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The Japan Society Review

The Japan Society Review is published on a quartely basis, both online and printed (members are entitled to receive a copy by post). Since the starting of the publication in 2006, each issue covers a selection of Japan-related books and films, as well as theatre and stage productions, tv series and exhibitions. Its purpose is to inform, entertain and encourage readers to explore the works for themselves.

The Japan Society Review is possible thanks to the work of volunteers who dedicated their time and expertise to help us to promote the learning and understanding of Japanese culture and society.

The Opening of Japan 1853-1855: A Study of the American, British, Dutch and Russian Naval Expedition

Books

The Opening of Japan 1853-1855: A Study of the American, British, Dutch and Russian Naval Expedition

Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi The assertion that Commodore Perry of the US Navy and his 'Black Ships' opened Japan in the middle of the nineteenth century is widely accepted as the historical truth but 'belongs more to the realm of historical myth'(p.xi). Professor McOmie notes that although 'Perry was the first to actually sign a treaty with the Japanese government' 'What Perry did was not so much to open the door, as to unlock the door, and force in a thin wedge to prevent it being bolted again'(page 462). The author reminds us that Japan was never quite as 'closed' as popularly believed and that the 'opening' of Japan continues to this day.

Defending Japan's Pacific War: The Kyoto School Philosophers and Post-White Power

Books

Defending Japan's Pacific War: The Kyoto School Philosophers and Post-White Power

Review by Ben-Ami Shillony This book puts forward a revisionist view of Japanese wartime thinking. It seeks to explore why Japanese intellectuals, historians and philosophers of the time insisted that Japan had to turn its back on the West and attack the United States and the British Empire. Based on a close reading of the texts written by members of the highly influential Kyoto School, and revisiting the dialogue between the Kyoto School and the German philosopher Heidegger, it argues that the work of Kyoto thinkers cannot be dismissed as mere fascist propaganda, and that this work, in which race is a key theme, constitutes a reasoned case for a post-White world. The author also argues that this theme is increasingly relevant at present, as demographic changes are set to transform the political and social landscape of North America and Western Europe over the next fifty years.

Frog in the Well: Portraits of Japan by Watanabe Kazan 1793-1841

Books

Frog in the Well: Portraits of Japan by Watanabe Kazan 1793-1841

Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi Frog in the Well is a vivid and revealing account of Watanabe Kazan, one of the most important intellectuals of the late Tokugawa period. From his impoverished upbringing to his tragic suicide in exile, Kazan's life and work reflected a turbulent period in Japan's history. He was a famous artist, a Confucian scholar, a student of Western culture, a samurai, and a critic of the shogunate who, nevertheless, felt compelled to kill himself for fear that he had caused his lord anxiety.

In the Faraway Mountains and Rivers: More Voices From A Lost Generation of Japanese Students

Books

In the Faraway Mountains and Rivers: More Voices From A Lost Generation of Japanese Students

Reviews by Ben-Ami Shillony The Pacific War was the most traumatic event in the modern histories of Japan, China, the United States, and many other nations. No wonder that more than sixty years after it ended it still attracts attention and stirs debate. In the various writings about the war, the former black and white stereotypes have given way to more shaded presentations, in which heroes and villains are not always distinguishable. The three interesting books under review here open a window through which we can see how the war was presented and perceived in Japan. Reading them together helps us understand the atmosphere in which the Japanese lived in those turbulent years.

Leaves from an Autumn of Emergencies: Selections from the Wartime Diaries of Ordinary Japanese

Books

Leaves from an Autumn of Emergencies: Selections from the Wartime Diaries of Ordinary Japanese

By Samuel Hideo Yamashita The Pacific War was the most traumatic event in the modern histories of Japan, China, the United States, and many other nations. No wonder that more than sixty years after it ended it still attracts attention and stirs debate. In the various writings about the war, the former black and white stereotypes have given way to more shaded presentations, in which heroes and villains are not always distinguishable. The three interesting books under review here open a window through which we can see how the war was presented and perceived in Japan. Reading them together helps us understand the atmosphere in which the Japanese lived in those turbulent years. Reviews by Ben-Ami Shillony

The Thought War: Japanese Imperial Propaganda

Books

The Thought War: Japanese Imperial Propaganda

By Barak Kushner The Pacific War was the most traumatic event in the modern histories of Japan, China, the United States, and many other nations. No wonder that more than sixty years after it ended it still attracts attention and stirs debate. In the various writings about the war, the former black and white stereotypes have given way to more shaded presentations, in which heroes and villains are not always distinguishable. The three interesting books under review here open a window through which we can see how the war was presented and perceived in Japan. Reading them together helps us understand the atmosphere in which the Japanese lived in those turbulent years. Reviews by Ben-Ami Shillony

Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers

Books

Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers

By Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney This moving history presents diaries and correspondence left by members of the tokkotai and other Japanese student soldiers who perished during the war. Outside of Japan, these kamikaze pilots were considered unbridled fanatics and chauvinists who willingly sacrificed their lives for the emperor. But the writings explored here by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney clearly and eloquently speak otherwise. A significant number of the kamikaze were university students who were drafted and forced to volunteer for this desperate military operation. Such young men were the intellectual elite of modern Japan: steeped in the classics and major works of philosophy, they took Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” as their motto. And in their diaries and correspondence, as Ohnuki-Tierney shows, these student soldiers wrote long and often heartbreaking soliloquies in which they poured out their anguish and fear, expressed profound ambivalence toward the war, and articulated thoughtful opposition to their nation’s imperialism. Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi

The Chichibu Mikado

Theatre & Stage

The Chichibu Mikado

Conductor and translator Toru Sasakibara, director Kyoko Fujishiro, original script and music by W.S. Gilbert & A. Sullivan For the first time ever a Japanese theater company came to the UK to perform the Mikado in Japanese to an enthusiastic British audience. The lively and brilliantly colourful production was part of the 2006 International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival in Buxton, Derby. It perfectly blended Japanese and British elements to create an astonishingly successful hybrid which was true to the original, while incorporating some crowd-pleasing Japanese innovations. Review by Sean Curtin

Hula Girls - special event and screening

Films & Series

Hula Girls - special event and screening

Directed by Lee Sang-II For the third year running, the Embassy of Japan organised an excellent festival of new Japanese films at BAFTA over the weekend of 14-16 September 2007. Guided by the expert hands of Tony Rayns and Alexander Jacoby, the choice of films on offer was extremely good. Review by Susan Meehan

Rondon Nikki, 1936-7 (London Diary 1936-7)

Books

Rondon Nikki, 1936-7 (London Diary 1936-7)

By Oka Yoshitake, edited by Shinohara Hajime and Mitani Taiichiro (Japanese) Readers may like to receive a brief notice (rather belatedly, I fear) of an interesting and insightful work. It is the London Diary of the Japanese academic, Oka Yoshitake (1902-1990) who became after the war one of the most eminent professors of Japanese political history at the University of Tokyo. As an assistant at that university, he spent the years 1936-7 on sabbatical in Britain, based in London. He wrote substantial diary entries daily and these were dutifully assembled by two of his successors after his death. Review by Ian Nish