the adoption of Western hairstyles, clothing, and military organization; and the nation's first experiments with mass democracy after World War I. Gordon offers the finest synthesis to date of Japan's passage through militarism, World War II, the American occupation, and the subsequent economic rollercoaster. But the true ingenuity and value of Gordon's approach lies in his close attention to the non-elite layers of society. Here students will see the influence of outside ideas, products, and culture on home life, labor unions, political parties, gender relations, and popular entertainment. The book examines Japan's struggles to define the meaning of its modernization, from villages and urban neighborhoods, to factory floors and middle managers' offices, to the imperial court. Most importantly, it illuminates the interconnectedness of Japanese developments with world history, demonstrating how Japan's historical passage represents a variation of a process experienced by many nations and showing how the Japanese narrative forms one part of the interwoven fabric of modern history. With a sustained focus on setting modern Japan in a comparative and global context, The Modern History of Japan is ideal for undergraduate courses in modern Japanese history, Japanese politics, Japanese society, or Japanese culture.

    In 1970 he startled the world by stepping out onto a balcony in Tokyo before an assembly of troops and plunging a sword into his abdomen; a disciple then beheaded him, completing the ritual of hara-kiri. John Nathan's riveting biography traces the life of this tortured, nearly superhuman personality. Mishima survived a grotesque childhood, and subsequently his sadomasochistic impulses became manifest -- as did an increasing obsession with death as the supreme beauty. Nathan, who knew Mishima professionally and personally, interviewed family, colleagues, and friends to unmask the various -- often seemingly contradictory -- personae of the genius who felt called by "a glittering destiny no ordinary man would be permitted."