Japan Books

"Nakamura's methodology combines the field techniques of anthropology, archival research, and the political analysis of social movements to gather information on deaf movements in Japan in the postwar era, with the goal of understanding what it means to subscribe to "deaf identity" in Japan. She frequently includes cross-cultural perspectives from international deaf movements and language systems to contextualize the Japanese case, as well as poses thoughtful and provocative questions about personal and communal identities by comparing the Japanese deaf community to other minority groups in Japan. Nakamura's monograph is extremely important because it explores disability in a wider context--as deafness cuts across all class, ethnic, and gender lines--and explores disability as a social construct for identity formation." --Carolyn S. Stevens, Journal of Japanese Studies

This was a very good, easy to read book. It was very interesting and I am intersted in learning more about the topic.

This is the best book on Japanese politics in years. For years, we Japan experts have known that the opposition parties in Japan had a problem, but the diagnosis was always based more on unique factors of each party or the strength of the ruling LDP. Now Scheiner comes along and provides a systematic and creative answer to why opposition parties never seem to be able to take power in Japan. His answer--a vicious circle based on the LDP's access to pork barrel that winds up depriving the oppositon parties of reasons for local politicians to join them, giving a huge advantage to the LDP to stay in power--is brilliant and probably right. He makes his case with detailed evidence from Japan, using just enough simple statistics to be persuasive, and confining more sophisticated methodologies to an appendix for the expert. Scheiner is one of those rare political scientists who is comparative, methodologically sophisticated but also a real country expert. If you want to understand one major dimension of Japanese politics, read this book.

This is an excellent book. It fundamentally challenges scholars understanding of one of the most interesting party phenomena in industrialized democracies: the long-term dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan. I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in party politics or Japanese democracy. Scheiner is also a gifted writer, so the book is often a pleasure to read.

This is a terrific book for people who lived through the war and for those who are too young to remember it. It's not violent, or horrific, but it gives a real flavor of what it was like to be an ordinary young grad student from Missouri who, by various twists and turns, ended up flying the very first flag over Japan at the end of World War II. Miller is a plain-speaking but deeply thoughtful writer, and he relies on his diary entries and letters to paint the scene and the ordinary people he worked with and give the reader a real sense of having been there too.

Having served 4 years in the states and including 2 years in Italy I found this a very interesting and revealing view of what the war was like in the Pacific theater. Of course, this was the experience of one person, but what a tale it is.
It is necessary reading. I heartly recommend it.

This is the only book that I've read that gives an uncensored account of the war from a Japanese citizen. He brings up a lot of questions about the Japanese government and their extreme stupidity. He also tells of what it's like to live in a war torn country.

What I found quite intriguing was his predictions early in the war that eventually came true. It's too bad he did not live to see the end of the war.

This diary is aptly named. The mood is somber, and the images are distorted, like those in a nightmare. I used to be skeptical about claims that the Japanese people would have fought an American invasion in the streets, and that millions could have been killed in the carnage. After reading this journal, I'm inclined to believe it could have happened. Patriotism and solidarity hijacked by fools and fanatics took Japan down a long tunnel, chronicled by Kiyoshi. Many Japanese were lost in a haze of self-deception. Kiyoshi contemporaneously describes the conflict between the Japanese Army and Navy - Japan was certainly not united, though few would speak this truth out loud. Kiyoshi documents the capacity of bureaucrats bent on impressing their higher-ups to speak silly nonsense; his disgust is palpable. He reveals the extent of famine in the final years, when his own most precious resource is a garden plot. Kiyoshi's description of the April 16, 1945, bombing of Tokyo captures facts and a mood: "The newly built factories of Shimomaruko had become nothing more than burned fields. In some places we heard thumps and the explosions of time-delayed bombs. ... I saw the burning of the Kawasaki industrial area and Shimomaruko and was astonished at the totality of the destructive power of modern war. Now I see its burned remains. This all happened in a period of less than ten hours. The electric trains stop, and electricity no longer flows. The water system and gas are halted. According to Akita's account, people who fled to the riverbank of the Tama were killed by bombs, and corpses without heads and trunks were transported away." Also startling are his simple sentences announcing major events. (Fri, April 13):"There is a report that President Roosevelt has died of a cerebral hemorrhage." (Mon, April 23): "The Red Army is invading Berlin. The Nazis will die in suicidal stand to the bitter end. Is such a style of warfare to be praised?" (Wed, May 2): "There is a report that Hitler is dead. It has been communicated that Mussolini has also been murdered." Kiyoshi (who lived for several years in the U.S. before the end of World War I), never saw the end of the Second World War. The last entry in his diary was May 5, 1945. He died that month of pneumonia, caused by malnutrition. This book is rightly seen as a classic. It is a powerful warning about the consequences of arrogance and self-delusion.

