Product Description
With more than 700 alphabetically arranged entries, The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Japanese Culture offers extensive coverage of Japanese culture spanning from the end of the Japanese Imperialist period in 1945, right up to the present day. Entries range from shorter definitions, histories or biographies to longer overview essays giving an in-depth treatment of major issues. Culture is defined in its broadest sense to allow for coverage of the diversity of practice and production in a country as vibrant and rapidly changing as Japan.

Including a new preface by the editor to bring the book fully up-to-date with cultural developments since 2001, this Encyclopedia will be an invaluable reference tool for students of Japanese and Asian Studies, as well as providing a fascinating insight into Japanese culture for the general reader.

Customer Reviews (3)

Not worth the money
I didn't like this book very much. Here are a few reasons:

1. Book was first published in 2001 so I would not call it a book about contemporary culture. The controversy over the Narita Airport in the 1970s does not deserve a separate entity for instance. Similarly, one can question many entries. Like the obscure left-wing entries instead, like Hihyou kuukan, which just shows that some of the contributors have no scruples.

2. The A-Z approach means that you do not get any deeper understanding of anything. Many of the entries are very basic - very few are longer than one page. We are told that sushi is raw fish and should be turned over when dipped in the soya. We don't get anything about the cultural significance about sushi for instance. The sections on food and economy are especially shallow. The sections of film and literature seems more detailed. Many entries are good, but overall they are massively uneven.

3. It is an edited volume and the contributors are mostly Anglo-Saxon, based outside Japan. Their information will not really be that up to date.

4. The writing style is pretty dry. It is not overly politically correct but it also doesn't take any risks. I also feel that some sensitive topics have been avoided, e.g. Japanese nationalism.

5. None of the information presented is supported by facts or data. We are just told things and have to take it at face value that the entry is important. Hardly ever does not author explain why an entry is included, e.g. the Hihyou kuukan entry.

Still the book deserves two stars because there is some interesting information in it. Here is a much better book The Cambridge Companion to Modern Japanese Culture (Cambridge Companions to Culture) (which also is much cheaper)

wHY IS THIS 3 TIMES THE PRICE ON kINDLE???
This is not a review of the book, I'm concerned that the Kindle edition is three times the price of the paperback which is $80.
Why the difference?I have noticed similar price gouging in the history section for a lot of books I'd otherwise buy on Kindle.
Seems there's a pattern going on here.The mass market novels are cheap (as well they should be) but anything of substance is being priced into the stratosphere. Anyone else see this happening?

Not Just Pop Culture
One of this book's greatest values is that it is not merely an encyclopedia of Japanese *pop* culture. While it does cover music, film, TV and comics, it also looks at more traditional aspects of Japan in the modern world, including kabuki and noh, fishing and fireworks. These are often neglected by modern researchers, or confined to hermetically-sealed specialisations -- their inclusion here imparts Buckley's book with considerable endurability.

Popular culture often attracts the wrong sort of writer -- virgin territory may be a fertile ground for pioneers and innovators, but also for charlatans and ne'er-do-wells. Japanese popular culture has been lucky in the past, with excellent researchers like Schodt, Schilling, Powers and Kato, but also a large number of self-appointed pundits. This book, luckily, falls into the former camp more often that not.

The first thing anyone does with an Encyclopedia is look up stuff they already know -- often an unfair test of the editor's broader achievement. The first places I checked contained several minor typographical errors; Yurusei Yatsura for Urusei Yatsura, Ikeda Ryoko for Ikeda Riyoko, and the wrong release date for Neon Genesis Evangelion. The entry for Murakami Haruki notably points out that A Wild Sheep Chase was the third in a four-book series, but seems, presumably at the editing stage, to have accidentally assigned the first book, Hear the Wind Sing, as the umbrella title for the whole. But these errors can all easily be altered on a reprinting, and the size of the book makes it likely that print-runs are small, and that by the time you read these words, such minor problems will have already been fixed.

The general thrust of the articles remains objective and critical in the best sense of both words. For a Japanese scholar, this is a book that demands to be read from cover to cover, not just because you only realise what you *don't* known when you stumble across it, but also because the filing system mixes English and Japanese words with impunity. Bathing is filed under "Ofuro", but "Ikebana" is filed under Flower Arranging; luckily an index helps sort this out. Some of the choices for inclusion are also a little baffling. While it is noble to include an entry pointing out that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is *not* a Japanese product, the entry occupies the same word-count as that for the entire 40-year run of Ultraman.

With "only" 634 pages to play with (trust me, they fill up fast), the book sensibly points readers towards more in-depth studies. You may not get all the answers you want from an entry, but in most cases, you can close this book with a better idea of where you should look next. The suggestions for further reading (included in almost every entry) are an excellent addition for researchers, though occasionally of debatable provenance. The entry on pornography, for example, cites a single essay as a resource (the editor's own), but not more comprehensive works such as Japan's Sex Trade, Permitted & Prohibited Desires or, frankly, The Erotic Anime Movie Guide.

It is important to consider the ... price ... in context. When buying something of this weight, I tell myself if it costs as much as ten lesser books, it should do the work of twenty. This is certainly true in this case. I have no choice but to award this book the full five-star rating Amazon allows, since whatever niggles I may have, it is still an informative tome, liable to occupy me for considerably longer than many of its lesser brethren. ... Read more

