Shogun-ki

State of War: The Violent Order of Fourtheenth-Century Japan

2009-06-21T22:33:00.003-10:00

This review should have been up about a month ago! Sorry folks! -JB

For anyone who has been reading the Samurai Archives forums for the past six months has likely seen or heard of Dr. Thomas Conlan. In recent years, this credited academic has brought his not inconsiderable talents to bear in the area of samurai and military history, a subject that is too often dismissed in serious academic circles.

My first introduction to Dr. Conlan's work came in the form of his monograph on the Mongol invasions, In Little Need of Divine Intervention, and taking his studies into the 14th century is a logical extension of that research. It is an area that is all too often overlooked, with most popular books focusing on either the Gempei Wars of the late 12th century or the exciting turbulence of the Sengoku period and the late 16th century; however, this leaves a large field between the two relatively untouched, except in the more scholarly journals.

Dr. Conlan's greatest asset is his ability to bring serious academic research and make it accessible to the armchair enthusiast. The well-organized and clear narrative is accompanied by stats and charts for those interested in a more detailed analysis. Furthermore, Dr. Conlan approaches the subject with a refreshing pragmatism, eschewing the popular mythology and legend that tends to cloud many popular works on the subject of pre-modern Japanese warriors.

The books starts off with a contemporary account of one of the warriors of the early 14th century, Nomoto Tomoyuki. Through records of the deeds performed by this warrior, written up as a petition for rewards by his son and preserved in the family records of the Kumagai down to the present day. This chapter uses Tomoyuki's escapeds as a focus for a look at what it was like for warriors on the campaign. He draws particular attention to the bureaucracy involved; the need to have evidence in order to gain rewards for service in battle led the now well-documented instances of warriors who might show up for a battle and leave after taking only a single head, or even right after they were recorded as being in the camp!

This narrative, given at the ground level, as it were, is supplemented in the second chapter by a statistical analysis of 14th century warfare that provides a framework for describing the techniques and tactics employed by the armies of the time. Documentary evidence of wounds, usually recorded in the petitions, are drawn out in excruciating detail. In one appendix to the chapter (which is placed immediately following the chapter, vice at the end of the book), he provides numbers for all the documented deaths and wounds from 1333 to 1394, as well as listing the number of documents known to have been submitted in each year.

Other chapters detail the backbone of war, and how it was waged: supply lines, social and financial ramifications, religious influences, and legitimation. The make-up of the military, as well as how loyalties functioned within the first century of the Ashikaga shogunate, were quite interesting. He discusses the positions of retainers (wakatō) and the bakufu's housemen (gokennin), and their contributions to 14th century warfare. There is a lot of ground covered here, and I was really quite pleased with all of it.

However, buried within my praise, I must also acknowledge several things that let me down, especially in an otherwise enthralling work. First off, Dr. Conlan should have a word with his editor. There were many misspellings and grammatical mistakes that should never have made it to print (e.g. Nanbukucho v. Nanbokucho), especially in a book released by an academic institution focusing on Japanese studies. These are the sorts of things that are easy to miss when writing a book covering so much ground, but should also have been easy for a proofreader to pick up and mark for editing.

There were also some stylistic choices I can't say I agree with. References to figures are written as double references (e.g. "See figures 9 = pl. 7 and 10"), which were rather cryptic; the color plates didn't show up until near the end of the book, but before the final conclusion, their placement not making much sense. Dr. Conlan also appears to be overly enamored of the square bracket, leading to such sentences in his translation as: "[Nobutsune?] cut down one horseman wearing dyed and patterned [kōketsu] armor [hitatare]." This leads to confusion over whether a parenthetical is an assumed oversight in the original or if it is an explanation; e.g. if one does not already have a grasp of Japanese armor and clothing, one might assume that "hitatare" refers to a type of armor, rather than the original refering to a yoroi hitatare.

For someone who is interested in the precise terms, however, this flaw can often be a virtue. Many words that most modern authors would eschew from translating, or else provide only in the original Japanese, are given both in English and with a translation. Though at times tedious, unnecessarily breaking up the flow of the text, there are other times when it will be found a boon by the highly detail oriented amongst us.

It should be noted, that despite my objections, the style and grammar have little to do with the actual content, which is tremendous. The account, in the first chapter, of Nomoto Tomoyuki's service is an excelent exemplar of the type of service rendered by the average warrior during the 14th century. The statistics, gathered mostly in chapter two, contribute to the overall picture of violence in the 14th century. Further chapters elluminate such subjects as the role of violence in the social order. Dr. Conlan provides his audience with a compendium of modern scholarship on the issue. All of this helps to make this an eminently worthwhile book, and one that should be on the shelf of anyone seriously studying the history of warfare in Japan.

And for those looking for more, Dr. Conlan told SA during his interview that he was planning to expand the chapter on religion and war into his next monograph--so keep your eyes peeled.

For this, and other must-read books on Japanese history, check out the Samurai Archives Bookstore, hosted by Amazon.

Interview with Historian and Author Constantine Vaporis

2009-06-04T05:17:00.003-10:00

On behalf of the Samurai Archives, I’m pleased to be interviewing author and historian Professor Constantine Vaporis. Professor Vaporis, who received a PhD from Princeton, currently teaches Japanese and East Asian History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). A noted scholar, Professor Vaporis has been the recipient of research grants in the field of Japanese history from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Fulbright Program and the Japan Foundation. Professor Vaporis has authored two books on Edo period Japan—Breaking Barriers: Travel and the State in Early Modern Japan and Tour of Duty: Samurai, Military Service in Edo and the Culture of Early Modern Japan. Professor Vaporis is known to check out the action on the Samurai Archives Citadel of Japanese History from time to time and is also a valued member.

SA: Professor Vaporis, it’s a pleasure to have you here with us for this interview.

CV: Thank you. The pleasure is mine. As you noted, I have enjoyed being a member. I’ve benefitted personally from the Archives and so have many of my students.

SA: If you don’t mind, let’s start off with some basics. How did you become interested in Japanese history? What was the allure?

CV: I first fell I in love with Japan back in middle school when my father and I, along with my older brother, used to go to Japanese film festivals in Boston. I saw most of the classics of the 1960s this way. And, when an offer to learn Japanese came from one of my father’s students, who had been stationed in the military Japan in the mid-1950s, I jumped at it. So, to answer your question more directly, I first became enthralled with Japan and Japanese history as it appeared in celluloid and followed up that interest by studying the language. “Harakiri,” “Kiru,” “Ikiru,” and of course “Miyamoto Musashi” were some of my favorites—and now I teach a film course that uses a number of these.

SA: Your publications focus on the Edo period. What is it about the Edo period that fascinates you the most? Are there any other periods of Japanese history in which you have a special interest? Why?

CV: Let me answer these two together, as they are closely connected. When I headed to Princeton in 1980 to begin my graduate work, I intended to specialize in the late Warring States period and thought I might write a dissertation on one of the sengoku daimyo, like Takeda Shingen or even Oda Nobunaga. But, in Marius Jansen’s famous Friday morning seminar in Japanese history I read Englebert Kaempfer’s History of Japan and I was hooked on the Edo period. The vitality of the period, and as I later discovered, the richness of the historical record which remains for it, drew me in. Here I am, almost thirty years later still excited by teaching and researching the Edo period.

However, the last quarter of the 16th century in Japan still fascinates me. It was a dramatic, colorful period in Japanese history with personalities that were larger than life. It was also a time when European and Japanese history intersected—collided, really—, which added to the color and drama. By reading the letters the Jesuits sent home, particularly those of Alessandro Valignano, this all becomes clear.

SA: Which persona from Japanese history do you find the most interesting and why?

CV: Nobunaga would be one, again, because he was larger than life; his life was cut short, which makes one think about how the course of Japanese history might have been different had he lived long enough the complete his mission of unifying the realm.

Though not a Japanese, the life of Ganjin (Jianzhen) is fascinating to me. As you can see, I am drawn to travelers! Risking his life six times to make the sea-crossing to Japan in order to spread the dharma there, he finally made it in 753, by which time he had lost his sight. One can’t help but be awed by him and other travelers, both Japanese and Chinese, who braved the seas to travel to the other country on cultural and religious missions.

CV: Plenty of not-so-famous people fascinate me, too—like many of the diarists I encountered in researching Tour of Duty. Mori Masana of Tosa would be the best example. He strikes me as a bit of a maverick, something that was only possible for a younger son in a bushi family. He loved the physical as well as the intellectual and cultural. He was a prolific diarist, and his accounts are entertaining to read—not something one can say about most bushi diaries. He allows his personality to peer through his words. For example, wrestling sumo on the beach while the Tosa lord’s entourage waited for more favorable winds before setting sail, he injures his leg, but jokes in his journal about walking all the way to Edo on three legs. He spent much of his time in Edo studying as part of a number of cultural salons; he loved to shop and collected a large quantity of calligraphy and sword guards. On his first of many trips to Edo he did not have any official duties, but did something to attract the attention of officials close to the lord, and he was later rewarded for meritorious duty in protecting the lord as he was shuffled from place to place as a major fire spread across the city. He strikes me as a charismatic, energetic, intellectually curious man.

SA: Who are your favorite historians in the field of pre-modern Japanese history? Who had the biggest influence on you?

CV: Ron Toby and Martin Collcutt are two historians whose work I’ve always admired. Hal Bolitho has written some of the wittiest book reviews of academic works ever, and had a grand style in prose and speech both. Marius Jansen’s sweeping command of the field of Japanese history was awe-inspiring, as was his ability to synthesize scholarship.

SA: As an academic in the field, how do you feel about the current state of pre-modern Japanese studies?

CV: To be honest, I’m a bit troubled by what seems like an exodus of scholars from Tokugawa to Meiji history. In part I think this is market (read “job”) driven. There aren’t very many scholars left anymore who focus on the Edo period. But, perhaps that will change.

You were recently at a pre-modern Japanese history conference in Europe. Can you tell us a little about that?

CV: Yes, I was fortunate enough to be invited to a conference on Tokugawa history, organized by Professor Richard Bowring at Cambridge University in England this past March. I was asked to chair a panel on Ritual and Ritual Practice and to comment on the three papers the panelists presented. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet scholars of Tokugawa Japan from all over Europe, not to mention a handful each from the U.S. and Japan. This was the first such large conference—over thirty participants—on Tokugawa history in quite some time.

SA: On average, how many of your students per annum express an interest in pursuing a career related to Japanese history academia? What kind of advise do you give these students?

CV: Unfortunately my institution does not have a program in Asian studies, so we don’t develop students with the requisite language skills to do graduate work. I have had a handful of students who have transferred, though, in order to pursue further studies in Japanese history and culture. I tell any student who is interested in pursuing a higher degree in Japanese history to develop the best language skills they can as early as possible. I also urge them at a later date in their careers to learn to read brush-written documents; without that ability you are limited in your research to using materials that some other scholar or publisher thought important enough to make available in print.

SA: As an educator trying to impart your knowledge and passion about Japanese history on your students, what do you find most rewarding? What’s your biggest frustration?

CV: What I find the most rewarding and gratifying is when I discover that students are doing extra work (reading/research) on their own, beyond any class assignments, because they find the material we are studying so fascinating.

I think my job is easier now because of the popularity of anime. A lot of my students come to my classes interested in Japan—or what they think is Japan from anime—and want to learn more. In the early 1980s, the mini-series Shogun was big boost to the field, but now I would say it is anime. The first day of class this past semester I asked my students (in my “Japan in the Shogun Age” course) how many of them had heard about or seen “Samurai Champloo” and about 2/3 raised their hands! That surprised me.

Frustration? Not having a strong language program or area studies program at my university, which would support and complement what I do at the university.

SA: Let’s talk about your research and books. Both Breaking Barriers and Tour of Duty deal with traveling in the Edo period. What drew you to this specific topic?

CV: Kaempfer—reading his accounts of people encountered on the road as well as his lengthy description of a daimyo procession caught my attention my very first semester in graduate school. I wrote a paper on alternate attendance for that class, but ended up writing my first book on commoner travel and the development of a road network by the Tokugawa shogunate. In writing Tour of Duty I returned to what first caught my interest long ago. In a sense, these two works are book-ends: the first about the movement of commoners; the second, largely about the movement of bushi.

SA: I know that Americans have an affinity for road/travel tales as evident in classic pieces of literature written by such greats as Twain, Steinbeck and Kerouac, but so do the Japanese, who left an abundance of journals documenting their Edo period travels and experiences. Tell us what it was like reading these documents. Did it appeal to that “romance with the road” feeling that is hardwired into American DNA? [laughing]

CV: Well, it certainly appealed to the Greek-American DNA that courses through my own body. My grandfather was a big traveler—left his island of Kalymnos, near Turkey, for Argentina and then America. My father made his trans-Atlantic migration to the US at the age of three. We moved around quite a bit growing up, when my father was transferred from parish to parish (he was a Greek Orthodox priest). I’ve lived in a number of foreign countries and traveled to Japan 21 times, at last count. So reading other peoples’ accounts of traveling has always resonated with me.