After the fiasco that was the 02 manga, practically anything would seem good in comparison! Lucky for us, Digimon Tamers has genuine quality. As Izzy would say, it's "Prodigious!"

I've only read Vol. 1 (I'll edit this when I finish the series), but I like what I've read so far. Basically, this volume tells the familiar story of how Takato, Rika, and Henry met their partners Guilmon, Renamon, and Terriermon, and the trails and tribulations they had while learning to get along. Though there are no new storylines, the animé has been skillfully adapted, and in some cases improved. You won't see any out-of-place jokes in this manga. Don't get confused, there's plently of humor, but unlike the forced humor used in the TV series it comes naturally, making the jokes actually seem, lo and behold, funny! As the humor comes naturally, so does the characterization: These are the exact same personalities you came to know and love in Digimon 03. You won't see any jive-talking Davis in this manga! :)

The Digimon Tamers manga is a return to form. After the ineptly written Zero Two saga, it's good to see that the people in charge are taking the effort to make decent Digimon manga again.

Does the manga artist just not like Season 02? It's definitely one of my favorites. Season 02, of over 50 episodes was covered in two volumes. That's not a proper treatment, that's barely a summary.

However, they seem to overcome this problem here in Tamers. This volume takes us up to Episode 11 - Much Ado about Musyamon. The jokes are great - the author seems to love Calumon and Terriermon. Has interesting info cut from the dub, Writing is good. And the art is great. If you like Tamers, I think you'll like this. Tamers wasn't my favorite series but I enjoyed this and wait for the next volume. Wonder if they'll do Frontier too.

The mere fact that this book has been through many paperback editions since it first appeared as a hardback published in London by Seeley Service in 1921 is on its own a powerful testament to its enduring fascination. This edition is the latest in a long line, and this reviewer hopes that it will never go out of print.

What is the secret of its popularity? First, it is an eye-witness account by an acutely sensitive and intelligent insider, which many would argue is one of the best kinds of history. Based mainly on his diaries, it depicts not only the political situation of Japan, but also the social conditions of a society on the threshold of an enormous change: the Meiji restoration.

The eyes are those of a sympathetic European - as he would have probably described himself - who was able to master the Japanese language in a time when there were hardly any text books available, and who later became one of the foremost japanologists of the 19th century. (Of course this is to say nothing of his subsequent career as a top British diplomat and theorist of international law.)

A copy of this book is money well spent!

Ian Ruxton, editor of Sir Ernest Satow's Private Letters to W.G. Aston and F.V. Dickins: The Correspondence of a Pioneer Japanologist from 1870 to 1918 (Paperback) and several other Satow-related books which are also available on amazon.

If you are interested in Japanese history this is a great book. It gives a firsthand account of events between 1862 and 1869 from the perspective of a foreigner, which covers the very important period of Japan opening to foreigners and the overturn of the shogunate. Sir Ernest Satow was witness to many of the important events that formed modern Japan in his function as a translator for the British Consulate. The book reports his various travels through Japan as an official, his interactions with members of the different Japanese clans, negotiations between the foreign representatives and the Japanese government, including the first audience with the Mikado granted to foreigners. The book makes history come alive and fills it with real-life people. It also shows firsthand the difficulties of foreigners in understanding the very different culture of Japan, at a time when there wasn't even proper teaching material to learn the language (not even a dictionary) to make this process easier. A great book for anybody who wants to further his or her understanding of Japan.

This book has been re-printed.

New ISBN is 1903464706

This short autobiographical account of an Irish doctor's World War II experiences is so riveting that I stayed up way too late to finish it. Dr. MacCarthy served in Europe and was then shipped out to the Asian theatre where he endured the unthinkable. The most striking things I took away from this book is how strong human beings can be in the face of terrible events and how good can triumph within each of us. As the preface said, if you went to a movie and saw all the things portrayed which Dr. McCarthy lived through, you'd think it too far-fetched to be true.

Like many other good books, I'm puzzled why this is currently out of print. Kodera's work makes fascinating reading for anyone curious about Dogen's background in Sung China. A sterling translation of Dogen's Hokyo-Ki, supported by careful annotations and historical background material, this work formed the basis for Kodera's Ph.D. thesis at Columbia. Happily,it has the merit of being informative without ever being stuffy - not always the case with academic studies offered to the general market.