Product Description
NAKAMA is a two year proficiency-oriented program that emphasizes practical communication and the development of listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills. The eleven thematic chapters, plus one preliminary chapter, focus on high-frequency communication situations; while chapter dialogues illustrate typical daily events representative in Japanese life and provide realistic contexts in which to learn vocabulary and grammar. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Leave it to Houghton Mifflin to print another bad book...
In my first 2 years of college Japanese I took at Richland College, I was very fortunate to have a knowledgeable and competent instructor who wrote his own book for classroom use (Thank you Mr. Poublan). Several years later when I decided to continue my Japanese at UNT Denton, I was disappointed to see what the Japanese students have had to tolerate for their first 2 years of instruction. The Nakama is an absolute headache for a number of reasons. When the book attempts to explain a grammatical point, you are often given only one vague example. Instead of explaining each grammar point until it is clear and well defined, the book will move onto a completely different grammar point before explaining the first one. The 1 sentence examples often leave the reader with many unanswered questions. If you are lucky enough to have a knowledgeable instructor who can clear these points up you may be able to get by, but the textbook will leave many of your questions unanswered. The textbook downplays the significance of kanji in written Japanese and often times kanji are omitted in place of hiragana. I feel that the Japanese student needs to be immersed in as much kanji as possible, this way the student can more easily read Japanese text on their own. The book contains many useless vocabulary terms as well (just a few: 'nuigurumi' = stuffed animal, 'aroha shatsu' = Hawaiian shirt, 'ijimeru' = to bully, etc.). Chapter 6 explains asking for and giving directions which is required knowledge for the Japanese student, but more times than not, the book is long winded on insignificant information and vague on the important grammar points. If you find yourself at a mediocre college taking Japanese class using the Nakama, you may want to pick up several other reference books that I have found to be a big help in explaining what this textbook could not; the first one is called "All About Particles" by Naoko Chino: this book runs circles around the Nakama and fills in many gaps. Two other books I highly recommend in your 2nd and 3rd year Japanese studies are "Japanese Core Words and Phrases: Things You Can't Find in a Dictionary" and "Basic Connections: Making Your Japanese Flow" both of these books are written by "Kakuko Shoji". Don't get too discouraged with the awful Nakama. Finally, good luck in your studies!

BBtter than many, but stilll not great
Nakama 2 is certainly useful, if you are taking a class and have access to other language sources. For myself, however--and perhaps this is due to my Genki background--it seemed overly verbose, far to big, and not too terribly concise. I admit that my feeling might be quite different if I had worked from Nakama 1, but as it was, when I got to Nakama 2, I knew most of the grammar in the first two chapters and all the vocabulary. Sadly, there was vocabulary from the first volume I did NOT know--which made staying on track in class rather diffficult at first.
My opinion is that Nakama 2 is good and fine and suitable for class guided study. Make sure to get yourself up-to-date on the vocab and grammar if you don't have a Nakama background, though. And if you are looking for self-guided study, try Genki, instead.

1 + 1 is 2
I decided to write this review in response to the overwhelmingly positive reviews that were posted on this website. No conscionable person could possibly stay silent on this issue.

The truth is that Nakama is not what these people present it as. Nakama is, in fact, a horrible textbook for a college course.

It's childish.

The grammar explanations are jejune at best, a little splurge of example in the form of some uninteresting dialogue is all that is given for each grammatical example. And when I say "at best," it's because grammar in this book is really rather scant. Grammar is definitely not at the forefront of Nakama. It definitely takes a back seat to too much useless
tidbits of "cultural" aspects of Japanese and example sentences and dialogues that border on rote methods of language learning. The coverage of vocabulary that would fuel strong grammatical examples is also weak.

This textbook's main failure lies in the fact that it follows a popular methodology for language learning in the 90s that put the spotlight on the classroom environment to fill in the many gaps that textbooks left in learning. Most of the exercises in the book are classroom activities to be done with a partner or in front of the class. Grammar examples were apparently left to be presented by the teacher and any missing vocabulary again to be divulged by teacher or dictionary.

The cultural exposure also falls flat and it turns out that in a classroom setting this overly complicated feature of the book (Salutations in written letters? Reading medical charts?!) is usually skipped in favor of more teacher examples. This book would leave a self-studier almost as completely blind as some similar European language books do. So what's the point of that? Why doesn't the teacher just teach without a textbook or hand out his own worksheets? It'd probably be equally or more effective.

And as I said, the book is puerile. It focuses on basic conversation, as if the plan of the author was to never allow the student a fighting chance at fluency.

This book also has virtually no real textbook/workbook examples within the text itself. You have to buy the overpriced workbook to get any practice out of it - practice which is really necessary to one's ability in the language. It also doesn't come with a single audio CD. Those can be purchased separately for an inflated price. But the most important audio portion of all is the "Student Tape/CD" which is not included in such a package. This whole thing is just a huge rip-off.

Unfortunately, you don't have much of a choice when learning Japanese. Of the four mainstream Japanese texts, Nakama is right in the middle and not prominently so - it's only marginally better than the laughable Yookoso and in return the more serious Genki series is only marginally better than Nakama. All of the popular Japanese textbooks recently published have been of such mediocre flavor.

Good points? To be honest, the coverage of Kanji is sufficient. This book is very neatly laid out, and the paper seems to be of good quality. Also, the glossaries and appendixes are easy to navigate. And it's not completely useless - the intermediate course might get you through what should be basic first year Japanese with a good book. However, if you're planning to really learn the language and get out of kindergarten Japanese without wastingthe price of a private tutor to explain how much you were ripped off by this book, you should consider another method.

clumsy and expensive
not easy to look up things, heavy, the grammar is too easy for those who have taken regular japanese course for one year at college

Hai, Soo desu.
I recently finished the intensive intermediate course at Harvard--another summer of boot camp--and this was the text for the first 2/3 of the course. I think that it is a very good text, and along with the lab manual and CDs, the Nakama system is extremely effective. There is also a great website, "Friends of Nakama," which should be very helpful to anyone using these texts. There you'll find lots of good quizzes for vocabulary and kanji.

Unfortunately, my instructors seemed to dislike kanji immensely--kanji were never discussed as a topic in their own right, in spite of their evident interest to gringos like me who have been drawn to a study of Japanese BECAUSE of kanji (among other things). One Chinese student in the class hypothesized that the Japanese hate kanji because they are kanji, i.e., Chinese characters. But, I digress.

