Donald Richie - The Japan Times

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Donald Richie

Donald Richie began writing regularly for The Japan Times in 1954, initially writing film and stage reviews. In the early '70s he began writing book reviews and continued contributing until 2009. He wrote more than 40 books on Japanese aesthetics, and he is widely considered the pre-eminent expert on Japanese cinema.

For Donald Richie's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jul 30, 2006

Tokugawa shogun saved from going to the dogs

Tsunayoshi (1646-1709) was the fifth in a line of 15 Tokugawa-family rulers. His 29-year rule was marked by an unusual number of natural disasters, including a volcanic eruption of Mount Fuji, and by that equally unusual outbreak of commerce — the arts, extravagance and indulgence now known as the Genroku Period.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jul 23, 2006

Ordinary is illuminated

OZU YASUJIRO: TWO POSTWAR FILMS -- Late Spring & Early Summer, translated, by D.A. Rajakaruna. Colombo (Sri Lanka): Godage International Publishers (PVT) Ltd., 178 pp., $15 (paper). In Japan, in distinction from other countries, film scripts are sometimes read as literature. Those written by Yasunari Kawabata, Junichiro Tanizaki and Yukio Mishima are included in their respective collected works, and writers associated mainly with cinema itself are given literary status.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jul 16, 2006

For Fumiko Hayashi, not every cloud has a silver lining

FLOATING CLOUDS by Fumiko Hayashi, translated by Lane Dunlop. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006, 328 pp., $27.50 (cloth). Toward the end of her life Fumiko Hayashi (1903-1951) said that she did not think her work would outlive her. Happily, she was quite wrong: She remains one of Japan's most read authors, it seems that her works will live as long as Japanese literature does, and here is a new and needed translation of what many think her finest work.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jul 9, 2006

Classical Japanese text -- what is lost and found in translation

THE TALES OF THE HEIKE, translated by Burton Watson, edited with an introduction by Haruo Shirane, glossary and bibliographies compiled by Michael Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006, 216 pp., illustrated, $24.50 (cloth). The "Heike Monogatari," that famous account of the events that led to the downfall of the Heike clan and the ascendancy of the Genji, covers the years between 1131 and 1331, but is mainly concerned with the 18 years between the premiership of Kiyomori, head of the Heike, and the destruction of that clan at the battle of Dan-no-ura.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jul 2, 2006

To be, or not to be published? That no longer is the question

SELF-PUBLISHING IN JAPAN: What You Need to Know to Get Started, by Kathleen Morikawa. Forest River Press, 2006, 76 pp., 1,800 yen (paper). The largest media development since the Gutenberg printing press is coming. The full force has not yet hit, but the waves are lapping our shores. Computers, scanners, printers and their possibilities have changed everything. How we write, how we distribute (and eventually how we think about publication) are already different. For example, we now have the possibility of becoming publishers ourselves.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jun 25, 2006

Jun'ichiro Tanizaki: new realities from screen fiction

SHADOWS ON THE SCREEN: Tanizaki Jun'ichiro on Cinema and "Oriental" Aesthetics, translated and edited by Thomas LaMarre. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2005. 410 pp., photos XIX, $25 (paper). The eminent novelist Jun'ichiro Tanizaki was celebrated for his ambivalence toward the West and the modernism it was perceived as harboring. Before his celebrated return to traditional values during the prewar and wartime years, however, Tanizaki was positively enthusiastic about things viewed as foreign to Japan. Among these was the cinema.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jun 18, 2006

In the wake of the true traditional Japanese funeral

MODERN PASSINGS: Death Rites, Politics, and Social Change in Imperial Japan, by Andrew Bern- stein. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006,242 pp., with photos, $39 (cloth). I have long admired Japan's attitude toward death, its acceptance, its no-nonsense attitude toward disposal and entombment, its brisk dispatch of ceremony and ritual, its relative lack of hypocrisy. Consequently it comes as a surprise to learn, upon reading this book, that Japanese funerals are modern inventions.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jun 11, 2006

It's a mechanical kind of love

LOVING THE MACHINE: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots, by Timothy N. Hornyak. Tokyo/New York: Kodansha International, 2006, 160 pp., profusely illustrated, 2,800 yen (cloth). One of the most popular mysteries of 18th-century Europe was the Chess-playing Turk, a robot-like automaton that won all of its games, left its opponents baffled and occasioned much early talk of artificial intelligence, its pleasures and perils.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jun 4, 2006

Involuntary students of death

KAMIKAZE DIARIES: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers, by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 2006, 206 pp., 13 b/w plates, $25 (cloth). War flourishes through caricature and some of these wartime creations live on long after their political usefulness is over. One such is the grinning, suicidal kamikaze pilot, fanatically eager to die, devoted wholeheartedly if mindlessly to the emperor.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

May 28, 2006

William Blake, well traveled through the imagination of all

THE RECEPTION OF BLAKE IN THE ORIENT, edited by Steve Clark and Masashi Suzuki. London/New York: Continuum, 2006, 348 pp., with b/w illustrations, £45 (cloth). William Blake (1757-1827), poet and engraver, known for his mysticism, sentiment and the complex symbolism of his work, does not seem a likely candidate for Japanese scholarly enthusiasm. Yet, he has long excited interest, even eagerness in the academic circles of Japan.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