Having trekked over some of the byways that travelers used during the Edo period—along the old Tōkaidō around Hakone and Hata, along a long stretch of the Kisokaidō, and along the Tosa routes to the north and to the east of Kōchi—it’s been easy trying to transport myself mentally back in time, to imagine what the experience must have been like. It is exciting to read a retainer’s account of his first trip outside his home domain, as he sees new things, experiences new customs and hears local stories.

SA: Documents from Tosa play a large role in Tour of Duty. What was a determining factor that locked you on to the impact the system of alternate attendance had on this han and retainers of the Yamauchi? Did this have anything to do with the influence of the late Professor Marius Jansen, who was an extensive scholar of Edo-era Tosa?

CV: What did it for me was the existence of a wide range of documents in Kōchi that would support the kind of social and cultural study that I wanted to write. Also integral was the openness and kindness of numerous people there who granted me unparalleled access to materials there. I write about this in my acknowledgements, but being allowed access to the family archive of one of the Counselors (karō) of Tosa domain before it opened to the general public and being allowed to work in the basement of the Yamauchi Shrine Archives, surrounded by the Edo-period documents and works of art stored there, are just two examples. The generosity of the people at the Prefectural Library and the friendliness of Kōchi people is something I will never forget.

SA: In your opinion, if you had to choose one overwhelmingly interesting inadvertent “byproduct” of the alternate attendance system, what would it be? How did it impact the development of Edo period society and culture?

CV: Just one?! Pressed to pick one, I would say that an important “byproduct” was the involvement of retainers in various cultural networks in Edo. Given that official duties were not onerous for most middle and lower-ranking retainers, there was plenty of time for them while in Edo to study with famous teachers and to cultivate skills (from the poetic, artistic to the martial) that would be of benefit back in the domain. The enforced period of residence in Edo in effect raised the cultural level of the country.

SA: A lot of your analysis delves into the explaining the symbols of power projection and some of the theatrical aspects that accompanied these displays during daimyo processions. In reality, how important were daimyo processions as a means of power projection once the daimyo left his own borders? Did they really mean something beyond projections of “face and prestige”?

CV: Interesting question. There were at least two audiences for daimyo processions: the first, as you point out, was the local, domestic audience, the people of the lord’s domain; the second was for a more general “public,” the people outside the domain, and helped to solidify a daimyo’s place in the political hierarchy of the realm. Very few people, relatively speaking, were able to witness a daimyo procession themselves, but word of mouth and graphic depictions of the processions played a role in establishing the reputation of a domain—i.e. whether its procession was still resplendent, or whether the lord was facing difficult times and had to cut back on the size of his procession. The reputation of a lord or domain was critical in the political world of the times.

But the processions had another, very different type of meaning, too. They were important to the local economies—the economies of the post stations and surrounding areas—in both a positive and a negative sense. The processions figuratively spread money along the highways, which benefitted local economies, but at the same time the corvee labor demands required of peasant-farmers who lived in surrounding areas to provide horses and labor power (a subject I write about in my first book, Breaking Barriers) had a negative impact on personal, household, and village economies.

SA: When I read Tour of Duty, I was somewhat surprised that there wasn’t much in it about samurai patronage of the pleasure quarters during their assignments in Edo. Are images of samurai from the outer han dallying in Akasaka, Asakusa and Yoshiwara a product of the imagination planted by exaggerated histories, books or movies?

CV: No, I don’t think so, but you do have to remember that diaries were meant to be read by others. The diary as a “private” piece of writing is a concept that would have seemed alien to people in the Tokugawa period. A bushi might keep a work diary so that his son could benefit from the father’s experience. Similarly a pilgrim to Ise or some other religious site might keep a record so that other family member’s might know what they could expect on a similar trip. Bushi were expected to act according to a strict moral code, so it is not surprising that they would not write about trips to the pleasure quarters in an explicit fashion. Some of my diarists write about going to the Yoshiwara to “sightsee” (kenbutsu). The term “flower viewing” (hanami) is sometimes used as a code-word for visiting the pleasure quarters, but I have not yet encountered a diarist who wrote explicitly about doing more than taking in the sights! Other types of evidence reveal that those bushi who could afford it did frequent the pleasure quarters. I do mention in the book one Yamauchi lord who seems to visit the pleasure quarters of Gion, in Kyoto; according to a non-official record, he traveled there “in disguise” for “flower viewing.”

SA: Tour of Duty is really a great book. I enjoyed it immensely. Do you have any other projects that you are working on that you can tell us about?

CV: Thank you very much.
Yes, I am working on a book tentatively entitled Japan as Samurai Nation. As this suggests, it is a study of the samurai as a trope or symbol for Japan, from the Edo period until today. It deals with both the historical reality of the samurai as well as the way that samurai have been perceived, historically, in both Japan and abroad. I’m particularly excited by this project, which will take me into contemporary times and treat issues of national identity.

SA: That certainly sounds like an interesting topic. I’m definitely looking forward to reading it as it sounds like you and I share some common interests! In terms of Japanese history, what have you recently been reading? Anything you can recommend?

CV: I’m currently reading, and enjoying, Richard Rubinger’s Popular Literacy in Early Modern Japan.

SA: How did you find the SA Archives and what drew you to its forum?

CV: I don’t recall how I first encountered it, to be honest. It was probably when I was first putting together a syllabus for a new course, “Constructing the Samurai,” and surfing the web to see what was out there. I’ve been impressed by the professional nature of the site, the wide coverage of subjects, the depth of the interviews with scholars and the considerable knowledge of the forum members. I’ve learned a lot from reading some of the threads. As you know, there are too many sites on samurai out there that have little substance; Samurai Archives is a welcome relief!

SA: Thank you for the positive feedback as it is much appreciated. However, is there anything you would like to see us try to do with the SA, in order to raise the level of our scholarship or improve the quality of historical discussions?

CV: There are probably copyright issues involved, but it would be nice to have full texts of the various daimyo house codes. Another idea might be to have a section devoted to primary source documentation. Again there might be copyright issues involved but in the case of documentation out there already on the web, you could have links to them. One example would be Charles Wigmore’s translations of the Laws for the Military Houses (Buke sho hatto). A bibliography on the samurai would be useful as well, not to mention a convenient list of good web sites related to the samurai.

SA: Thank you for the feedback. The rōjū will discuss your ideas with the Shogun. We do have some select bibliographies or resource lists in some of the individual forums, but they are in need of updating. And you are right about house codes and translation copyrights, but we will look into that.

Professor Vaporis, thank you very much for taking the time to sit down with us. This has been a real treat and a pleasure. We hope to have you back after your next book.

CV: Thank you for the opportunity.

Remember, both Tour of Duty and Breaking Barriers can be purchased from Amazon via the Samurai Archives Bookstore at http://astore.amazon.com/samurai-20?node=4&page=4

Book Review: Tour of Duty

2009-05-19T14:27:00.013-10:00

I see a red door and I want it painted it black
No colors anymore and I want them to turn black…

I admit that this verse from The Rolling Stones’ famous song “Paint it Black”, came to mind when I saw the title of Professor Constantine Nomikos Vaporis’ book, Tour of Duty. I couldn’t help but to make a connection between the book title and the song, as it was the opening theme for an old American television show called “Tour of Duty”, about a group of U.S. soldiers tearing through the jungle on search and destroy missions during the Vietnam War. In Professor Vaporis’ book, you won’t find ‘Charlie’ or stories about jungle firefights, but you will find a fascinating book that delves into a completely different kind of tour of duty— samurai military service to their feudal lords during trips of alternate attendance to the Shogun’s capital of Edo.

A system of alternate attendance called sankin kōtai was the Shogunate’s fundamental means of control over the more than 240 or so feudal lords (daimyo) that ruled the patchwork of individual fiefs that comprised Tokugawa period Japan. In a basic definition, sankin kōtai forced daimyo to alternate attendance between their fief and Edo for periods of about a year on a biennial basis. While in Edo, the daimyo were expected to serve a variety of functions within the shogun’s court. Upon returning to his fief (han), the daimyo’s wife and children remained in Edo as permanent hostages—an insurance policy designed to make a daimyo think twice about participating in an act of rebellion against Tokugawa authority when back in his home domain. Also, the monetary funds needed to support these costly trips as well as maintain luxurious mansions and barracks within Edo, gradually diminished the ability of the daimyo to spend han wealth on military buildups that could threaten neighboring domains or the Shogunate itself.

In his introduction, Vaporis explains that sankin kōtai is perhaps the greatest achievement of the Tokugawa period’s leadership as the system intentionally or unintentionally encouraged the development of political, economic and social institutions and practices that helped keep the unprecedented 250 years of internal peace. Sankin kōtai also played a part in the development of the Edo period’s rich cultural heritage. Vaporis states that it is because of the blatantly obvious significance and impact of sankin kōtai, historians have only discussed it in very general terms that haven’t changed much over time. There is really no single book or volume on the subject that sums it all up. To try to write “that” book would require a massive scale of research that could not be so easily carried out, especially as there aren’t any existing full complements of primary resources in han histories that neatly explain and tie everything together. The sheer weight of the project would sink even the best researcher/historian’s ambitions. It is therefore quite easy to understand why historians discuss sankin kōtai in broad strokes or look at specific aspects of the system and the lives of those it affected. With Tour of Duty, Professor Vaporis doesn’t try to deliver a banal and sweeping treatise on the topic, nor does he zero in on a one dimensional, miniscule aspect of it either. What he has delivered is a rich, 24k creation that I truly admire. This is a very insightful and well-construed book that clearly highlights Professor Vaporis’ skills as a researcher and his ability to convey his findings in a straight-forward, easy to understand fashion.

After skillfully panning and sifting through various primary source material scattered throughout diaries, journals, artistic depictions and archeological sites to find valuable content, Vaporis then forged and polished what I would describe as a golden ingot that brilliantly shines some much needed light on how alternate attendance, as a political institution, touched the lives of the samurai who participated in it. Roughly, the first half of the book deals primarily with the preparations for the round trip journeys to and from Edo and life on the road, as part of a daimyo’s procession. Readers are treated to a wealth of valuable information ranging from summaries of contemporary journal accounts to tables filled with facts and figures that clearly illuminate just how important of a role alternate attendance played in the deployment of a domain’s human and financial resources. Also, the insightful analysis provided on the pomp and circumstance of daimyo processions is fascinating and definitely stands out as one of the highlights of this book. Vaporis describes these processions as “theatres of power” as they combined the intricacies of domain power projection with a certain amount of drama that both awed and entertained those who witnessed them.

The second half of the book covers nearly all aspects of samurai life while on duty in Edo, ranging from financial considerations, issues of place and space within the various types of daimyo compounds, and everyday things like diet and hobbies—including intellectual and cultural pursuits. All of this was really quite interesting and the tables provided of purchases made by individual samurai during their trips to Edo helps to put a human face on those who served in Edo so long ago. These weren’t just stoic samurai, but actual people with real consumer-driven wants and needs.

Often overlooked, is the role samurai played in what Vaporis coins, “carriers of culture”. He points out that many historians will talk about the uni-directional flow of culture into Edo and its refinement there, but he argues that the flow of culture was a two-way street. Samurai, when traveling back to their native domains, acted as carriers of culture that they came into contact with whether it be in Edo or via traveling through other domains. In essence, Vaporis says that the system of alternate attendance gave samurai the chance to “discover” the diversity of Japan and its culture that existed beyond the borders of one’s own domain. It’s hard not to agree with that.

Also, Vaporis does mention that samurai, while stationed in Edo, did not have unrestricted freedom of movement and did not just idle away free time drinking and visiting pleasure quarters. While I do understand the point that Professor Vaporis is trying to make about this, it is undeniable that Edo was a “man’s town”. The popular pursuit of carnal pleasures by both samurai and townsmen alike helped to consummate the marriage of the culture of the “floating world” with that of the wider Edo period that we recognize today. If there is one weak link in this book’s armor, I’d say that the lack of discussion about samurai patronage of Edo’s pleasure quarters is it. However, this is just a minor quibble that does not distract from the overall wealth of knowledge one can gain from this book.

I also think it is worthwhile to note that Tour of Duty is packed with black and white photos and illustrations that help the reader visualize the rich landscape that Vaporis paints, whether it be of daimyo processions, domain compounds, or photos of archeological excavations and artifacts.

In an upcoming interview with Professor Vaporis that will soon be published simultaneously on the Shogun-Ki blog as well as the Samurai Archives Citadel Forum of Japanese History, we will be going into more detail about his research, his book and perhaps his thoughts on samurai patronage of the pleasure quarters as a way of alleviating some of the tedium that accompanied tours of duty in Edo. Please be sure to be on the lookout for the interview.