Rather more than what the title suggests, Kodera's work actually begins with an analysis of Dogen's background in the Buddhist centres of his native Japan, culminating in his search for the 'authentic teacher'in the temples of Sung China. The background of Ch'an or Zen in Sung China also comes in for assessment, and in fact, the translation of the Hokyo-Ki per se (a relatively short document), comprises a mere twenty-four pages, followed by copious annotations, an extensive glossary, bibliography - with the original kanji text. Minus Kodera's careful annotations, much about this text would remain obscure and the author's work helps to put it in proper context.

In this age of jet travel, we tend to forget the perils facing Buddhist monks who ventured across the sea in flimsy wooden boats - if needs be, vowing to 'bury their bones' in far-off lands - or risk being lost at sea, in order to acquire experience of the Dharma - and transmit it to their fellow men. Such, also, was Dogen's journey. Needless to say, the high point of Dogen's trip and mission, was his encounter with Master Tendo Nyojo (Tien Tung Ju Ching) on Mount T'ien-Tung. Depicted in highly moving terms, it was, of course, the defining moment in Dogen's career. Curiously, it seems that the crucial idiom - 'shinjin datsuraku' 'casting off mind and body' was in fact Dogen's homophonous reconstruction of his Chinese master's words, meaning to 'drop dust from the mind.' Be that as it may, this was the decisive encounter - for Dogen. Still, Dogen's earlier encounter with the Chinese 'Tenzo' or cook-monk, while still aboard the boat, was also crucial in its own way, the discovery that drying mushrooms for the community of monks, was no less Dharma-work, something re-stated by Dogen, when stressing the need for Zen-ki or 'total exertion' with the practice.

My only reservation about this text, concerns Dogen's rather jaundiced view of Rinzai Zen, in the person of Ta-hui Tsung Kao. Kodera acknowledges the infidelities in Dogen's account (i.e. the claim that Ta-hui advocated a 'dissolution of consciousness') but left it at that. Oddly, Hee Jin Kim (cf. Dogen; Mystical Realist) also raised the issue, only to drop it, leaving it unresolved. Prof. Yanagida Seizan - usually reliable, also ducked the issue (virtually in 'denial' over it) - attributing it to 'early senility.' Here, we must understand Dogen as a man of flesh and blood, rather than a flawless 'patriarch.' There is great beauty in Dogen's spiritual writings and poetry.We might also learn to understand him as a person, with his own hopes and fears. Hokyo-ki is part of that.

I was lucky enough to run across this book in a used bookstore, having only read brief synopses of Dogen's life in other Zen books. I had not even realized such a biographical document in Dogen's own hand existed! So many touching details of the master/student spiritual relationship are revealed here; both stories that are timeless in their humanity, as well as stories that reveal the unique character of the Zen culture of 13th century China. Though, the famous story of 'body-mind drop-off' is not recounted by Dogen himself, as I was surprised to learn, other revealing anecdotes are - such as Dogen involuntarily weeping whenever he sees his teacher, and the teacher himself commenting on the auspiciousness of that sign. It is a true love story, in a way.

I spent the last three years working with a Japanese client and leading a joint software development team with engineers in Japan and the U.S. This book was very helpful to me in helping me understand the nuances of Japanese culture and how to do business with them. Understanding the importanct of gifts, saying "no" , loyalty and other subtleties will be very important if you want to succeed in your relationships with Japan. I found this book to be extremely helpful.

I'm working in Silicon Valley for a company that deals regularly with the Japanese. Personally, I have lived and worked in Japan, so I am not completely new to the complex culture. Recently, I've been searching for a current book that addresses specifically problems that can arise and solutions to those problems in negotiations between Americans and Japanese. This book does just that.

The first portion of the book compares Japan and the US in cultural terms. Newcomers to Japan will find this section very useful. I enjoyed the section, as it allowed me to review material that I had learned through reading other books on Japan and through personal experiences. The second section, the Business of Face-to-Face Negotiation, was the reason I bought the book. It provides a detailed analysis of negotiating with the Japanese - who to send, what character traits are effective in dealing with Japanese, timing, process, etc. In addition, all of the information is supported by anecdotes of the authors, who all have long, impressive careers in working with Japan.

Overall, it think the book is excellent and would recommend it to anyone who negotiates with the Japanese - whether that person is a newcomer to the Japanese culture or a Japanophile.

I recieved doll faster than expected. It was in good condition and its a wonderful read, that is if your into weird, grotesque stories with lots of twists. ^_^

This book puts closure to everything else that happened in the Doll series. You will find out what happens to the doll repairer, the one rogue doll capable of emotions. Love it!!! I recomend it along with the rest of Doll!