There is an art to art collecting that involves quite different skills from those employed by artists. People tend to assume it’s all about rich people spending money, but, if that was all that was involved, collecting wouldn’t have half the attraction it does for those obsessed by it. Japonisme ...
The best hint of what “Naomi” by Junichiro Tanizaki is about is its Japanese title “Chijin no Ai,” (“A Fool’s ...
Released in English last month, “The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya” is the 10th in the (currently) 11-volume “Haruhi Suzumiya” series ...
Compiled in the early Heian Period (794-1192), the “Nihon ryoiki” comprises the country’s first major collection of anecdotal literature, or setsuwa. The collection contains 116 spoken stories over three volumes that were passed from person to person, village to village, until they were finally ...
It may not have been their sole purposes for visiting Japan during their respective reigns, but Queen Victoria’s grandson George V and the last emperor of Russia, Nicholas II, both received tattoos on visits to Japan, despite the government’s ban on a craft reserved ...
Kobo Abe was one of Japan’s greatest postwar authors, with his works of science fiction and existential plays on alienation and absurdity drawing comparisons with European writers such as Franz Kafka and Alberto Moravia. However, he also wrote theoretical criticism that merged literary and ...
“Pink” is the second of Kyoko Okazaki’s manga to be translated into English by Vertical books. First published in Japan in 1989 the gritty, highly sexual tale is a classic of the josei manga (women’s comics) genre, and has been hailed as a statement ...
Misfits. Oddballs. Bohemians. In Tokugawa Japan? Yes indeed, a veritable plethora of them. The Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1867) was hardly the first repressive regime, or the last, to throw nonconformity out the front door only to find it creeping in through the back door, through ...
This 3-in-1 omnibus is the first time Junji Ito’s late-’90s horror series “Uzumaki” has appeared bound together in English. Uzumaki, Junji Ito, VIZ MANGA The story centers on Kirie and her boyfriend, Shuichi, who live in small Japanese town where the residents are slowly ...
This fifth edition of the classic textbook “Religion in Japan” has been completely rewritten by author H. Byron Earhart to give greater coverage to the modern period, such as changes in marriage and death rites, and to widen the field of research into belief ...
The electoral reforms that were introduced by successive Japanese administrations throughout the 1990s radically shifted the balance of power among bureaucrats, legislators, and the prime minister and the Cabinet. The factional politics that once formed the bedrock of the Liberal Democratic Party was fatally ...
Ruth Ozeki’s recent novel, the 2013 Man Booker-shortlisted “A Tale For the Time Being,” is best described as a hybrid: a fictional masterpiece with footnotes and appendices like a research paper; a colorful scrawl of inventive creativity marked by scientific asides ranging from ocean ...
Catherynne M. Valente has been called the Ray Bradbury of her generation — quite a thing to live up to! So that, plus the fact she got her start as a sci-fi writer while living in Japan, should make many SF fans here curious ...
“Sunny” is the latest manga series by Taiyo Matsumoto to be translated into English. Similar to his previous hit, “Tekkonkinkreet,” the story’s central theme is the melancholy of youth, and how children in difficult situations struggle to find their own self-identity. Sunny, Volume 1, ...
“Precarious Japan” is a forward-thinking commentary on the current state of Japan, detailing a progressive history from the economic collapse in 1991 to how the country functions today in a modern, post-earthquake society. Precarious Japan, Anne Allison, DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS Based on extensive fieldwork, ...