In conclusion, I believe that Tour of Duty is an essential “must read” for anyone with an interest in the lives of the Japanese warrior class during the Tokugawa period as well as those who are fascinated by what it must have been like to travel on one of the five major roadways of the Edo period, such as the Tōkaidō. I’m finding it hard to find serious fault with this work. The topic is interesting. The writing style is clear and straightforward and engaging. The research is impeccable—one look at the extensive bibliography shows how deeply Professor Vaporis dove into researching this topic and the nearly fifty pages of detailed and informative endnotes are testament to this. I’m giving this book five out of five Smiling Sammies.

Tour of Duty can be purchased through Amazon.com via the Samurai Archives Bookstore. http://astore.amazon.com/samurai-20/detail/0824832051

Ninja Lurk In "Shinobi No Mono 4: Siege"

2009-05-08T03:52:00.005-10:00

Animeigo continues its release of the 8 film Shinobi No Mono series with Shinobi No Mono 4: Siege (Japanese title Shinobi No Mono: Kirigakure Saizo). Released by Daiei in 1964, the movie stars fan favorite Ichikawa Raizo in one of his most popular series. This time around, instead of portraying ninja/thief Ishikawa Goemon (whose character is currently being featured in a big budget Japanese film, Goemon) he’s taking the field as an agent of the Sanada clan, Kirigakure (‘Mist’) Saizo. Different character or not, the ninja action lives on. Also along for the ride is Wakayama Tomisaburo of ‘Lone Wolf and Cub’ fame (here billed as Jo Kenzaburo) as clan leader Sanada Yukimura. This illustrates one of the more interesting features of the Shinobi No Mono series-the characters change, but the stars remain the same. Wakayama played sadistic warlord Oda Nobunaga (Goemon’s arch enemy) in the first two films, but here plays the man Raizo’s new character is protecting. You’ll see this pattern repeated throughout the cast-genre favorite Date Saburo, who played Hattori Hanzo in the Goemon part of the trilogy, appears here as a different character as do several other actors. Isomura Midori plays Saizo’s love interest in the film, Lady Akane-if you watched the first three films in the series, you’ll know This Will Not End Well.

The film begins with the Winter Siege of Osaka in 1614. The forces of the Shogunate under Tokugawa Ieyasu have been unable to penetrate the main compound of the Toyotomi’s Osaka castle thanks to the spirited defense being led by Sanada Yukimura. However, Ieyasu realizes that the direct approach is not always the most effective. He begins an artillery bombardment of the main keep meant to frighten Yodo (the mother of Toyotomi clan leader Hideyori) into pressing her son to sue for peace. In order to do this and to keep the pressure on the castle, Ieyasu sends forces to take the outlying defensive works. Yukimura’s son Daisuke finds his fort under assault in one of these raids, and is forced to abandon his position. Here’s where Saizo enters the fray, swinging into action on a rope and coming off a lot like Batman or Spider-Man. He’s ordered by Daisuke to rescue a group of women hiding in a nearby storehouse, but is unable to save them all from the Tokugawa forces (who seem more interested in taking the women as prizes than fighting). Meanwhile, Ieyasu’s plan has worked and an uneasy peace treaty is negotiated.

Saizo is ordered by Yukimura to travel to Edo and keep an eye on the movements and actions of Ieyasu and the Shogunate. He’s immediately spotted by Shogunate ninja and in the process of escaping them, comes across Lady Akane (one of the women he failed to save back in Osaka). She had been raped by several of Ieyasu’s men and in despair resigned herself to becoming a prostitute. She saves him from discovery by enemy ninja, after which she aids Saizo in his mission of gathering information. After many skirmishes with the Tokugawa ninja, the Sanada shinobi confirm that Ieyasu does indeed plan to launch another attack against the weakened Osaka castle (the moats have all been filled in as part of the peace treaty). Yukimura orders an assassination attempt on Ieyasu and departs for Osaka. The attempt fails and the Sanada ninja commits suicide before he can be captured. Saizo returns to Edo castle to give it another try, and is duped by Ieyasu and kills the wrong man. Saizo is captured and thrown into what amounts to a deep, dry well. Akane (who really gets put through the wringer in this movie) is also captured by the Shogunate and drugged. In her delirious state she gives up the location of Saizo’s confederates, who are also captured and killed. Saizo is kept alive, since Ieyasu hopes to extract Yukimura’s location from him. Saizo, however, ‘dies’ and is buried by the Shogunate. When Akane comes to pay her respects, he emerges from the grave (good thing he wasn't cremated)-it turns out he had fooled Ieyasu’s men by using a ninja technique that slowed his breathing and allowed him to appear deceased. Or were they fooled? It turns out he was allowed to escape, with Ieyasu’s ninja following him-straight to their target. Yukimura is killed by a Shogunate sharpshooter and the Tokugawa ninja return in triumph to Ieyasu.

But all is not as it seems. There’re plenty more twists and turns before the final battle of Toyotomi and Tokugawa in the Osaka Summer Campaign. Will Saizo manage to reverse the course of history and put himself on the winning side? Does he go down with the ship? Or will he listen to Akane, say ‘to hell with it all’, and save both her and himself?

The film is letterboxed and the transfer is great. The black and white photography lends itself well to the somber and depressing tone of the film. At times the viewer might think he’s stumbled into one of Toho’s Godzilla films-the music is by Ifukube Akira (noted for his scores on the Godzilla films), and there are sequences featuring realistic castle miniatures being blown apart by artillery fire. The effects range from excellent (the miniatures and explosions) to rather cheesy (such as several blatant dummies, and the flying ninja used in the title sequence). The genre pros of the cast deliver solid performances, with Raizo in particularly fine form as the alternately invincible and vulnerable Saizo. Unlike many films, the heavy (Ieyasu) is shown to outwit, outthink, and outperform the hero at every turn-even alone and unarmed, he’s able to escape assassination at Saizo’s hand. Saizo himself commits several huge blunders in the course of the film, making him fallible and keeping him from becoming the ‘all-powerful ninja’ stereotype. Not only does this give the film a realistic, unpredictable scenario and make Saizo a sympathetic character but also masterfully sets up the next few installments of the series. The film belies its modest budget, with a large cast, elaborate sets, and well choreographed battlefield scenes. Animeigo’s translation and subtitling is top notch, and further gives the viewer subtitle options ranging from none to notes to the full gamut-you even have a choice of subtitle colors.

Many chanbara films don’t require any historical knowledge to comprehend the goings-on, but Shinobi No Mono 4 will make a lot more sense and be more enjoyable for the viewer if they go in with some familiarity with the situation in Japan during 1615. As is usually the case, Animeigo’s extras for the disc have that aspect covered nicely. An interactive map of Japan shows the locations where all of the action takes place (and sometimes spots that are only mentioned) and gives background information for each. The historical notes for the program go into a huge amount of detail for a DVD, going so far as to reproduce the kanji written on the infamous bell that gave Ieyasu his excuse for attacking the Toyotomi. They’re very well done, and the occasional lapses are quite minor-falling into the ‘hair splitting’ category or simple typos (such as when the date for Aki province becoming part of Hiroshima prefecture is given as 1817 instead of 1871). The only glaring mistake is that the program states Kirigakure Saizo is an historical figure when it’s well established he was an invention of the Meiji era ‘Sanada Juyushi’ novels. Otherwise, the notes give you a good history lesson along with your ninja action. Other DVD extras include a still gallery (including some very interesting posed publicity shots) and the film’s original trailer. Also included is a trailer for the long awaited DVD release of another classic Ichikawa series-Nemuri Kyoshiro (released as ‘Sleepy Eyes of Death’ on US video). The first four Nemuri films will soon be released as a boxed set, and if they’re anything like the trailer, will look gorgeous. Time to replace those old VHS copies…

Whether you’re a Raizo fan, a ninja movie aficionado, a chanbara hound, or a history buff, Shinobi No Mono 4: Siege delivers the goods. The blend of ninja ‘skullduggery’ (as it’s called on the DVD box) with traditional samurai action gives the film an engaging blend of all-out action and stealth. While the DVD has an official street date of June 2nd, you can get it now directly from Animeigo or preorder it from Amazon through the Samurai Archives store here.

Stephen Turnbull's "Strongholds of the Samurai: Japanese Castles 250-1877"

2009-05-05T02:22:00.008-10:00

While as one would expect, books on Japanese castles are legion in Japan, there's been a dearth of works on the subject in English. Other than Schmorleitz's 'Castles In Japan' (which contains much outdated and erroneous information) and Mitchelhill's 'Castles of the Samurai: Power and Beauty' (which focuses on the value of the castles as an architectural and art form), only the odd tourist pamphlet or Japanese book translated into English (usually badly) has brought these uniquely Japanese structures to the attention of Westerners. Stephen Turnbull's latest release from Osprey Publishing, 'Strongholds of the Samurai: Japanese Castles 250-1877', goes a long way towards correcting this situation. 'Strongholds of the Samurai' collects Turnbull's four prior Osprey books dealing with Japanese castles-'Japanese Castles 1540-1640', 'Japanese Fortified Temples and Monasteries AD 710-1062', 'Japanese Castles in Korea 1592-1598', and 'Japanese Castles AD 250-1540'. Each of the four works was valuable in its own way, and as a collected volume becomes a valuable reference work and a great value.

Turnbull has taken the opportunity to correct some of the errors in the original publications, as well as presenting updated information (such as the recent demolition of the Fujimi Castle ferro-concrete reproduction south of Kyoto). A page by page comparison of the new volume with the original books reveals that the text has indeed been revised and modified-some sections of text have been excised (to avoid covering the same ground twice) and new text has been added in spots, such as an account of the Battle Of Ueno during 1868 that is new to the 'Fortified Temple' section and some new information on the operational history of castles in the Bakumatsu/Meiji era. There's also a new eight page introduction and timeline along with a four page conclusion. The biggest difference between the current collected volume and the original books lies in the photos. Many of the photos have been resized or replaced with completely new ones-many of the old black and white photos are now in color as well (with many of the color ones now being black and white). This is most noticeable in the chapter dealing with Japanese castles 1540-1877-the majority of the photos seem to be brand new. All of Peter Dennis's excellent color plates have been left in, albeit at a reduced size. Dennis is one of Osprey's better illustrators and is exceptionally well suited to the topic of castles. One minor criticism of the book has to do with the sequencing of the chapters-it would perhaps have been better to have led off with the two volumes on Japanese castles, followed by the Korean wajo and then the fortified temples and monasteries. As it stands now, the fortified temple volume is located between the two dealing with Japanese castles. Production value on the book is high, with an attractive dust cover featuring Shizugatake Castle taken from a painted screen in the Osaka Castle Museum. Paper stock is thick and most of the book's 270 pages have at least one visual aid, all of which are in sharp focus or reproduction.

Part 1, Japanese Castles 250-1540, is valuable for what it tells us about early Japanese fortifications. Turnbull uses photos of modern reconstructions and models along with illustrations from period war tales to show us how the early yamashiro (mountain castles) differed from the monster castles of the late Sengoku and Edo periods. Very little of this information has appeared in English (most of it in volumes examining the Taihei-ki or Shomon-ki). From the earliest fortified enclosures of the Yamato state, the fortresses in Dewa and Mutsu erected to defend against the Emishi, the Heian strongholds of the Fujiwara in Hiraizumi, the moated earthworks and walls intended to hold back the Mongol invasions, the mountain redoubts of Kusunoki Masashige, to the early Sengoku yamashiro that presaged the age of the monster castle, Turnbull examines each in detail. Construction methods are explained along with case studies involving how the structures performed when put to the test in battle. Day to day life inside the structure is also explored. There are copious, well thought out maps that show the majority of the locations being talked about and further classifies many by faction and date (the maps being a feature common to every chapter). While there's much to cover here (both in terms of timeline and territory), it's an excellent introduction to the neglected area of early Japanese fortifications.

The book's second part, Japanese Fortified Temples and Monasteries 710-1602, does much the same for the Sengoku era fortified 'temple towns' of the Ikko-ikki (best represented by Ishiyama Hongan-ji) as well as the temples of the so called warrior monks or 'akuso' (most famously, the temple complex at Mt. Hiei that was destroyed by Oda Nobunaga). Perhaps the most valuable achievement of this chapter lies in delineating the differences between the two factions and how they were reflected both in their social structure and fortification/architecture of each. Again, photos of modern reconstructions and models bring the text alive for the reader. There's much more emphasis in this chapter on the history and development of individual structures (since many of them were well documented or survive to this day) along with how the differing religious philosophies influenced their construction. For example, the Tendai monks of Mt. Hiei rarely built anything in the way of permanent fortifications, trusting that the fear of the gods and kami they could bring to bear upon the superstitious populace would safeguard their complexes from attack. When taken in conjunction with books such as Tsang's 'War and Faith' (a groundbreaking treatment of the Ikko-ikki) or Adolphson's 'Teeth and Claws of the Buddha' (the authoritative volume on monastic warriors), the reader will get a true picture of how the armed religious factions of Japan lived, fought, and worshipped.