The important point here is that Nakama DOES discuss kanji in historical and linguistic context, and that, in my opinion, is a very good thing. ... Read more

Product Description
In this path breaking book, Eiko Ikegami uncovers a complex history of social life in which aesthetic images became central to Japan's cultural identities. The people of premodern Japan built on earlier aesthetic traditions in part for their own sake, but also to find space for self-expression in the increasingly rigid and tightly controlled Tokugawa political system. In so doing, they incorporated the world of the beautiful within their social life which led to new modes of civility. They explored horizontal and voluntary ways of associating while immersing themselves in aesthetic group activities. Combining sociological insights in organizations with prodigious scholarship on cultural history, this book explores such wide-ranging topics as networks of performing arts, tea ceremony and haiku, the politics of kimono aesthetics, the rise of commercial publishing, the popularization of etiquette and manners, the vogue for androgyny in kabuki performance, and the rise of tacit modes of communication. ... Read more

Product Description
"Born out of the editor's inability to find a suitable book for teaching the subject, this is a welcome title. . . . a fine contribution in a field where works in English are seriously lacking." Choice ... Read more

Product Description
Business people around the world conduct business in different ways. Understanding these differences can be the key to building better business relationships. BUSINESS JAPAN offers a smooth and problem-free transition between the American and Japanese business cultures. Its concise, at-a-glance comparison of business styles, practices, and social customs will help you succeed in the Japanese business community. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Aweful, pathetic, very short and waste of money
When you order this paperback and it arrives you see that it is only 53 pages.Now that may sound like a lot, but some pages have as little as 4 sentences.(Page 18 may have the record with 3 whole sentences on it.) The book is small and the print is very large.The first seven pages aregeneric introduction about business today without reference to Japan.Thehas about a dozen phrases in Japanese (goodbye is sayonara).No mention ismade of things like gift-giving, how to exchange cards, tact, norms insocializing, when/if to bow, much about proper ettiquete, etc.Other bookstout authors that have lived in Japan and worked with the Japanese for manyyears.Curiously, the bios of these authors make no mention of eitherhaving any experience in Japan what-so-ever or even having visited there. I could write this book based on one two-week visit or a quick read of anyother book out there.

Seven bucks for something anyone visiting Japancould write in a few hours.

The other book I got for my visit to Japan(by Rowland) was a dense 300 or so pages with glossary, and dozens anddozens of contacts in Japan and the U.S. and advice on every conceivablesubject.

I would advice you to get another book.There must be others.

I feel incredibly and utterly robbed.

a true gem
I am a consultant helping US companies enter the Japanese market.Often, I am asked to recommend a book.This tiny book (paperback - 55 pages!) is one of the best presentations of the crucial cultural differences betweenJapanese and American business cultures. Its size is perfect for twopurposes: slipping into your hip-pocket for quick referencewhile on theroad (I can imagine its user excusing himself from a business meeting for aquick reference to the booklet in the bathroom stall: "he closed hiseyes and smiled while listening to me! what does it mean?") and forrote memorization. In fact, memorizing its central chapters (UnderstandingJapanese Culture, Japanese Business Etiquette, and Japanese Gestures) isprobably its best single use. The weakness of the book lies in its brevity:its ratio of meaning to words is very high and there are no illustrationsor examples at all, making it very likely that the reader will misssomething very important. The best way to deal with this risk, I think, isto read it over and over and to think very intensely about every sentencein those three chapters. Its second shortcoming from the point of view ofour visitors is that the book contains no advice on how to enter the marketand how to solve practical problems. Why that should be is easy tounderstand: the books aim is to help dispel misunderstandings and preventcultural gaffes. And this aim it achieves superbly. At its price the book'swell worth every penny. ... Read more

Product Description

Japanese popular culture has been steadily increasing in visibility both in Asia and beyond in recent years. This book examines Japanese popular music, exploring its historical development, technology, business and production aspects, audiences, and language and culture.

Based both on extensive textual and aural analysis, and on anthropological fieldwork, it provides a wealth of detail, finding differences as well as similarities between the Japanese and Western pop music scenes. Carolyn Stevens shows how Japanese popular music has responded over time to Japan's relationship to the West in the post-war era, gradually growing in independence from the political and cultural hegemonic presence of America. Similarly, the volume explores the ways in which the Japanese artist has grown in independence vis-à-vis his/her role in the production process, and examines in detail the increasingly important role of the jimusho, or the entertainment management agency, where many individual artists and music industry professionals make decisions about how the product is delivered to the public. It also discusses the connections to Japanese television, film, print and internet, thereby providing through pop music a key to understanding much of Japanese popular culture more widely.

Customer Reviews (7)

Precious
I first knew of this set of books in college when I checked out a hardcover set over 10 years ago and I still think this is one of the best compilations of any genre. I had to special order my new paperback set from the Japanese publisher around 9 years ago from the 1992 reprinting. The best word for this set of books is precious.

Mr. Blyth not only translated the Japanese Haiku for the Western mass market but really has produced a deep and meaningful view of the world from a profound and poetic viewpoint that is supported by his numerous citing of other authors such as Shakespeare, Thoreau, the Bible, Zen, Chinese mystics, Spengler, Nietzsche, Spinoza, Homer as well as excerpts from the prose writings of the Haiku poets themselves and other poets and thinkers. He does this in the book side by side the Haiku as a sort of guide and attempt at explanation through the universal poetic language. Japanese culture primarily became a fascination with artists like Van Gogh and other artists of the time in Paris in the late nineteenth century. Japanese woodblock prints, Ukiyo-e, by Utamaro, Hiroshige, Hokusai and others influenced Van Gogh and his small group of friends and supporters(Gauguin and others) and I would say that Matisse' work seems to be influenced as well.

He attempts to explain the unexplainable in an admirable manner with these volumes and his translations of the Haiku are second to none. Also included is the original Japanese of each poem as well as the original language versions of his cited non-English poetry/prose that is presented alongside selected Haiku for comparison and explanation purposes. Also included is the occasional paintings done by the Haku poets themselves and some in which they wrote their haiku directly on the painting.

Being both a fine artist and a trained engineer I have found this set to be a good fit for my natural admiration for Haiku. Haiku is the most direct way through words to an instant realization of the hidden meaning of our everyday circumstances, you don't need to think that only what happened far away in time or distance is what is "holy" or important. This moment in time we move through is just as magical if you only break out of the delusion that we must live in most of the time either knowingly or otherwise.