May 21, 2006

Yukio Mishima's prequel to the end

YUKOKU (Patriotism), 1966, produced, written and interpreted by Yukio Mishima, associate producer Hiroaki Fujii, associate director Masaki Domoto, photographed by Kimio Watanabe. Tokyo: Toho DVD, 2006, Disc One: 28 minutes, Disc Two: 175 minutes, 6,300 yen. In 1961 Yukio Mishima published a short story, "Patriotism" (Yukoku), the first of several works devoted to the ideals of the rebellious young officers of the 1930s. As his admiration grew into emulation, he himself began training with the Self-Defense Forces, and by 1968 he had formed his own private 100-man army, the Tate no Kai (Shield Society). He had further plans, and these were indicated early on when he decided to turn "Patriotism" into a short film.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

May 14, 2006

Letting history speak for itself

TRADITIONAL JAPANESE ARTS AND CULTURE: An Illustrated Sourcebook, edited by Stephen Addiss, Gerald Groemer and J. Thomas Rimer. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006, 254 pp., 64 color plates, $29 (paper). For nearly half a century, an important text for learning about Japanese culture in general and about history in particular has been "Sources in Japanese Tradition" (Ryusaku Tsunoda, Theodore de Bary and Donald Keene, 1958). It is a collection of primary documents translated into English and we learn through the sources themselves, in the accents of their times. Relevant texts are brought together and history speaks.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Apr 23, 2006

Detective fiction written for the love of Tokyo

THE SNAKE THAT BOWED, by Edward Seidensticker, based on works by Okamoto Kido. Tokyo: Printed Matter Press, 2006, 144 pp., 1500 yen (paper). Edward Seidensticker, the most eminent translator from Japanese to English, is a man of many parts. Not only has he given us "The Tale of Genji," "The Makioka Sisters," and much else, he is also the author of the finest history of Tokyo and has written that wonderful account of Tokyo's own Nagai Kafu. Now, all of these various abilities come gloriously together in his new book, a conflation of translation, adaptation, comment, knowledge about and affection for Tokyo.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Apr 16, 2006

Critical concerns about cinema

ASIAN CINEMAS: A READER & GUIDE, edited by Dimitris Eleftheriotis and Gary Needham. Edinburgh University Press, 2006, 474 pp., £19.99 (paper). CONTEMPORARY ASIAN CINEMA: Popular Culture in a Global Frame, edited by Anne Tereska Ciecko. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2006, 250 pp., £16.99 (paper). Critical methodologies evolve, a more recent group of assumptions replacing an older. At present Western approaches to Eastern cinema are newly crowded with postcolonial stances, the problems of perceiving the "other," the perils of Orientalism, the clutter of genre studies, and much more. One way out is to machete your way through. Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, a U.S.-resident Japanese film scholar, has honed a two-way critical tool that divides foreign critics of Asian cinema into two groups.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Apr 9, 2006

Looking at the big picture of Kyoto

CAPITALSCAPES: Folding Screens and Political Imagination in Late Medieval Kyoto, by Matthew Philip McKelway. Honolulu, University of Hawai'i Press, 2006, 282 pp., 24 color plates, numerous b/w illustrations, $56.00 (cloth). One of the major formats in the history of Japanese painting are the byobu-e, screens on which scenes are often pictured. These screens are free-standing, portable, usually come in pairs, can serve as divider or background and have been popular since as early as the Nara period (710-794).

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Apr 2, 2006

It's a different war through the eyes of civilians

LEAVES FROM AN AUTUMN OF EMERGENCIES: Selections From the Wartime Diaries of Ordinary Japanese, edited by Samuel Hideo Yamashita. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005, 332 pp., with b/w photos, $26 (paper). There are a number of reasons for keeping diaries -- to preserve time, to account for it, to validate it -- and there are a number of ways to read the resultant record. The editor of this interesting collection of Japanese wartime journals mentions several.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Mar 26, 2006

A new 'hero' for olden times

LIGHTNING IN THE VOID: The Authentic History of Miyamoto Musashi, by John Carroll. Tokyo: Printed Matter Press, 2006, 520 pp., 2,500 yen (paper). Any history calling itself "authentic" posits one that is inauthentic. Here the target is apparent. It is the "Miyamoto Musashi" of Eiji Yoshikawa, published 1935-39 and translated into English as "Musashi" in 1981.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Mar 19, 2006

Wrapping paper that influenced l'art japonais of Paris

HOTEI ENCYCLOPEDIA OF JAPANESE WOODBLOCK PRINTS; edited by Amy Reigle Newland; specialist advisers: Julie Nelson Davis, Oikawa Shigeru, Ellis Tinios, Chris Uhlenbeck; foreword by Suzuki Juzo. Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2005, two volumes in slipcase, 528 pp., 140 color and 140 b/w illustrations, $249 (cloth). Considering the enormous popularity of Japanese woodblock prints, it is curious that there have been so few reference works offering comprehensive information on all the areas of knowledge involved. The first to attempt a systematic overview of the field in English was not published until 1978 -- Richard Lane's "Images from the Floating World."

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Mar 12, 2006

Chao Phya, the brown god

THAILAND REFLECTED IN A RIVER by Steve Van Beek, designed by Barry Owen and Thongchai Nawawat. Hong Kong: Wind & Water Ltd., 264 pp., profusely illustrated, 2004, $39 (cloth). T.S. Eliot has written: "I think that the river / Is a strong brown god -- sullen, untamed and intractable." In addition to this, a river is also an endlessly interesting artery that carries on its stirring surface the history and most of the qualities of its country.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Feb 26, 2006

Memoirs of a foreigner

JAPANESE JOURNEYS: Writings and Recollections, by Geoffrey Bownas. Kent: Global Oriental Ltd., 2005, 264 pp., with b/w photos, £30 (cloth). One late evening in 1970, the scholar Geoffrey Bownas was working with the writer Yukio Mishima on their anthology "New Writing in Japan." The noted author excused himself, and when he returned, the scholar noticed with alarm that he had stripped down to his loincloth and was carrying a sword.

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