The third part, Japanese Castles 1540-1877, has obviously had its scope expanded to include the Bakumatsu and Meiji eras. This is the era of Japanese castles most readers will be familiar with, as it deals with the majority of the surviving structures in Japan. There's much in the way of construction detail, especially in the engineering involved with erecting the massive stone walls and bases many of these structures featured. While it doesn't have the historical details of Schmorleitz's 'Castles In Japan' , there are operational studies showing some of the more famous sieges and also detailing how castle design was influenced by the advent of the arquebus and artillery. Turnbull also points out a common misconception-that a castle keep never doubled as a palace for its owner. While rare, the larger castles (such as Azuchi and Osaka, along with smaller ones like Inuyama) had keeps that served as a palace for their owners. Diagrams showing how castles were laid out to channel invaders along with cross sections of keeps help to demonstrate why these structures proved to be so difficult to attack. This chapter also features by far the largest amount of new photographs. In Turnbull's extensive 'Visiting the Fortifications Today' section at the rear of the book, there's also quite a bit more information found on many of the original existing structures as well as modern reproductions. As a whole, however, the section still leaves the reader feeling that it's only scratched the surface, and that there's much more to be said on the subject of the Sengoku and Edo period castle. Perhaps this will be territory for Turnbull to explore in the future.

Finally, Part 4, Japanese Castles In Korea 1592-98 is perhaps the crown jewel of the entire book. The limited timeframe and location allows Turnbull to go into an incredible amount of detail. This is Turnbull at his best-when he limits his scope and focuses his subject matter, which seems to be the direction his upcoming Osprey releases are taking. Every wajo (the name given to Japanese style fortifications built in Korea during Hideyoshi's Korean invasions of 1592 and 1598) receives a detailed history giving its construction details, dates, operational history, and layout. Many of them also have topographical maps. Each of the 30 sites receives extensive photo coverage, and although none have been reconstructed (due to the ongoing political acrimony between Korea and Japan), one can get a real feel for why not a single one of the wajo ever fell to a Chinese or Korean assault. The accounts of their efforts to do so are among the high points of the book, with the siege of Ulsan in 1598 being particularly noteworthy. There's also an interesting bit on the wajo as economic center with rudimentary 'castle towns' growing up around them, populated by Koreans eager to resume a somewhat normal life.

Overall, 'Strongholds of the Samurai' is an excellent compilation, giving a detailed overview of the development of Japanese fortifications throughout time, social classes, and different countries. At less than half the price of two of the original works, it's also a great value. An attractive volume, it's loaded with photos, prints, color plates, maps, and artwork. The majority of the information given in three of the four chapters has never been seen in English, and author Turnbull is still among the best when it comes to bringing the old legends and stories of Japan to life for the reader. It's a winner-an absolute no-brainer of a purchase if you're missing any of the original volumes, and even has much to recommend it to those who have all four.

Strongholds of the Samurai can be purchased from Amazon through the SA Store here.

Interview with John Bender, Sengoku Student and Analyst

2009-05-02T07:15:00.009-10:00

John Bender is a recent graduate of the University of Hawaii with a Master of Arts degree in premodern Japanese history. He recently completed his degree under Dr. William Farris, a prolific scholar who has produced nearly ten books. John's thesis was an examination of Warring States Daimyo that addressed the question, “why did some survive while others did not.” Although fairly straightforward, he felt that existing English-language material had not addressed this fundamental question satisfactorily. From his perspective, historians seemed content to accept the outcomes of Warring States battles with little or no analysis. Thus, he set out to integrate various geographical, economic, political, and military factors and analyze how they affected a daimyo’s chances for either victory or defeat. John is currently living in Hiroshima prefecture teaching English and studying Japanese.

Samurai Archives: What first sparked your interest in Japanese history? At what point did you say "I want to focus on Japanese history"?

John Bender: Well, this is a question that I’ve been asked a lot, and for a long time I didn’t really know how to answer it. Both of my Grandfathers fought in the Pacific War, so as a child I had a great interest in World War 2. My Grandfather on my mother’s side was actually on a ship that was struck by a Kamikaze fighter plane. These are the kinds of things that can really captivate the imagination of a young boy.

However, I didn’t really develop a serious interest in Japanese history until college. As a freshman, I switched my major from engineering to history after I discovered that reading was much more interesting than solving differential equations. At that time, I had recently begun training in a Japanese-derived style of martial arts and was becoming more and more interested in samurai. I don’t think it was until my junior year, however, that I decided to specialize in Japanese history.

So, I suppose I took a rather typical route to becoming a Japanist – martial arts, samurai, history. I used to be a bit embarrassed by that, but not anymore.

SA: How did you come to choose the specific topic of daimyo survival during the Sengoku period?

JB: When I started graduate school, I had it in my head that I was going to do strictly military history. I liked the Sengoku period because it was a time that witnessed the largest samurai armies in Japanese history. Furthermore, I had always felt that the English historiography on Sengoku battles was extremely sparse. What did (and still does) exist was very general, offering little or no details of how the battle actually progressed. I thought I could tackle this problem.

My original idea was to do an in-depth analysis of individual battles, breaking down exactly what happened, who won, and why. As I began my research I found that there is a reason detailed accounts of Sengoku battles are scarce – sources. There simply isn’t enough out there to make a good MA thesis on such a narrow topic.

After making this realization, it was a logical step to simply expand the scope beyond battles to the question of “survival.” Again, this was a topic that hadn’t been addressed, in terms of the hows and whys, and allowed me to take a more holistic approach to the period as opposed to being limited to military encounters. The result was, I think, a kind of fusion between economic and social history, and military and political history. Ultimately, this approach proved to be much more interesting than my original concept.

SA: How far down did you drill into the pool of Daimyo for your analysis? Obviously the biggies (Tokugawa, Oda, Takeda, Uesugi) are required, but how far did you get into the lower tiers like the Chosokabe, Amako, Asakura, Kyogoku, etc.? What requirements did you hold available clans to in order for them to warrant coverage in your thesis?

JB: Actually, all of the families you listed, except for the Kyogoku, were included in my study. I tried to compile as large a list as possible, and was really only limited by sources. For each daimyo I included, I needed fairly detailed information about their origins, location, and demise, and this information can be a bit hard to find for many of the lesser daimyo. Basically, I felt my list was adequate once it covered the entire physical map of Japan.

As for selection requirements, although it was my original intent, these were not concrete. I planned to use the Tokugawa definition of daimyo, and include all warlords controlling at least 10,000 koku of rice. However, obtaining such figures for many daimyo in the 16th century is impossible, as they simply do not exist. The closest I came to a comprehensive list of that sort was a survey document from 1638, I believe – obviously well outside my timeframe. As a result, I had to adopt less strict criteria that included several factors. One was that the warlord had have controlled land independently. Even if he was technically a vassal of another warlord, wielding effective power within his domain was one important component of being a daimyo. This means that there had to be some kind of bureaucratic or administrative apparatus that was controlled directly by the warlord, not his superior. This eliminates a lot of mid-level warriors who controlled territory, but were still subject to their lord’s administration (for example, the vassals of the Go-Hojo) from being daimyo. In addition to that, I stuck to families that have been traditionally considered daimyo. If a certain warlord was consistently included in the ranks of daimyo across several historical works, I took that as the best indication to classify him a daimyo.

SA: You examine a variety of variables when analyzing which factors had an impact on the survival and prosperity rates of Daimyo - give us a general overview of the general factors, as well as their overall importance to Daimyo survival based on the results of your research.

JB: Well, this is obviously a major part of my thesis and gets right to the core of my argument. I organized my analysis into five broad categories: geographic, economic, military, political, and random factors. It is impossible to completely isolate each category, as they are all interconnected, but in general, the division was as follows.

Geographic factors involved a daimyo’s location, the topography, productivity of the land, sea, or ports in the area, as well as the proximity of threats. Economic factors consisted of how well a daimyo could take advantage of available resources – very simply how wealthy he was. Military factors were rather straightforward as well, being primarily the size of a daimyo’s army, but also the quality of generals. I considered political factors to be anything a daimyo did both inside and outside of his domain in the realm of government. For my study, two areas were of utmost importance here: a daimyo’s ability to control his vassals, and his political posture towards other daimyo. Finally, the random category was kind of a catch-all that was to be used only in an emergency, when the situation could not be adequately explained in the previous chapters. I think I had to turn to random events only twice: once because of an unexpected death (Takeda Shingen), and once because of the weather (the battle of Okehazama).

As you can see, these divisions are somewhat nebulous. But, you have to make distinctions somewhere, and the real importance of the categories is as an analytical tool, not as a concrete classification of all aspects of Sengoku society.

The importance of each of these categories to daimyo survival is an interesting question. In fact, I had originally conceived of organizing the thesis around that question and progressing from the most important to least important category. Had I done so, the most important would have been geography, followed by politics, economics, and finally military. That came as a bit of a surprise, but there are dozens and dozens of examples of militarily weak daimyo who survived while strong ones were eliminated. And, while political alliances were a close second, the most important contributor to a daimyo’s success or failure was his location. It really depended upon who your neighbors were, how easy it was to get to you, and how badly rivals wanted your territory. That is why it was nearly impossible for anyone to survive in or around Kyoto. After the first draft, it was clear that organizing the thesis this way was not ideal. The experience of different daimyo was too varied to rank each category consistently. For the next draft I decided to organize the thesis starting with the factors daimyo had the least amount of control over to the most amount of control. The resulting order was geography, economics, military, political, and then the random category which cut through all of them. Organizing it this way led me to the argument that there was only so much a daimyo could do to really affect his chances of survival. With this in mind, it is easier to understand why events unfolded as they did, specifically why daimyo in eastern Japan became so powerful. Therefore, Sengoku Japan was not as chaotic as it has been characterized, but actually a pretty logical series of events, from an overall standpoint. This became one of the cornerstones of my argument.

SA: Did you make any distinction between “survival” and “success”? (in other words, many of the surviving daimyo found themselves in pretty unenviable positions by the end of the 16th century, for example, the Chosokabe clan)

JB: No, and I specifically avoided doing so. The reason is that I didn’t want to make my argument and statistics overly complicated by qualifying “survival.” Thus, for my study, the important thing was to simply exist at the end of the 16th century. I think everyone would agree that literal survival, in whatever form, is preferable to elimination.

SA: In the context of your thesis, what measurement did you use to categorize a daimyo as a "success"?

JB: Well, I really wanted to focus only on the Sengoku and unification periods (which is why I always refer to it as the “16th century” in my thesis), so I stopped at Sekigahara. Anyone who made it to 1600, before the battle, was considered a “success.”

SA: Access to foreign weapons technology was obviously a huge benefit for Sengoku Daimyo. Why didn’t it warrant its own category?

JB: Absolutely, access to foreign weapons was a huge part of my thesis. This was one of the main reasons that the ports of Osaka and Sakai were so enormously important – because they provided access to such technology. Nagasaki as well was very important in this regard, and I devote almost ten pages to it.

However, I do not feel that foreign trade should be considered a separate category. Foreign trade was one of the benefits afforded by areas like the capital and northern Kyushu, and thus it fit neatly within my categories. In effect, it is a large part of what made those regions so desirable, so important, and so hotly contested. I think that splitting trade according to where it was coming from would have resulted in unnecessary complexity, a false dichotomy, if you will.

SA: In your opinion, in the overall picture of 16th century Japan, how large a part did random events and luck play?

As I said above, I really tried to minimize this category. I found that I could explain almost all of the fate of almost all of the daimyo I studied. Perhaps this was because my categories were so broad, but I really don’t think luck had much to do with daimyo survival (unless luck includes where you were born). Even things that might seem random can usually be traced back to a larger cause. My geographic and political categories were able to account for most of the cases I originally could not adequately explain.

SA: Which Daimyo benefitted most from random events (i.e. "Luck")?

JB: It’s hard to say, but for the purposes of my study, I would have to say Oda Nobunaga. His spectacular victory at Okehazama catapulted him into the ranks of the most powerful warlords of the day. Most accounts agree that a sudden cloudburst proved quite timely for the Oda forces. The Imagawa response may have been more rapid and effective had the weather been clear.
Having said that, the Oda were of course one of the daimyo who did not survive the 16th century. It’s hard to find an example of someone who “skated through” on luck. Conversely, it’s a bit easier to find daimyo who had “bad luck.” The above-mentioned Imagawa would be the most prominent example, but that category also includes the Takeda, Ouchi, Ryuzoji, and Chosokabe.

SA: Were there any Daimyo who had all factors in their favor but still didn't survive the 16th century? Were there any Daimyo that you had trouble accounting for in your model?