On the practical level this is a 4 volume set that follows the pattern of the poets themselves who lived in poverty by choice and were very sensitive to the seasons around them. Most of the poets traveled around Japan endlessly. So therefore the seasons are how this is arranged in volumes for each of the 4 seasons, Spring, Summer, Winter and Autumn and sub-categories like humans, various festivals and holidays in Japan, Fora/Fauna focused poems, Trees and Flowers, Birds and Beasts, Human Affairs, Skies and Elements, Mountains are examples of the sub categories in each season.

The first volume gives a good extended history and background of Eastern Culture as well as each volume having a decent length preface. At the end of the last volume there is a comprehensive English language index to all four volumes as well as a Japanese language appendix. The whole set is 1300 pages, it would be nice to see these all put together in one volume for convenience.

There are many poets presented here with an emphasis on Blyth's favorites, now the classics, Basho, Issa, Buson of the older poets and Shiki of the newer poets. Shiki died around 1900 and that's about when Blyth cuts off the Haiku poets as we know them. My personal favorite is Issa but as I read the volumes continuously on and off I've noticed that Shiki is probably my next favorite.

If you are interested in Japanese art or culture in general this will be an excellent set to get as well if you are into poetry as the works of these poets are just as valuable and important as those of Shakespeare, Homer, Virgil, Dante, Goethe or any other of the major poets in Western or World culture. I would recommend Blyth's Senryu as well, which are more humorous in nature.

Let me say that it's a shame that such a set of work has become so hard to find and expensive but it is perhaps an honor to be rare and not popular and ubiquitous in this American Idol world we live in. It's a nice limiter to those who are the rarest themselves and capable of appreciating creative endeavor properly and not as some frivolous distraction the majority think of it as.

Precious
I first knew of this set of books in college when I checked out a hardcover set over 10 years ago and I still think this is one of the best compilations of any genre. I had to special order my new paperback set from the Japanese publisher around 9 years ago from the 1992 reprinting. The best word for this set of books is precious.

Mr. Blyth not only translated the Japanese Haiku for the Western mass market but really has produced a deep and meaningful view of the world from a profound and poetic viewpoint that is supported by his numerous citing of other authors such as Shakespeare, Thoreau, the Bible, Zen, Chinese mystics, Spengler, Nietzsche, Spinoza, Homer as well as excerpts from the prose writings of the Haiku poets themselves and other poets and thinkers. He does this in the book side by side the Haiku as a sort of guide and attempt at explanation through the universal poetic language. Japanese culture primarily became a fascination with artists like Van Gogh and other artists of the time in Paris in the late nineteenth century. Japanese woodblock prints, Ukiyo-e, by Utamaro, Hiroshige, Hokusai and others influenced Van Gogh and his small group of friends and supporters(Gauguin and others) and I would say that Matisse' work seems to be influenced as well.

He attempts to explain the unexplainable in an admirable manner with these volumes and his translations of the Haiku are second to none. Also included is the original Japanese of each poem as well as the original language versions of his cited non-English poetry/prose that is presented alongside selected Haiku for comparison and explanation purposes. Also included is the occasional paintings done by the Haku poets themselves and some in which they wrote their haiku directly on the painting.

Being both a fine artist and a trained engineer I have found this set to be a good fit for my natural admiration for Haiku. Haiku is the most direct way through words to an instant realization of the hidden meaning of our everyday circumstances, you don't need to think that only what happened far away in time or distance is what is "holy" or important. This moment in time we move through is just as magical if you only break out of the delusion that we must live in most of the time either knowingly or otherwise.

On the practical level this is a 4 volume set that follows the pattern of the poets themselves who lived in poverty by choice and were very sensitive to the seasons around them. Most of the poets traveled around Japan endlessly. So therefore the seasons are how this is arranged in volumes for each of the 4 seasons, Spring, Summer, Winter and Autumn and sub-categories like humans, various festivals and holidays in Japan, Fora/Fauna focused poems, Trees and Flowers, Birds and Beasts, Human Affairs, Skies and Elements, Mountains are examples of the sub categories in each season.

The first volume gives a good extended history and background of Eastern Culture as well as each volume having a decent length preface. At the end of the last volume there is a comprehensive English language index to all four volumes as well as a Japanese language appendix. The whole set is 1300 pages, it would be nice to see these all put together in one volume for convenience.

There are many poets presented here with an emphasis on Blyth's favorites, now the classics, Basho, Issa, Buson of the older poets and Shiki of the newer poets. Shiki died around 1900 and that's about when Blyth cuts off the Haiku poets as we know them. My personal favorite is Issa but as I read the volumes continuously on and off I've noticed that Shiki is probably my next favorite.

If you are interested in Japanese art or culture in general this will be an excellent set to get as well if you are into poetry as the works of these poets are just as valuable and important as those of Shakespeare, Homer, Virgil, Dante, Goethe or any other of the major poets in Western or World culture. I would recommend Blyth's Senryu as well, which are more humorous in nature.

Let me say that it's a shame that such a set of work has become so hard to find and expensive but it is perhaps an honor to be rare and not popular and ubiquitous in this American Idol world we live in. It's a nice limiter to those who are the rarest themselves and capable of appreciating creative endeavor properly and not as some frivolous distraction the majority think of it as.

Precious
I first knew of this set of books in college when I checked out a hardcover set over 10 years ago and I still think this is one of the best compilations of any genre. I had to special order my new paperback set from the Japanese publisher around 9 years ago from the 1992 reprinting. The best word for this set of books is precious.

Mr. Blyth not only translated the Japanese Haiku for the Western mass market but really has produced a deep and meaningful view of the world from a profound and poetic viewpoint that is supported by his numerous citing of other authors such as Shakespeare, Thoreau, the Bible, Zen, Chinese mystics, Spengler, Nietzsche, Spinoza, Homer as well as excerpts from the prose writings of the Haiku poets themselves and other poets and thinkers. He does this in the book side by side the Haiku as a sort of guide and attempt at explanation through the universal poetic language. Japanese culture primarily became a fascination with artists like Van Gogh and other artists of the time in Paris in the late nineteenth century. Japanese woodblock prints, Ukiyo-e, by Utamaro, Hiroshige, Hokusai and others influenced Van Gogh and his small group of friends and supporters(Gauguin and others) and I would say that Matisse' work seems to be influenced as well.

He attempts to explain the unexplainable in an admirable manner with these volumes and his translations of the Haiku are second to none. Also included is the original Japanese of each poem as well as the original language versions of his cited non-English poetry/prose that is presented alongside selected Haiku for comparison and explanation purposes. Also included is the occasional paintings done by the Haku poets themselves and some in which they wrote their haiku directly on the painting.

Being both a fine artist and a trained engineer I have found this set to be a good fit for my natural admiration for Haiku. Haiku is the most direct way through words to an instant realization of the hidden meaning of our everyday circumstances, you don't need to think that only what happened far away in time or distance is what is "holy" or important. This moment in time we move through is just as magical if you only break out of the delusion that we must live in most of the time either knowingly or otherwise.

On the practical level this is a 4 volume set that follows the pattern of the poets themselves who lived in poverty by choice and were very sensitive to the seasons around them. Most of the poets traveled around Japan endlessly. So therefore the seasons are how this is arranged in volumes for each of the 4 seasons, Spring, Summer, Winter and Autumn and sub-categories like humans, various festivals and holidays in Japan, Fora/Fauna focused poems, Trees and Flowers, Birds and Beasts, Human Affairs, Skies and Elements, Mountains are examples of the sub categories in each season.

The first volume gives a good extended history and background of Eastern Culture as well as each volume having a decent length preface. At the end of the last volume there is a comprehensive English language index to all four volumes as well as a Japanese language appendix. The whole set is 1300 pages, it would be nice to see these all put together in one volume for convenience.

There are many poets presented here with an emphasis on Blyth's favorites, now the classics, Basho, Issa, Buson of the older poets and Shiki of the newer poets. Shiki died around 1900 and that's about when Blyth cuts off the Haiku poets as we know them. My personal favorite is Issa but as I read the volumes continuously on and off I've noticed that Shiki is probably my next favorite.

If you are interested in Japanese art or culture in general this will be an excellent set to get as well if you are into poetry as the works of these poets are just as valuable and important as those of Shakespeare, Homer, Virgil, Dante, Goethe or any other of the major poets in Western or World culture. I would recommend Blyth's Senryu as well, which are more humorous in nature.

Let me say that it's a shame that such a set of work has become so hard to find and expensive but it is perhaps an honor to be rare and not popular and ubiquitous in this American Idol world we live in. It's a nice limiter to those who are the rarest themselves and capable of appreciating creative endeavor properly and not as some frivolous distraction the majority think of it as.

Peerless. THE Master.
One of the first and still the best and most comprehensive introduction to haiku in any language other than Japanese, and I'm not sure you'd getting anything better in Japanese. Blyth was the source from which the flower children and other early lovers of the art form derived their knowledge of it. He is also the gold standard by which other translators are judged, and from which many still borrow heavily. The world owes him an incalculable debt of gratitude. If you own no other books of haiku than these (this volume and its three sisters), you'll want for little. I make a habit of rereading Blyth every year, and I'm never disappointed.

If you would like more of Blyth's translations and commentary, his two-volume A History of Haiku is equally good.

A Bright Book

It's really heartbreaking that people don't read Blyth that much anymore. His ken was monumental. When you read him you feel much, much closer to life.





... Read more

Product Description

Using the Euro-American theoretical framework of postmodernism, feminism and post-colonialism, this book analyses the fictional and critical work of four contemporary Japanese writers; Murakami Haruki, Yoshimoto Banana, Yoshimoto Takaaki and Karatani Kojin. In addition the author reconsiders this Euro-American theory by looking back on it from the perspective of Japanese literary work.

Customer Reviews (1)

Two Novelists and Two Philosophers
One of the most difficult issues when pursuing the study of a country which is based on systems of ethics, philosophy, religion, and culture from one's own, is the application of theories, thought, and logic that are alien to the country coming under analysis. In his book Postmodern, Feminist and Postcolonial Currents in Contemporary Japanese Culture: A Reading of Murakami Haruki, Yoshimoto Banana, Yoshimoto Takaaki and Karatani Kojin University of Hong Kong professor of Japanese Studies Fuminobu Murakami attempts not only to analyze the works of the authors Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto through the lenses of European/American theories of Postmodernism, Feminism, and Postcolonialism, and a touch of Queer Theory, but to show how such theories after being imported into Japan have influenced the works of these authors and thinkers while at the same showing how such theories are a bit ill-fitting within a Japanese context.

Beginning with Haruki Murakami, an author whose fictional works straddle the line between literary and popular fiction, Professor Murakami engages in a careful critique of Murakami's early works, especially Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and Norwegian Wood to display how Murakami's characters reject the "modernist" world of advancement, evolution, emotional love, and brutal violence for a "postmodern" world where ambition, and with it love and violence, has ceased to be and where everyone lives in harmony because there is no desire. Professor Murakami, however, states that this autistic, postmodern world leaves Haruki Murakami a bit on edge because of its lack of emotion and love, so in his later books, such as The Wind-up Bird Chronicle violence blossoms because love, and along with it, hate, is present. Haruki Murakami, according to Professor Murakami is trying to come to terms with the modernist concept of love and the violence attached to it.

Professor Murakami's section concerning Banana Yoshimoto, one of Japan's most read authors of popular literature, mainly focuses on Yoshimoto's debut novel Kitchen as well as her novel N.P. Within this section, Professor Murakami takes on Yoshimoto's passive feminist critique of modernist sexual relations. Although sexual activity is a major theme within the works of prominent female novelists such as Hitomi Kanehara Ami Sakurai, and Ami Yamada, sex in Yoshimoto's novels lack the intensity found in these novels and more often that not resemble the lackadaisical sex found in Murakami's early novels. This is significant because instead of desire for sex, Yoshimoto's characters instead desire such things as food and incestuous, if not actually sexual, relations with family members or pseudo-family members instead of others outside of their homogeneous group. This aspect of Yoshimoto's characters displays their postmodern natures and unwillingness to live in a modernist society of "traditional" love and violence.