JB: Yes, actually, there were numerous daimyo who had very favorable conditions yet failed to survive. The best example is the Go-Hojo, who were eliminated after a major political blunder in failing to make peace with Hideyoshi. Nobunaga himself is another great example. His demise illustrates how important it was to have loyal vassals – or at least, to keep them happy. In Kyushu, the Otomo and Ryuzoji both had relatively stable, profitable bases, but opted to fight each other to extinction instead of consolidate their gains. This ultimately allowed the Shimazu to become the premier daimyo on Kyushu. The Ouchi are another example. They had a good power base in western Japan, but lost it due to a combination of poor leadership and military blunders. Finally, in the east, both the Imagawa and the Takeda seemed to be well situated in the Warring States period, but of course were both eliminated.

SA: How about Daimyo who had the majority of variables working against them who survived the 16th century? What tipped the scales in their favor?

JB: There were far fewer examples of this, but it did happen. I have a very nice example of this in my politics chapter involving the Omura family. The Omura were very much small fish in a big pond consisting of heavyweights like the Shimazu, Ryuzoji, and Otomo. The Omura’s saving grace turned out to be shrewd political maneuvering, despite extreme material and military disadvantages. They essentially “played their cards right” and were able to survive.

Omura territory happened to include the port of Nagasaki, and the Omura daimyo cleverly used this bargaining chip to their favor. Omura Sumitada, head of the Omura family in the 1550’s made an alliance with the Portuguese shortly after their arrival. This alliance saved them in 1556 from a vassal rebellion, and again in 1579 from a Ryozoji invasion. Sumitada actually ceded Nagasaki to the Jesuits on the eve of the invasion, thus making any attack on the port an act of war against the Portuguese. He then wisely submitted to the Ryuzoji, and stood on the sidelines as they, the Shimazu, and the Otomo battled. When the Shimazu emerged victorious, the Omura stalled for time, then allied themselves with Hideyoshi shortly before his 1587 invasion.

In this way, the virtually powerless Omura survived the 16th century. It is a brilliant example of political savvy.

SA: You mention in your introduction that an examination of variables during the Sengoku period to account for the success or failure of Sengoku Daimyo hasn't been done before - have you come up with any new or surprising revelations about 16th century Japan based on your research?

JB: I think the only real “surprising” revelation would be my main argument itself. I proposed a re-conceptualization of the Warring States period in two important ways. First, I feel that this period was much less random and chaotic than has been argued in the past. Although not without an element of unpredictability, Warring States history followed a fundamentally comprehensible course. If anything, I hope my study showed that there was usually a good reason the “winners” won and the “losers” lost.

Second, I think it is important to acknowledge the centrality of geographic factors, especially location. I contend that this was the single most important factor in determining daimyo survival. Politics emerged as a close second in this regard. I think this runs counter to conventional wisdom about the Warring States period (and maybe unification processes in general) that military and economic factors are the key. At least for Japan, geography and politics were paramount for survival.

SA: Have you considered possibly expanding and publishing your thesis?

JB: I think everyone dreams of publishing, and that may happen in the future, but right now it is not one of my main goals. I am planning to explore other topics for my dissertation, but would like to return to this one someday. For now, though, I have no idea when, or in what form I will pursue publication of this thesis.

SA: What are your current interests in the field of Japanese history? Any future projects currently on your mind?

JB: I am still very interested in warriors and I think that I always will be. I would like to do a more in-depth study of the Takeda, from their beginnings in the 12th century to their demise in the 16th. I am also very interested in a study of war veterans (ronin) as a social group in the early Tokugawa period.

But, my years as an MA student have broadened my interests a bit, and currently I’m most excited about a potential project on Japanese mariners. I’m exploring the possibility of a survey of fishermen and the fishing industry in Japan.

SA: What are some currently “popular” Japanese history topics of research in Western academia? Where do you see the most expansion in the next 5-10 years in Western scholarship on Japanese history?

JB: Well, I don’t want to self-promote too much, but I think that military history is making a bit of a comeback. There are some excellent recent works by scholars such as Karl Friday and Thomas Conlan. I also believe that topics like demography and population, where Wayne Farris leads the way, will attract more and more attention. Finally, women’s history and family history are hot topics right now. Take a look at Janet Goodwin’s 2007 book if you’re interested.

SA: Being a recent graduate yourself, do you have any advice for current or potential students of history, and students of Japanese history in particular?

JB: History is a very difficult field, but it is also extremely rewarding. Historians study the whole range of human experience and thus nothing is off the table. If you’re interested in something, there’s a good bet you can turn that interest into real historical inquiry. I think history is an extremely valuable discipline that produces thoughtful, analytical, and informed individuals. He need more historians in the world!

My advice for anyone considering history is to keep your interests as broad as possible. Specialization is important, but it’s also important to keep your eyes on the big picture. If you get too focused on one thing, you’ll lose the ability to draw really meaningful, insightful conclusions.

As for Japanese history in particular, my advice is to get going on your language study now! Proficiency in Japanese is paramount, and Japanese is not a particularly easy language. It is currently my biggest weakness, and one I’m working very hard to improve. If you want to study Japanese history, hit the Japanese books hard, and hit them early!

Interview With Takeda 3 Creator And Magitech Founder, Ming-Sheng Lee

2009-04-24T03:24:00.008-10:00

Ming-Sheng Lee is the founder of Magitech, producer of what many consider to be the most historically accurate and true-to-life Japanese and Chinese PC strategy games. He graduated from Taiei City College of Business in the late 80's when he and a few college friends were thinking of getting into the computer game industry. Since none of them possessed sufficient programming knowledge, Ming then attended Polytech University in New York to get a C.S. degree and then founded Magitech. Ming continues to be involved in all aspects of Magitech's operation, from research, coding, and troubleshooting to marketing and customer feedback. Ming took some time off from working on Strength And Honor 2 to talk about Magictech's latest release, the Sengoku strategic/tactical simulation Takeda 3 (in the following interview, SA is the Samurai Archives while ML is Ming-Sheng Lee).

SA: You founded Magitech in 1993. What prompted you to form your own company rather than work for an established developer?

ML: I guess I was young and didn't know that earning money can sometimes be more important than the passion. I was naive to think that working for other companies would prevent me from making my own games, so I jumped in, created my own company and started this journey.

SA: How did you develop a love for computers and an interest in Japanese history?

ML: I got in touch with computers in the early 80’s. I was fascinated by the new Apple II (6502) personal computer and started working on simple animations for the ground works of gaming. I remember my first animated character was a Japanese Ashigaru infantry. Speaking of Ashigaru, the Japanese theme of Takeda was seeded even way earlier when I was in elementary school. My father took me to Japan several times to visit my grandfather. The castles and the samurai were my bed time stories.

My addiction to tactics and strategy came from my father also, who always told me fascinating stories of history. Not just battles, but finance, economics, and life experience as well. I use the same tactics and strategies I learned from history in the stock market, which other than strategy games is my other hobby to explore my passion for strategic thinking.

SA: All of Magitech's releases to date have been historical simulations, and they have been far more true to history than similar games from other companies. Was the emphasis on historical accuracy done to differentiate the games from other products, or out of a desire to produce a 'simulation' and not just a 'game'?

ML: OK. You got me. The emphasis on historical data isn't really meant to differentiate from other games, but it is my desire to make a historical simulation rather than just a game. Many times I was struggling to change the design into something more suitable for the game market, but there is a part of me that always pulls me back to focusing on the simulation. The balance between game play and simulation is always a challenge for us.

SA: Can you give us a general outline of the different steps taken in the development of a game? What all does it go through between the initial concept and the final release?

ML: First we have a meeting about the concept of the game. If it is a sequel, we discuss features that we would like to add to the game. Normally we write a two-page outline document. We tried a fifty-two page design document once, but it ended up being too complicated. Then we assign tasks and have the team start working on the project. This part is the easiest, but we always have to go back to the design sheets and make some adjustments. Then we have to integrate the other aspects such as the art from the artists and the music from the musicians, more or less putting every piece of the game together. After that, we can start balancing, testing and fine-tuning the game. Part of the team will continue to work on the interface and fix bugs while the other part of the team will start testing all aspects of the game. After we finish the initial testing, we will start working on demo versions for publishers and do localization when a deal is signed with foreign language publishers. It actually takes a lot to finish a game. Coding is the easiest part.

SA: Even with an emphasis on history, compromises always have to be made for the sake of play value. What in your opinion was the biggest compromise Takeda 3 had to make that sacrificed accuracy for playability?

ML: There are many features we have to give up for the sake of game play or due to a lack of resources to expand a feature such as the number of castles, the number of generals, or the scale of the battles. The biggest one I would say is the death rate of a general. Since Takeda 1, we have tried to create a connection between the generals (the game characters) and the players. To achieve this, we make the characters 'die' at a more realistic probability. The player will need to make a decision between saving his/her favourite general(s) and winning a battle. In Takeda 3, however, we are short of portraits. To lose a general at a realistic, historical probability, the player will run out of characters pretty quickly. Thus we have to tune down the 'death rate' so the players are able to finish the campaign.

SA: Takeda 3 features graphics that are much more detailed and impressive than those seen in Takeda 2. The 'Multiplayer/Online' aspect from the original Takeda also makes its return. What other improvements and new features have been made to the game?

ML: Takeda 3's new improvements are really focused on the castle battles. We've made some breakthroughs in path-finding which allow the units to go through mountain roads in fairly complex terrain and castle layers. This really allows us to make the castles look much more realistic than in our previous games.

We also resized the map to show an army’s path more clearly to the player, and we now allow players to build facilities around a castle. These facilities have a direct impact on the player's military and economic strength.

SA: In games such as 'Shogun: Total War' or 'Nobunaga No Yabou', an unskilled player can win by simply outproducing the computer and crushing them with sheer weight of numbers or by using oddball ahistorical superunits like 'sword saints', 'battlefield ninja', or the infamous 'geisha assassin'. The Takeda series, on the other hand, has proved difficult for many players to beat because it stresses the role of commanders, proper formations and tactics, morale, and especially supply. Careless players who use reckless all-out attacks soon find themselves with all their capable generals dead, losses of horses and guns that far outstrip their production, and huge desertion rates attributable to not keeping an eye on their supply lines. In fact, it's easily possible to win a battle that ruins your chances of winning the game. It makes the game an extremely helpful learning tool for explaining just how difficult it would have been in real life to unify Japan. What sort of tips would you give to someone sitting down to play Takeda 3 for the first time to help them lay down a strong foundation for success early in the game?

ML: Watch out for the riflemen/teppo (sorry, I still don't know what to call them properly)! For most veterans of Takeda, mastering a field battle shouldn't be a problem if they properly manage capable generals. The campaign may run into deep muddy ground if the enemies build up strong defences with a high number of riflemen/teppo guarding the towers, however. As for a beginner, I would say carefully plan out your strategy regarding diplomacy. Winning a battle is one thing; but winning a war is another. Choose your allies carefully and watch out for their relationships with one another. You can't make friends with everybody because your friends will fight against each other later and you will be caught right in the middle. You also need to arrange political marriages to cement alliances.

For beginners on the battlefield, try to select all your good generals and put them into one army. That should give you a good start. Eventually, you will need to split your army as your territory expands, but by then you should have mastered the battle system.

Most RTS players will create a lot of armies to outnumber the enemy. Players might want to keep a few castles to use as supply depots, however, instead of creating armies from every castle.

SA: The portraits of the historical figures in the new game are small works of art-detailed, sharp, and colorful. The artist is particularly talented in his depictions of women. Who was this talented individual and how did you end up using them?

ML: The artist’s name is 練任 (Lian Zan). Though I have not personally spoken with him, he is a good friend of our Taiwanese publisher. Alvin Hwan, who works for our main publisher in Taiwan, believes in the potential of Takeda's engine and sponsored our Sango project's portraits with his own money. After that, we liked the style of the portraits and decided to upgrade all the portraits for our upcoming games.

SA: Speaking of women, Takeda 3 includes dozens of female characters-far more than any other Japanese warfare sim to date. Many of them historically were involved in defending castles during sieges. Game wise, they’re of course useful for 'marriage politics' but also for transferring supplies and troops from one castle to another. What prompted you to include this often overlooked aspect of a woman's role in samurai culture and give them a greater part in the game?

ML: It was a time in which women didn't really have the same rights as men in Japan. After researching a few historical records and legends, I decided to include many of the exceptional stories of women in Takeda 3 to tell their stories which unfortunately often get left out of history books.

SA: Unlike 'Shogun: Total War' or 'Nobunaga No Yabou', Takeda 3 replicates the actual terrain, layouts, and look of castles taken from historical records and blueprints. They showcase to good effect how even a small force inside a well laid out castle can hold off and decimate a huge attacking army. Were there any castles you had problems finding documentation for, or that had to be substantially altered for the game?