Sections three and four of the book look at the careers of Takaaki Yoshimoto, Banana's father, and Kojin Karatani, two of Japan's most prominent philosophers. Professor Murakami does a fine job of developing an overview of these two men's careers and mapping out the development of their though and their impact on the Japanese literary world. Heavily influenced by the works of Karl Marx and well aware of the European-American imperialism in the worlds of philosophy, political thought, and literary criticism, Murakami maps out how Yoshimoto and Karatani fight this imperialism. Unlike Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto, the works of Yoshimoto and Karatani, especially Yoshimoto, are not widely available in other languages other than Japanese, so Professor Murakami analysis is quite welcome.

Unlike a good number of books that tackle complex subjects such as modernism, postmodernism, and postcolonialism, Professor Murakami's book, although it gets bogged down in philosophical, linguistic jargon from time to time, is a relatively easy read and he aids the reader in supplying histories of modernism and postmodernism in Europe/America and in Japan so the newcomer to such issues will not be left out in a sea of pedantic, incomprehensible language. While maybe not for the common reader of Haruki Murakami, Banana Yoshimoto, etc., Professor Murakami's book is quite welcome in the field of Japanese literary studies for its insights into the works of Murakami and Yoshimoto, and the critical introductions to the works of Takaaki Yoshimoto and Kojin Kartatani. ... Read more

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Despite the popularity of Japanese food in the West today, remarkably little is known about the history of a unique cuisine. This irresistible feast of a book, the first of its kind, is a detailed investigation of the food and dietary practices of the Japanese from earliest times to the present day. By focusing this most central of subjects, the analysis throws new light on Japanese history and on society as a whole. Dividing the history of Japanese dietary life into six periods, the author traces its development from the paleolithic and neolithic eras before rice was cultivated in Japan to the formative period between the sixth and fifteenth centuries, when a stable indigenous cuisine began to evolve. Typical dishes and beverages, ingredients, methods of preparation, origins, etiquette, the aesthetics of presentation, eating implements and cooking utensils are presented in the wider social, political and economic contexts. Breaches of chopstick etiquette, the design of Japanese knife blades, the underlying philosophy of Japanese haute cuisine presentation as "gardens on a plate," and the historical origins of sushi are among the many subjects covered in this rich and compelling work that presents a full portrait of all aspects of Japanese food for the first time, introducing the reader to home cookery and regional schools of cuisine that are virtually unknown outside Japan. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Argh.
As the previous reviewer mentioned, although this book neatly summarizes the historical development of Japanese dietary patterns and symbolism, its price is much higher than one might consider reasonable. This makes the lack of an index an especially egregious flaw; although the table of contents is reasonably informative, it doesn't provide an adequate substitute.

If you absolutely must have a single-volume reference on the subject, this would certainly conserve space on your bookshelf, but I suspect that most people would consider their money better-spent if spread across several different books that add up to the same total price.

price too high, even for a text
The book is packed full of history that I have only seen in bits and pieces here and there.It is like watching the Discovery channel (fun, informative, and somewhat unbiased).Although the price is extremely high, I think it is currently the only book of it's type.A less expensive way to begin a study of the history of Japanese food is by reading "The Folk Art of Japanese Country Cooking," by Gaku Homma.Check that one out first and if the appetite is not satisfied, consider investing in this one. ... Read more

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For more than a millennium, the fox has been a ubiquitous figure at the margins of the Japanese collective imagination. In the writings of the nobility and the motifs of popular literature, the fox is known as a shapeshifter, able to assume various forms in order to deceive others. Focusing on recurring themes of transformation and duplicity in folklore, theology, and court and village practice, The Fox's Craft explores the meanings and uses of shapeshifter fox imagery in Japanese history. Michael Bathgate finds that the shapeshifting powers of the fox make it a surprisingly fundamental symbol in the discourse of elite and folk alike, and a key component in formulations of marriage and human identity, religious knowledge, and the power of money. The symbol of the shapeshifter fox thus provides a vantage point from which to understand the social practice of signification. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Questionnaire-based cross-cultural study of values
Values are an important aspect of culture, but have not been the subject of sustained enquiry in the social sciences.Here D'Andrade takes up a quantitative-based study of values among "Americans ..., Vietnamese refugees in the United States ..., and native-born Japanese, primarily living in Japan" (D'Andrade 2008:22).

D'Andrade acknowledges that using quantitative data from questionnaires to do a cross-cultural study of values has its limitations, but he argues that it has virtues too and our understanding of values is at such a stage where the contribution from such research would be important.His discussion of how his measures were constructed is also, as usual, thorough and forthright.Ditto his methods of analysis.Much can be learned from these two sections, and together they demonstrate the challenge of doing good quantitative research into cultural phenomenon.This is no simple ask-and-tally procedure.

Although there are some surprising findings -- for example, the Japanese appeared more like theAmericans than the Vietnamese on the individualism versus collectivism dimension -- for D'Andrade and others working on the project the greater surprise seems to be that the value differences were so small.This leads him to conclude -- and I may be missing something here -- that the "values" of the questionnaire were too general; what counts as satisfaction of that value for a given person in a given instance is more informative.

I think that sums up the limitations of questionnaire research in a nutshell.It's why we do ethnography (if you're an anthropologist) -- although, as D'Andrade noted, that takes more time, money, resources, ...

So what would the next step look like?One example is Adrie Kusserow's compelling American Individualisms (2004), which shows how different social groups may share the value of "individualism" but give different meanings to the word/concept, based on their (class) experiences.Note that these are all "Americans."Taking this one step further, if you will, Claudia Strauss shows how individuals learn, hold, and use different, even discordant, value-schemes to judge behavior in different contexts (see her chapter in Quinn's Finding Culture in Talk, 2005).

I bought this book on the strength of the author's reputation, his fine The Development of Cognitive Anthropology (1995), and the book's title (I study Japan).I confess I was surprised at the approach he used here.I need more convincing on the subject of generalizing from small samples to large societies, for example.I would be more interested in seeing how values emerge in a more narrowly defined context, perhaps discussion of a specific moral dilemma (a la Lawrence Kohlberg, Carol Gilligan, Naomi Quinn, or Claudia Strauss).In general, I find the approach of Strauss and Quinn more useful.All the same, I was glad to see this work published, because D'Andrade's honest scholarship really clarified for me the limitations of this type of research for this type of topic.And he has left us with some new questions.So if your library has a copy you might want to give this a look.