ML: We researched many books and sites and included as many details as we could. Almost every castle is based on some sort of historical reference. Sometimes we had only a small piece of a picture or layout from the historical records, but we tried our very best to show what it would look like based on the picture. In many cases, we can only show a corner of the castle. It wouldn’t be possible to present a whole castle like Odawara in the game. Sometimes we have to take out or reposition the gates or rivers to make the castle fit the battlefield. We mostly studied how each castle was taken in historical battles and we tried to present it in such a way that the players can re-visit the history and experience how the battles were actually fought. The biggest problem we have with the castles is the limit of the attacking army's units. Due to the speed of most computers, we couldn't have that many units on the attacking side which sometimes makes attacking a castle very difficult. Although we can reduce the number of defenders, it would create some other game play issues in world mode.

SA: The individual biographies for each of the 600+ historical figures in the game are another nice extra feature. From what sources did you gather the information for these?

ML: We did the research about the characters in the game mainly from our in-house library books. Most books are imported from Japan directly. I have a personal interest in the history of Feudal Japan so we put a lot of effort into discovering information about each character in the game. There have been some translation errors when we finalized the descriptions, however, and we were fixing some of the errors right until the last few days before the release of the game.

SA: Magitech has published games in China and Russia as well as Japan and North America. Which country seems to be most receptive to your games and what do you attribute this to?

ML: From the sales side, the Russian market seems to be the most receptive, and China seems to have many players playing our games as well. We are very pleased that we are able to get into Japan's market with a localized Japanese version for them. It shows a great recognition for the hard work that we put in to make the game historically accurate to Japanese history.

SA: The staff of Magitech not only develops the games but also plays and supports them once they’re released. This takes the form of answering questions from gamers on the Magitech forums, releasing patches to enhance and expand gameplay, incorporating suggestions from players in future releases, and even taking part in tournaments and online battles with the player base. Does being actively involved with the people who actually play the games help with designing future efforts? Do players ever come up with tactics and strategies that surprise you and weren’t factored in while designing a game?

ML: Basically, we love what we do here. It is my passion as well as the team's desire to make these games fun and historical. We feel bad when the game doesn't work as we expected and we try our very best to fix or improve the game in every way that we can. Our friends from the forum do help us a lot in finding bugs that we fix, giving us feedback and suggestions for future developments or improvements, and encourage us to continue the titles even when things don't really work very well. It's because of these friends that have made it this far.

When I designed Takeda 1, I expected to see players lose generals and fall into different ending paths. After the game was released, I found out that some players would play the same battle fifty times just to save a generals' life. In the game Sango 1, I accidentally had a general with no skill but setting up fires in the battle of Chang-Ban Po. There were players using this character with one of the best horses in the game to set fires everywhere and turn an impossible battle into a total victory for the player. It is amazing to see players develop their own strategies and tactics using something even the developer didn't think of.

SA: What are some of the other games Magitech has produced? What are you currently working on for future release?

ML: Other than the Takeda series of games, we also make the Sango series, similar to Takeda but set in China's Romance of The Three Kingdoms' era, and the Strength & Honor series which is set during the Roman era with a map that spans from China to Britain. Different from Takeda and Sango, Strength & Honour is more focused on empire management than battles. An empire's internal conflicts are much more emphasized. Strength & Honor 2 is our latest game in development and shall be released in the summer of 2009. In the future, however, we are thinking of making casual games and iPhone platform applications.

SA: Thanks, Ming. We at the SA wish you and Magitech continued success in the future.

Animeigo's 'The Loyal 47 Ronin' DVD

2009-04-14T01:31:00.008-10:00

Animeigo claims their recent DVD release of Daiei’s ‘The Loyal 47 Ronin’ (1958) represents the best and most representative version of the dozens of 47 Ronin films and TV shows that have been released over the years-and it would be hard to argue with them. Produced during the ‘Golden Age’ of Japanese filmmaking, it features a cast loaded with familiar genre names, excellent color cinematography, and the gorgeous sets and costuming one expects from Japanese films of this era.

The film is solidly in the vein of traditional tellings of the 47 Ronin legend as performed in puppet plays, novels, and kabuki theater rather than attempting to portray the history behind the ‘feudal drive-by of lore’ (where the Ronin outnumbered Kira’s sleeping guards 47 to 3). While it’s beyond the scope of this review to detail the substantial differences between the legend and the reality, it shouldn’t diminish the enjoyment of viewers (even though the real story would probably make for a far more complex, multilayered, and entertaining film). For those who aren’t familiar with the legend, it’s the tale of the loyal retainers of a daimyo (Asano Naganori) sentenced to seppuku after he makes the mistake of attacking a corrupt Shogunal Minister Of Protocol (Kira Yoshinaka) inside Edo Castle. When Kira goes unpunished, many of the retainers band together under the leadership of Asano’s Chamberlain, Oishi Kuranosuke, to correct this imbalance of justice and avenge their lord. Director Watanabe Kunio infuses this version with more energy than most, making its central character Oishi a master swordsman who engages in several battles with Kira’s ‘hit squads’ and ninja agents during the course of the film. Kira is even more obnoxious, nasty, and spiteful than usual, and Asano more virtuous, long-suffering, and upright (quite unlike their historical reputations). Oishi’s feigned descent into womanizing and drinking along with several sidestories (mostly fictional and lifted, again, from kabuki and puppet theater) involving the other Ronin take center stage-many of which involve the Ronin trying to keep their composure when public opinion turns on them for not avenging Asano in a timely manner. It seems the entire population of Edo is aware of the ‘secret’ planned raid and continually egg on and encourage the Ronin to punch Kira’s ticket to the Pure Land! The emphasis is squarely on a samurai’s duty to his lord and bushido-all other duties, including those to wives, parents, siblings, children, in-laws, and friends, are shown as inconsequential when measured next to this. In turn, these slighted parties willingly and sometimes enthusiastically accept their fates. We found this approach an interesting contrast to more recent efforts involving the Ronin, such as the episode of ‘Abarenbo Shogun’ that features the single member of the 47 not sentenced to seppuku-Terasaka Kichiemon. In this episode, Terasaka roundly condemns his fellow Ronin and everyone connected to them for bringing so much tragedy and hardship to their families and those left behind. But this was 1958, and tradition was still a strong draw at the box office-The Loyal 47 Ronin was Japan’s highest grossing film for that year. It’s hard to imagine another film doing the ‘samurai honor’ angle better and more effectively. The film is even left on an upbeat note when the Ronin are shown marching with Kira’s head to Asano’s grave at Sengakuji-completely leaving out the not-so-glorious aftermath when they paid for their crimes with their lives.

For most samurai film fans, the big attraction here will be the cast. Genre favorites Ichikawa Raizo and Katsu Shintaro both make appearances and the rest of the cast features equally famous Japanese actors (who just aren’t as well known in the west). For example, Kurosawa regular Shimada Takashi (the leader of the Seven Samurai) has a role as Otake Jubei, the father in law of one of the ronin. Raizo turns in his usual solid, if abbreviated, performance as Asano Takumi-no-kami (Asano here is referred to by his title rather than name). He conveys well the increasing outrage and panic Asano feels while being insulted and fed misinformation by Kira in the course of learning proper etiquette and procedure for receiving the Emperor’s envoy. For those whose image of Katsu is the jovial Zatoichi, he’s almost unrecognizable as Akagaki Genzoemon (Genzo to his pals), one of the leaders of the Ronin who is disowned by his brother after stating that the former Asano retainers have no intention of pursuing vengeance (which, of course, is just a lie to keep the plot secret, although it seems everyone and their brother in the movie are aware of it). But by far the best performance in the film falls to Hasegawa Kazuo, who portrays Oishi. He brings just the right touch of pathos, steadfastness, tragedy, and even comedy to the role. When he commences his ‘cowardly drunken womanizer’ act in Kyoto in an effort to throw Kira’s spies off track, you’ll find yourself hating him even though you know it’s just a ruse. While he isn’t afforded the wonderful stirring pre-raid speech that Oishi usually gets in the live all-day versions of Chushingura, he still manages to dominate every scene he’s in.

As always, Animeigo has done a great job with the translation, packaging, and extras. Among the extras are trailers for Animeigo’s other 47 Ronin film (Ichikawa Kon’s 1994 effort) and one featuring a group that took their visual cue from the Ronin (the Shinsengumi, in Mifune Toshiro’s ‘Shinsengumi: Assassins of Honor’). There’s also an image gallery of b/w and color stills and publicity shots. An extensive cast and crew section gives biographies for the myriad of well known actors along with the director and composer. The historical notes (always a favorite feature of Animeigo releases among SA members) are the most extensive Animeigo has done to date for any DVD. While it regrettably uses Wikipedia’s largely inaccurate account (based on plays and novels rather than history) of Chushingura as a jumping off point, it redeems itself with a large helping of cultural notes and other historical background that explain plot points that might not be readily apparent to a Western audience (such as the significance of Buddhist funerary tablets, worldly and posthumous names, the personal nature of medicine caddies, etc).

With an all-star cast, first rate production values, the definitive version of a classic story, plenty of action, and Animeigo’s attention to the little things that fill out a well-done DVD release, The Loyal 47 Ronin should be on every samurai film buff’s shelf. At nearly three hours, it’s also a good value, being twice as long as the average film. It’s available through most major DVD retailers and also on the SA Store. Watching it will fill your heart with the samurai spirit, and you won’t even have to commit seppuku afterwards!

An Interview with Brick McBurly

2009-04-01T00:00:00.017-10:00

Love him or hate him, or maybe you’re like one of millions of people outside of Japan whom have never heard of him let alone see one of his films or TV show, Brick McBurly is not only just a real person, but he’s celebrity and a loyal member of the Samurai Archives Citadel Community. We were lucky to have a chance to sit down with the fun-loving star of the Japanese TV Show “Abarenbo Gaijin” and more than a dozen films for an interview over two sittings in bars in Tokyo and Kyoto. As always, hanging out with Brick was a wild and rollicking adventure, and thankfully we were able to get the digital MP3 recorder to work for transcription purposes after Brick accidentally dropped it into a bottle of Mexican beer, thinking it was a lime wedge. So without further ado, let’s get to the interview.

OK: How did you get into show business?

Brick: While attendin' the University of Cincinnati back in the early '90's, the Brickster found hisself in need of some spendin' money. Y'see, when I was young, we were so poor that folks used to call me Patches, so there wasn't a whole lot of money left over for me to live on after tuition, room, and board was paid. One of the coeds I was datin', Trixie, was strippin' at bachelor parties for megabucks and mentioned that some friends of hers were lookin' fer an actor who could perform under pressure. Well, I figured that all the storytellin' I was layin’ on her and my other gal pals qualified, so I went to meet these guys. Turns out it wasn’t the type of performin’ I thought it would be-they was shootin' some soft core adult films, but I couldn't dream of anythin' I was better suited for. Hell, I was still gettin' Trixie's goodies, but now I was gettin' PAID for it! That's how the Pizza Delivery Guy series of films got started (‘Our guarantee-you’ll come in 30 minutes or less’), and eventually I got into the more respectable horror genre by appearin' in low-budget vampire films, poundin' my massive stake into nubile soft girly vampire flesh.

OK: Who were your greatest influences and whose work are you a fan of?

Brick: Well, tops on the Brickster's list is Hollywood's greatest untapped natural resource, Bruce Campbell. The man can play anythin' and pull it off with aplomb-whether it's Ash from the Evil Dead series, Old Fat Elvis from Bubba Ho-tep, or his own bad self in My Name Is Bruce. Sure, he’s givin’ the same performance for every character, but he’s so good at it that it don’t matter. Then there’s Rudy Ray Moore-his Dolemite character was a HUGE role model. Man, what a snappy dresser that guy was! Kurt Russell and Roddy Piper also had a big impact on the development of the Brickster’s on-screen persona, particularly Russell’s performance as the clueless hero of Big Trouble In Little China. Stephen Hayes’ breakthrough role as the Dutch sailor who falls outta the riggin’ into the ocean in the Shogun miniseries is a must see for anyone interested in real ninjitsu. Annette Haven and Kristara Barrington starred in the first AV films I saw, and I must be their biggest fan-even though they’re both prob’ly pushin’ 50 by now, I’d still love to co-star in a film with them. On the Japanese side of things, there’s Katsu-shin, who had the role of a lifetime in the Hanzo the Razor trilogy. I love how Tsugawa Masahiko takes over every film he’s in and really makes his characters larger than life, whether he’s playin’ Tokugawa Ieyasu or Chiyo’s uncle in “Komyo Ga Tsuji”. And everyone already knows what a fan I am of Uchiyama Rina (the only reason to watch the Musashi taiga) and Oshida Reiko of the Delinquent Girl Boss series. Reiko’s in her 60’s now, but the memory of her peddlin’ down the street on a bike in her miniskirt lives on. And she’s STILL smokin’ hot. And of course, I’m a big fan of my wife Koyori’s performances. It must suck for her to always be in the Brickster’s shadow.

OK: And your favorite top five jidai-geki movies are?

Brick: Besides my own? Well, right at the top of the list is Bohachi Bushido. It's the yardstick by which all other jidai-geki films are measured and come up short. I mean, a horde of big-boobed naked kunoichi rollin' on the ground, whippin' out shuriken from god knows where, and jumpin' up on a guy's shoulders for the old head twist-like you’d really mind dyin’ that way? All that AND Tiger Tanaka? Then there’s Samurai Resurrection. You got undead historical characters brought back to life only to get whacked by Yagyu Jubei. Monsters and samurai-it’s a tried and true winnin’ combo, the Reese’s Cup of filmdom. Not to mention Jubei ain’t the only one-eyed actor in this little drama, if you know what I mean. American Ninja-Mike Dudkoff and Steve James are some smooth pimps in the movie bringin’ it to the man as only they can. This movie proved there’s no reason a Westerner couldn’t become the master of Japanese genre films. Kunoichi-Lady Ninja had the single greatest effect in film history-electric nipple magic. I’d like to see ILM try to pull that off. And it also featured a different chick whose sekrit dreaded ninja power could only be activated by havin’ sex. I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve used the ‘ninja test’ on some sloshed Brickster groupie in a bar to maximum effect. Then there’d be Sukiyaki Western-D’jango. If the Brickster can play Japanese samurai and Chinese actresses can play geisha, then why can’t the Japanese be cowboys? And the critics loved it. You didn’t see bitchin’ about ‘why don’t they cast Americans as cowboys’, and no one complained about the gaijin in the cast (Tarantino) like they did with Tom Cruise or Christopher Lambert.

OK: Why is it that the original print of Samurai Sexecutioner is missing? Do you know what happened to it?

Brick: After its initial release, the Studio didn't know what a hot property they had and used the master print as part of a giveaway at the theme park. To quote the brochure, with your ticket, you got a strip of 'original collectible 35mm film from the master print of one of our many smash hits'. Of course, bein' the Studio's token gaijin most of the films were mine, so's after that the only master copy of the film belonged to Koyori-she had videotaped it with a handheld off the big screen and was sellin' bootleg copies on Japan Yahoo auctions. So’s when the demand to release it on DVD overwhelmed the studio, her dad had to come hat in hand with his wallet out to get her copy. She ain’t only gorgeous, but brilliant too.

OK: Is this the reason that it was never released outside of Japan?

Brick: Nah. It was kinda the same thing that kept Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah from bein' released in the US for years and years-political correctness. The Studio thought it would be politically incorrect to export a film to America that showed an American behavin' like yers truly. They'd obviously never seen an epsiode of Springer. For that matter, none of my films have ever been officially released outside of Japan. I think the Studio views ‘em like Paramount does the Friday The 13th series-they love the money it brings in to produce the A films no one goes to see, but they’re embarrassed to admit that they did ‘em. It’s kinda like havin’ sex with an ugly broad.

OK: In Samurai Sexecutioner II, the prosthesis you wore to enhance the size of your manhood, was it functional? Because it sure seems like you were actually doing it with some of your female co-stars. And if so, how does Ko react to it? Can she brush it off as just acting because you, as Brick, are emotionally devoid of the people you are interacting with while your character maybe isn't?

Brick: Huh? What the hell are you talkin’ about? Well, the prosthesis was of course our tribute to Teh Man, Hanzo The Razor. No regular mortal can measure up to the legacy he set, so we had to go for artificial enhancement. And no, it wasn't functional-unless you count the effect it has on gals when you wear it to a party. Chicks are flat out mesmerized by it, like it was a spittin’ cobra or somethin’, and it’s way better than usin' a rolled up sock. Since I have no clue what the rest of your question means, why don't we ask Ko?

Koyori: Obenjo-san, all of the sexual relations in our films are simulated. It is to the credit of our special effects master, Kondo-san, that they look so real to our viewers. I will pass on your compliment to him. There is also the matter of Brick realizing that were he ever to engage in an unfortunate improper relationship on the set or away from it, my daddy knows many fine men with tattoos who would be pleased to help him find his way back to the righteous path. Yes, it is indeed fortunate that many eyes are constantly on my darling Brick to aid him in behaving correctly.

Brick: Uhhhhh…yeah, what she said. And it ain’t like I’m smart enough to employ a Brickster Kagemusha to throw private detectives off the trail or anythin’ like that, freein’ me up for a night on the town.

OK: We all saw some of the stills from Samurai Sexecutioner III. Wasn’t this supposed to have been released already? I don’t remember seeing any ads for it at the theatres.

Brick: No, yer thinkin’ of SS II. III is still filmin. If you’d been readin’ McBurly Monogatari on www.brickmcburly.com (the Official Website of the Brickster, complete with a filmography, reviews of other samurai films, and purchase links for official Brickster merchandise) you’d know that we had to suspend filmin’ in December to get my New Year’s specials done. Now, as you know, B-movies in Japan usually go straight to video but the Studio wanted to establish SS II as a theatrical release. After the gala premiere, it showed fer a weekend at the Lucky Star Theater so they could market it as a ‘big screen blockbuster’.

OK: Oh, so SS II went to DVD after a one-weekend run at a theater in Kabuki-cho. Well, I haven’t even seen the disc on sale in shops. Who is distributing the DVD? As a matter of fact, I haven’t been able to find any of your SS series of films on DVD. The copy of the first film that I have was burnt on a disc for me by a friend.

Brick: Well, like I said, most of the stuff I film is direct to video or fodder for the Studio’s Samurai Action Channel on cable. And like a lot of B films, big chain stores don’t carry it and many times the specialty stores stick it in the ‘adults only’ section, which I’m sure you never venture into, Benji. Things are complicated further by the fact that unlike in the US, Japanese film companies only print up the amount of DVD’s they think they can sell. And they ALWAYS lowball my films-I think they still find it hard to believe that someone would rather watch Samurai Sexecutioner than a wuss film like Hana, or Ballad Of Narayama which spotlights a guy bonin’ a dog. I know you can get SS II at the Studio Store in the theme park, YesAsia, and other fine online retailers. The SS I boxed DVD set was produced in very limited quantities and was an instant sellout. It sometimes shows up for a King’s ransom on eBay and Yahoo Auctions. The old VHS copies that have a butchered cut show up sometimes, too. Yer lucky you knew someone with a copy of the DVD, even though ya really shouldn’t be acceptin’ stuff from video pirates. Bastards.

OK: You once said that you try to inject a little historical realism into all the jidai geki you make. Assuming you weren’t talking about injecting something into your female co-stars, how so? Would you care to elaborate on this?"

Brick: Well, for example, recently on “Abarenbo Gaijin” I was put in the situation of havin’ to disguise myself as a woman to blend in with Hideyoshi’s version of the Ooku. Now, one of the Taiko’s servin’ girls was shown bringin’ a tray of raincoats to him, but I balked at that when I saw what the prop department had done. They were your typical garden variety Trojan brand-and I refused to film the scene until they substituted Taiko-enz, which history has recorded were the only brand that Hideyoshi would use. Another example took place in Samurai Sexecutioner II, where Orugasuma Eito seduces the wife of the 47 Ronin’s leader, Oishi Kuranosuke. The script called for a straight up session, but since historically Oishi’s wife preferred it magatama style on the kitchen floor, I insisted we do it that way.
That’s not to say I’m an anal-retentive history geek like you guys on the SA. If it’s somethin’ minor that the viewers will like, such as givin’ Wakizaka Yasuharu an early version of a nuclear sub with a ninja strike force led by Stephen Seagull shot out of the torpedo tubes to deal with Korean Admiral Yi, that’s OK. Never let a small detail get in the way of a good story, except when it turns out Seagull is too fat to fit in the torpedo tube.

OK: After you are dead and long gone, what do you think your acting legacy will be? How do you want to be remembered?

Brick: Like most actors, I just want to BE remembered. Hopefully, people in future generations will still be entertained when they boot up the 3-D virtual reality interactive version of Samurai Sexecutioner. If I can provide a few laughs, a few thrills, a few shivers of delight for the ladies-I’ve done my job. If nothin’ else, I hope to still be able to do mall openin’s and memorabilia shows after I’m too old to act. Celebrity in Japan truly is fleetin’-today’s Idol is tomorrow’s Soapland employee. But as long as I’m married to the Producer’s daughter, I have confidence that my career’ll be long and productive.
More important is my legacy as a human being. That’s why I take such pains to use my celebrity to perform good works within the community-like the ‘Brick McBurly Valentine’s Day Hot Tub Party’, or the traffic safety promos I do with Hikonyan. It’s important to be a role model for the kids. I love how their little faces light up when I’m makin’ an appearance at their school and tell them that lyin’ is always wrong, unless it’s necessary to get you out of a tight spot. And that the Brickster was just helpin’ their mommy out when she wasn’t feelin’ well, and nothin’ was really goin’ on there, really. When the little ones hear that violence never solved anythin’ but that a six-iron to the groin provides a nice temporary fix from the neighborhood bully, it really means somethin’ to them comin’ from the Brickster.

OK: You once told me, as you were getting up to use the toilet after draining a six pack of warm Shibata Premium Draft, that in your films, you aim to please. I remember replying, “I hope you aim, too, please.” ‘Aiming’ just doesn’t seem to be one of your strong spots, does it? As a matter of fact, I seem to recall you were recently apprehended by the police for showering Sean Penn from a balcony at Roppongi Hills as he was stepping onto the red carpet for the Japanese premier of his film, Milk. Was this just really a publicity stunt, as you later claimed in the press? After all, is the Japanese designer, Nigo, who was scheduled to unveil a new line of clothing called “A Bathing Brick” And what was it that you poured on Sean Penn?

Brick: That is one damn long question. Well, it was a joke between me and Sean Penn. I poured the contents of a milk carton down on him, while yellin', “Love milk?” Me and Sean Penn became friends while filmin' was rollin' for Fast Times at Ridgemont High. My cousin Stone played one of the guys in the van with Sean’s character, Jeff Spiccoli. I was allowed to visit durin' filmin' and met him on the set one day and accidentally spilled a glass of milk on him. In typical Sean Penn fashion, he slugged me. Since then, it’s become a bit of a tradition between me and him. As I was up on the balcony, I figured he’d have a hard time sluggin' me this time, but I didn’t figure on the cops comin’ up. Actually, no charges were pressed and the cops all had a good laugh about it after they realized what a photo op they stumbled on.

OK: Controversy seems to follow you as much as shrine maidens! Speaking of controversy, tell us a little bit about the trouble you got in at the end of 2008 with the Church, the Hosokawa Historical Memorial Society and the Kumamoto Chamber of Commerce? This had something to do with your Christmas film Cum All Ye Faithful, which ran only one time on the Rainbow Channel, right?

Brick: Well, yeah, I was ex-communicated for a few days because I played a bad monk, if you know what I mean, who was gettin' it on with Hosokawa Gracia, who was supposed to be all saintly and stuff. Actually, my character was gettin' it on with just about every hottie on the island of Kyushu, and one of them hotties in the film was the real life daughter of the President of the Kumamoto Chamber of Commerce. I’m still persona no grata there. But regardin' the Church, to make a long story short, I was re-communicated and forgiven, even though I’m a Buddhist and not Catholic, when I agreed to attend an autograph sin’n session at the Vatican for a bunch of my nun fans on the Pope’s behalf. Hey, Benji, you know a lot about the trouble nuns can cause for men, don'cha?

OK: Sounds like a lot of ‘nunsense’ to me. I got to ask you this, though. Was it really a coincidence that you happened to be at that McDonald’s in Japan while an AV movie was being filmed there-at least until the police shut it down?

Brick: Well, I was ‘lovin’ it’, at least while it lasted. And I never woulda had Ko's mom (former Olympic judo bronze medalist), 'Right Cross' Chiba, along fer the ride if I knew in advance what was goin' on.

OK: One review, in the Japanese monthly magazine “Bigu Sukureen Stahs” described you as the new king of ‘Poruno Jidai-Geki’. How do you feel about that title?

Brick: I’m proud as hell. After I read that article, I tried gettin’ the guys in costumin’ to make me a crown emblazoned with that on it along with a regal cloak so’s I could wander around Gion like the Burger King, surprisin’ unsuspectin’ ladies with a free helpin’ of my wares. And who among the current crop of Japanese movie stars deserves the title more’n me? It’s like Bruce Campbell says at the end of Army of Darkness’-“Hail to the King, baby”. You’d think they was makin’ every film and TV show for gay men, seein’ as how metro sexual and feminine most of the male leads are.

OK: Do you think that the poruno jidai-geki genre is in the midst of a revival or renaissance of sorts? After all, you’ve been linked to a remake of Ishii Teruo’s classic, Bohachi Bushido that starred Tamba Tetsuro as an inscrutable ronin who sure knew how to swing his katana within the Yoshiwara.

Brick: You bet. Historically, whenever times get tough or society is in a state of flux, that’s when people turn to escapist films like horror or jidai-geki for entertainment. And it don’t get much more escapist than watchin’ a Westerner in a Japanese role rackin’ up the score in an historical settin’. Unless ya throw in a few monsters or aliens, all of which we’re also more’n happy to do. And let’s face it, there’s ALWAYS a market for porn. Heck, Al Gore invented the internet just so there’d be a place to host it all.