Recommended Works:

Kusserow:
http://www.amazon.com/American-Individualisms-Rearing-Neighborhoods-Culture/dp/1403964807

Quinn:
http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Culture-Talk-Collection-Methods/dp/1403969159/ref=cm_cr_wr_img

Strauss and Quinn:
http://www.amazon.com/Cognitive-Cultural-Publications-Psychological-Anthropology/dp/052159541X/ref=cm_cr_wr_img

D'Andrade and Strauss:
http://www.amazon.com/Motives-Cultural-Publications-Psychological-Anthropology/dp/0521412331/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269315397&sr=1-1

D'Andrade:
http://www.amazon.com/Development-Cognitive-Anthropology-Roy-DAndrade/dp/0521459761/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269315308&sr=1-1 ... Read more

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Maeda Ai was a prominent literary critic and an influential public intellectual in late-twentieth-century Japan. Text and the City is the first book of his work to appear in English. A literary and cultural critic deeply engaged with European critical thought, Maeda was a brilliant, insightful theorist of modernity for whom the city was the embodiment of modern life. He conducted a far-reaching inquiry into changing conceptions of space, temporality, and visual practices as they gave shape to the city and its inhabitants. James A. Fujii has assembled a selection of Maeda’s essays that question and explore the contours of Japanese modernity and resonate with the concerns of literary and cultural studies today.

Maeda remapped the study of modern Japanese literature and culture in the 1970s and 1980s, helping to generate widespread interest in studying mass culture on the one hand and marginalized sectors of modern Japanese society on the other. These essays reveal the broad range of Maeda’s cultural criticism. Among the topics considered are Tokyo; utopias; prisons; visual media technologies including panoramas and film; the popular culture of the Edo, Meiji, and contemporary periods; maps; women’s magazines; and women writers. Integrally related to these discussions are Maeda’s readings of works of Japanese literature including Matsubara Iwagoro’s In Darkest Tokyo, Nagai Kafu’s The Fox, Higuchi Ichiyo’s Growing Up, Kawabata Yasunari’s The Crimson Gang of Asakusa, and Narushima Ryuhoku’s short story "Useless Man." Illuminating the infinitely rich phenomena of modernity, these essays are full of innovative, unexpected connections between cultural productions and urban life, between the text and the city. ... Read more

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Streetwise Scholarship
Gradually the important work of Japanese literary critics is coming to be made available to Anglophone readers, and this book constitutes a milestone in that regard. Maeda Ai combines critical theoretical insights (of which I am usually suspicious) successfully with meticulous historical research and attention to detail, an alchemical mix of the abstract and the concrete that produces startlingly original and convincing results. The translators deserve appreciation for producing exceptionally high quality translations of quite challenging material. ... Read more

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Sex and the Japanese provides a broad look at the changing concepts of sexuality in Japanese culture. From the days of concubines and geishas to the present, sex and sexuality in Japan have been more openly discussed and available than in the West-due for the most part to Shinto, the native religion of Japan that recognizes, celebrates and respects the sensual side of life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND
First Japanese girls tend to be very feminine and happy to be female.They come from a different background and culture than much of the West, and are not into guilt and carrying a lot of sexual baggage. For most Japanese, at least from my reading and Asian travels, they are brought up to know that sex is a natural, beautiful act, and if done properly and modestly, then it is sensual and exciting,and appreciated by both genders.This little book goes a long way in explaining what is happening between the Westerner and the Japanese (besides language and gestures), and why there is so much confusion in the courting process.The book also helps with the vocabulary and learning about such areas as The Ginza, Hibiya/Yurakucho, Roppongi, etc.Love hotels (lov-tels) are often in areas where other hotels aren't and have fortress or futuristic appearances, and will have short-time themes like Arabic harems, jungle hideaways or undulating beds made to resemble boats and cars. The Shinto religon of Japan recognized, respected and celebrated the sensual side of human life with great gusto...and this book helps to explain.Buy it especially if you are in Japan for business, study or for tourism.It will help you manuever socially and get to know the local people on a more personal level.

Don't waste your money...
...unless this is your very first venture into the erotic side of the Japanese, that is.For the neophyte to Japanese and Asian women in general, this might be an OK 1st grade-level book.If you are at all interested in this book, however, chances are you already have some idea of sexual attitudes in this part of the world.This book won't tell you anything you don't already know, or at least have an idea of.Chapters covering each topic are very short and superficial.Add to that, half of the book is nothing more than a glossary of sorts.Again, possibly useful to the babe-in-the-woods, but to anyone else, nothing more than filler to take up space and make the book seem longer than it really is.

Japan Sounds Like Heaven.
This short book is a real eye opener. It could more properly be called a guide to having sex with Japanese women. It's well written, insightful, and hard to put down before finishing. The first line of Chapter One reads "The Judeo-Christian concept of recreational sex as sinful and abhorrent in the eyes of an all-powerful god is, I believe, one of the biggest con-jobs every foisted on any group of mankind. The ulterior motive of the creators of this concept was, of course, political and social control (especially women), and had nothing whatsoever to do with morality or saving `immortal souls.'"
The author then goes on to provide the historical and religious reasons why Japan missed out on the guilt trip associated with any kind of sexual pleasure. He gives a brief account of Japanese history and relates it to present day Japan. He believes that some knowledge of Japanese is necessary for westerners to properly seduce, or be seduced by, modern Japanese woman who have absolutely no guilt feelings about sexual experimentation. The book's introduction is a primer from pronouncing Japanese words, which are remarkably easy to pronounce. The language of love is a very important part of Japanese art and culture.
The last forty percent of the book is a dictionary of the Japanese Language of Love and sexual terms such as "Love Hotels" as well as how to pronounce the various terms. These words are as easy to pronounce as Spanish. Compared to the similar book "Making Out In Korean" by Peter Constantine and Gene Baik, it's easy to pick up the necessary language skills to converse in Japanese. While Korean is a very tough language to pick up, Japanese is easy.
"Sex and the Japanese" is a fun read. I suspect that it may exaggerate just how anxious the average, very innocent looking and wily Japanese woman is interested in jumping into bed, it does explain why the Japanese have little of the sexual baggage of most cultures. Sex was a normal and desirable part of both Shintoism and Daoism and has greatly affected Modern Japanese culture as well. It's nice how the author manages to briefly explain the historical roots of Modern Day Japan. I can hardly wait to read some of the author's many other books. He has a remarkable ability to communicate.
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Ever since Commodore Perry sailed into Uraga Channel, relations between the United States and Japan have been characterized by culture shock. Now a distinguished Japanese historian critically analyzes contemporary thought, public opinion, and behavior in the two countries over the course of the twentieth century, offering a binational perspective on culture shock as it has affected their relations. In these essays, Sadao Asada examines the historical interaction between these two countries from 1890 to 2006, focusing on naval strategy, transpacific racism, and the atomic bomb controversy. For each topic, he offers a rigorous analysis of both American and Japanese perceptions, showing how cultural relations and the interchange of ideas have been complex and occasionally destructive. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Interesting book
Asada is a Japanese scholar who received his college eduction in the US shortly after WWII. He reports that he was "Americanized;" however, he eventually returned to Japan to a university position where he remains today. The content of the book is somewhat limited compared to what its title might be taken to imply. Nevertheless, there is considerable, and interesting, discussion to the mind-set, both Japanese and American, that led the two countries into the conflict of WWII. Well worth reading by somebody interested in this subject matter.
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Japan and the United States became close political allies so quickly after the end of World War II, that it seemed as though the two countries had easily forgotten the war they had fought. Here Yoshikuni Igarashi offers a provocative look at how Japanese postwar society struggled to understand its war loss and the resulting national trauma, even as forces within the society sought to suppress these memories. Igarashi argues that Japan's nationhood survived the war's destruction in part through a popular culture that expressed memories of loss and devastation more readily than political discourse ever could. He shows how the desire to represent the past motivated Japan's cultural productions in the first twenty-five years of the postwar period.

Japanese war experiences were often described through narrative devices that downplayed the war's disruptive effects on Japan's history. Rather than treat these narratives as obstacles to historical inquiry, Igarashi reads them along with counter-narratives that attempted to register the original impact of the war.He traces the tensions between remembering and forgetting by focusing on the body as the central site for Japan's production of the past. This approach leads to fascinating discussions of such diverse topics as the use of the atomic bomb, hygiene policies under the U.S. occupation, the monstrous body of Godzilla, the first Western professional wrestling matches in Japan, the transformation of Tokyo and the athletic body for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and the writer Yukio Mishima's dramatic suicide, while providing a fresh critical perspective on the war legacy of Japan. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Interesting perspective, but beware pomo lingo
If phrases like "always already absent" and references to how "Japan had assimilated the alterity of the other" appeal to you, then you will love this book.

But once you get past his trendy lingo, Igarashi has some compelling things to say about postwar Japan and how it has effectively supressed its war responsibility in modern Japanese consciousness. I particularly enjoyed his discussion of the Tokyo Olympics

While I would not consider this "history writing at its best" (see John Dower for that), I do feel the book is a welcome, if at times tiresome, addition to Japanese history studies. ... Read more

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This is the first detailed, comprehensive and critical overview of modern Japanese culture to be published in English. It provides readers with important insights into various dimensions of modern Japanese culture, focusing specifically upon a number of contemporary Japanese thinkers. ... Read more

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The Inside Scoop
Generally speaking, this is an interesting and handy book. It covers a wide range of material in a clear and concise form, and should be useful for both the beginning student as an intro and to the longtime student as a good reference and summary (as well as a guide to further research). I especially found refreshing Morton's approach of focusing on the thoughts and opinions of Japanese cultural critics on Japanese culture in general and cultural productions in particular (hence "the Insider's View"). A lot of this material has been relatively ignored in English-language studies, and, well, it shouldn't be.

Chapter 1 is a useful overview of various writers trying to define Japanese culture, from the philosophically sophisticated to the unabashedly essentialist "Nihonjinron" types (who are handled with admirable tact while not given a free ride)--this includes a good discussion of such figures as Nishida Kitaro, Watsuji Tetsuro, Kuki Shuzo, Maruyama Masao, Kawai Hayao, Umehara Takeshi, and many others. Chapter 2 focuses exclusively on the granddad of insider cultural formulations, the folklorist Yanagita Kunio. Chapter 3 then focuses on the very influential culture critic Yoshimoto Takaaki. Chapter 4 deals with literature, especially the novelists Mishima Yukio, Oe Kenzaburo, Murakami Haruki, Yoshimoto Banana, and many others along with extended discussions of poetry. Finally, chapter 5 deals with pop culture, i.e. television, cinema (especially Kurosawa Akira and Kitano "Beat" Takeshi), and manga comics (especially Tezuka Osamu and Uchida Shungicu).

The book's range is both its strength and weakness, though. It is comprehensive and informative, but sometimes it seems like the author is trying to fit way too much material into too short a book. Thus a lot of the narrative seems overly bare and summarized in a rushed manner. Partly this is due to the annoying and deplorable lack of translations of works by important Japanese culture critics; we see this especially in the Yanagita and Yoshimoto chapters, where Morton has to pretty much give a play-by-play account of their arguments and critiques in their major works before then analyzing these. But the same quirk appears, only less pronounced, in the other chapters too (most of the novelists' works have been translated, after all). Despite my high regard for the book, I can't help the impression that either the author should have been just a bit more selective or enlarged the size of the book accordingly.

The word "modern" in the title is also a bit misleading if modern is taken in its usual sense as starting in 1868. With a few exceptions (mainly the philosophers in chapter 1 and the early works of Yanagita), the overwhelming bulk of the book is concerned with the years after 1945, what is usually termed "postwar" and "contemporary"--which is good, because this time period has been less fully explored than the "prewar" modern. Indeed, the author covers a lot of unexplored territory in this study and takes an interesting, unusual, and compelling tack in doing so. Hopefully it will stir up interest and inspire further investigations along these lines. ... Read more