OK: When are you going to start filming Bohachi Bushido?

Brick: It can't be soon enough for my tastes-prob'ly after I’m done filmin' my new historical epic, Yasuke.

OK: Oh, I see. Tell us about this project, it sounds interesting.

Brick: As you know, Yasuke was an African brought along by the Portuguese while visitin’ Nobunaga. Oda took an interest in him and requested that the Portuguese hand over Yasuke, which they were only too happy to do since they really didn’t groove on rap. It’s really quite the upliftin’ story. Yasuke-kidnapped and forced into slavery-torn away from his posse and beeyotches-forced to wear the ridiculous lookin’ clothes of the Portuguese. Strugglin’ to keep his head high and uphold his dignity while assaulted by the taunts and abuse of Nobunaga’s redneck country samurai, who even tried to wash off his skin color. Becomin’ the REAL Afro Samurai and followin’ the way of the warrior. Carvin’ out a friendship with the Demon King, even bein’ afforded the privilege of callin’ him ‘dawg’. Standin’ by Nobunaga until the very end, not even givin’ in to the temptin’ words of the Great Emancipator, Akechi Mitsuhide. Now, there are some who said Yasuke ran like a scared rabbit when Mitsuhide attacked at Honno-ji, but he really was just battlin’ through overwhelmin’ odds to reach Nijo Castle and defend Nobunaga’s son. Course, the son got wasted too, but that wasn’t Yasuke’s fault. Heck, some tales have him swingin’ a terrible swift sword as big as a pine tree, showin’ the strength of fifty men, and scatterin’ the Akechi army like so much dust before the wind-even though they somehow managed to kill off everybody else in the Oda army. And he did it all faster than that newfangled steam hammer could, too. Since history doesn’t record what became of Yasuke after that, the script ends on a happy note with him becomin’ the founder of the Yoshiwara district in Edo years later, with his instant catchphrase, “Where my money?” The Studio loves the idea, and since all Westerners look the same and just like Elvis to them, they didn’t have the problems with me playin’ the title role like an American studio would.

OK: So, you are really playing the part of Yasuke? I guess this is conceivable since Robert Downey, Jr., who is white, played the role of an Afro-American in the recent comedy Tropical Thunder and Eddie Murphy and the Wayan brothers have played Caucasians before. Besides the makeup, are there any special challenges to playing Yasuke?

Brick: Not really. We have a lot in common. Me bein' a feared and respected foreigner just like Yasuke-me bein' somewhat of a curiosity for the Japanese to stare at just like Yasuke-me bein' a muscular stud just like Yasuke-me dancin' every bit as good as Yasuke-the list goes on and on. If it wasn't for the skin color difference and the fact that he's been dead for hundreds of years, we could be brothers. I also wear the prosthesis from Samurai Sexecutioner to give the role a little more historical authenticity, jus' like we talked about before. I’ve re-watched the Dolemite series to put me in the proper frame of mind to accurately portray this forgotten hero of Japanese history, and I've also re-watched a buncha “Good Times” episodes with Jimmie Walker. The only real problem is the dread locks--I cringe every time I look in the mirror and don’t see my trademark impeccably groomed ‘do but do see Manny Ramirez/Bobby Marley starin’ back at me.

OK: Why do you suppose that widely acclaimed Japanese samurai film connoisseurs, such as Patrick Galloway, refuse to acknowledge your work?

Brick: Patrick who? Ya mean that fashion plate in black socks and sandals that lurks around the back lot sometimes and has to be chased off by the Studio's Mall Cop? Well, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that movie reviewers dislike anythin’ that supposedly disturbs the ‘purity’ of the films they love. The disdain for the Brickster is no different than that shown for Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai. Add to that the fact that most of these guys can’t speak Japanese and can’t get subtitled copies of my films, and I don’t stand a chance. But who cares? The Japanese love ‘em, and they’re the ones buyin’ tickets and DVD’s. When Japanese women are lookin’ for a spicy film to heat up their day while their husbands are at work, it’s a good bet from schoolgirl to obaa that they’re usin’ their tremblin’ hands to insert the Brickster into their DVD player.

Now, as to Pat personally, while he’s got a serious case of HUA when it comes to my films, I think he’s a great guy. His books have tipped me off to a lot of classics I might have otherwise missed, and unlike some critics he gives B movies the same respect he shows A movies. And he sends me photos of Reiko-chan, so he’s O-tay by me. Benji, don’t he have a new book comin’ out in a coupla weeks? I’d buy it, but I’m sure I’ll be gettin’ a complimentary copy in the mail any day now.

OK: You’ll have to wait for that book from Pat. Publication’s been delayed and I don’t think he’ll be sending you anything after what you just said about his fashion sense. What would your 'dream project' be, if you had an unlimited budget and complete creative control?

Brick: Well, that would be a full length (yuk, yuk) production of the unabridged Tale of Genji with me in the title role. I mean, when smooth-talkin' cultured and educated womanizin' horn dogs are brought up, my name is always first out of the gate with the ladies of Japan. It's a natural!

Even though it wouldn't be an historical epic, I'd also like to get the starrin' role in the film adaptation of Lian Hearn's Tales Of The Otori. I'm talkin' of course, about the role of the naughty warlord Iida Sadamu. Now, of course, there'd have to be a few minor adjustments made to the script to accommodate the Brickster. Fer example, Kaede would have to turn on Takeo and put his head on a spike outside Iida's castle. Nobody would ever believe a hot babe like Kaede would prefer a wuss like Takeo over the roguish charm of Iida as performed by me. One'a those SMAP guys would be perfect for the role of Takeo, and nobody'd miss him when he got offed. We could then end the film with a rousin' pillow fight between Iida and Kaede. I think it'd be the perfect vehicle to introduce the Brickster to Western filmgoers.

Hey Benji, I gots a question for you if you feel up to it. Whatever happened to that Lt. Boomer guy and Mr. Dorka? They were two of my fav’rites on the SA.

OK: You mean Msr. Iaidoka, and Domer, right? Domer supposedly got in trouble with his wife when she walked in on him stripped down to his boxers and wearing 3D glasses while watching some of your movies with a big bowl of popcorn. As for Iaidoka, I don’t know. Well, anyway, Brick, it’s been a real pleasure. Good luck with the films and we’ll see you on the small screen.

Brick: You bet. Thanks. By the way, can you spot me 1,000 yen? I’m feelin' thirsty and need another cold one after talkin' with you.

OK: You’ve got to be kidding, right?

Brick: About bein' thirsty? Never, big guy. Come on, Benji, you ‘kin add it to my tab of bar bills that you’ve been coverin' for me.

Due to the rumors that started to swirl earlier this week about noted historian and author Anthony J. Bryant having a cameo role in the upcoming bio-epic Yasuke, I felt it was necessary to call up Brick and ask a follow-on question about this, as Mr. Bryant is being a little coy.

OK: We've heard recently that historian and SA member Anthony Bryant has been offered a walk-on role in Yasuke. There seems to be some confusion in fandom over what part he's actually going to be playing. Can you shed any light on this matter?

Brick: Well, A.J. was originally slated to play the role of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki-but he was cast sight unseen. When he showed up on the set, the gal who's our castin' director got one look at his legs and decided he'd be perfect for the role of Shiz-he-ka, the evil shirabyōshi dancer. Imagine my surprise! Looks like it was a good career mood for Lord Effin'ham, since the Brickster hears he's slated to be part of the next round of "Dancing With The Stars" on American TV.

Mitsuo....err, Sharpe's? "Samurai Battles"

2009-03-23T02:06:00.004-10:00

Usually I don’t like to post negative reviews-I’d much rather feature a good book that others might enjoy and find useful than waste time dwelling on a failed effort. However, sometimes circumstances dictate that a sub par release be drug into the spotlight. That’s why I’m writing about the recent highly anticipated ‘Samurai Battles’ by Mitsuo Kure. Because, you see, ‘Samurai Battles’ isn’t written by Mitsuo Kure at all (despite what the Amazon listing and the publisher Chartwell’s catalog say). Kure’s name never turns up once-as a picture credit, a footnote source, or an acknowledgement. Instead, it turns out that one Michael Sharpe was substituted for Kure at the last minute as author of the title. Who’s Michael Sharpe, you might ask? He’s described as an English teacher living in Japan (which in and of itself is a red flag) and a writer of several books on World War II (which, of course, makes him an expert on pre-modern Japanese history…uh-huh). Sharpe is also the author of ‘Samurai Leaders’, a book so far under the radar that it only came to the Samurai Archives’ attention when one of the board members found it for a couple of bucks on the closeout table at a bookstore. Interestingly enough, that book is also listed as being written by Mitsuo Kure and he had nothing to do with it either. Samurai Leaders was a poor effort, and as we shall see many of its problems were transferred directly to ‘Samurai Battles’. It’s unknown why publishers Chartwell and Compendium are listing Sharpe’s books under Kure’s name. Perhaps Kure pulled out and Sharpe was brought in at the last minute to do a quick fix, but that’s nothing more than idle speculation. At any rate, allowing this book to continue to be listed under Kure’s name is fraudulent and misleading. It could be forgiven if the work in question ended up being well done-but sadly, that’s not the case here. ‘Samurai Battles’ is a pretty straightforward account of 700 years of samurai warfare-roughly 1180 to 1877, although several earlier conflicts are mentioned. There isn’t much in the way of critical thought or analysis-so little that the accounts reminded me of Wikipedia entries. In fact, a comparison of the chapter on the Genpei war with Wikipedia shows that the two tally point by point-they’re not word for word, but I suspect that the similarities are more than coincidental. The information in the book is several years behind the current state of scholarship. For example, Tedorigawa is described as being a major battle between the Uesugi and Oda involving well over 50,000 men-an account that hatched out of a fanciful desire of the Japanese General Staff’s desire to produce an impressive looking ‘official military history’ in the 1890’s. It’s now largely accepted that the battle was a minor rearguard action involving less than 2000 troops. Likewise, Edo period legends are accepted as fact (such as the story of Akechi Mitsuhide’s mother being put to death as retaliation for Oda Nobunaga’s execution of two envoys). Many accounts leave the reader with mistaken impressions-after reading the description of Mikata-ga-hara, one would be left thinking that the Takeda army was decimated and in tatters after the battle rather than having just steamrolled the Tokugawa. And in many places, ‘Samurai Battles’ is just plain wrong-such as stating that cannon were in widespread use in Japan by 1582, and Kawanakajima is described as a naval battle. The layout of the book is puzzling-although it seemingly is trying to follow a timeline, it places the chapter on Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea (1592-98) after the chapter on Sekigahara (1600). Glaring omissions abound-despite the claims of covering warfare from 1180 to 1877, the Osaka campaigns (1614-15) and the Shimabara Rebellion (1638) are absent. That’s like writing a book on the history of battles in the United States and leaving out World War II.

As far as sources, there is no bibliography, but each chapter has endnotes with sources. Some of the sources are from well regarded scholars such as Thomas Conlan or Karl Friday, but one has to wonder if the author has actually read these works or just ‘borrowed’ their citation from footnotes on Wikipedia (which seems to be the case). Otherwise, only articles available for free on the net or the most general surveys (such as Turnbull’s ‘War in Japan’) are used. Many times, one single work seems to be the basis for an entire chapter. Thus, we are subjected to the poorly formulated and highly biased articles of Kenneth Swope as the foundation for the chapter on the Korean invasions. Not mentioned are easily available popular sources on the invasions such as Turnbull’s two books on the war, Admiral Yi’s memoirs or diaries, ‘The Book of Corrections’, or Samuel Hawley’s excellent ‘Imjin War’, all of which leave Swope’s efforts looking like the work of an embittered teenager not invited to the dance.

Usually, most coffee table books of this type can garner at least a token recommendation on the basis of a plethora of pictures, maps, photos, and woodcut reproductions. But ‘Samurai Battles’ botches this, too. Many of the shots are poor reproductions and badly blurred. Even worse, many of the images have incorrect captions that clearly have nothing to do with what is being depicted. A famous print of (Taira) Noto no Kami Noritsune and Minamota Yoshitsune at the battle of Dan-no-Ura is captioned as being ‘Tajima the Arrow Cutter’ at the battle of Uji. A detail of the Anegawa battle screen is said to be Tokugawa Ieyasu at the battle of Sekigahara. A print of the famous ‘race across the river’ by two horsemen at the second battle of Uji is captioned as Minamoto Yorimasa from the first battle years earlier. And a print of Nasu no Yoichi shooting the Taira fan at the battle of Yashima is said to be Taira Masakado! Even some of the ‘correct’ captions are lagging behind on scholarship, since they go with the old identifications of works that have been reattributed (such as the scroll painting of Ashikaga Takauji on the back cover, which is now thought to be one of his vassals). Some captions just leave one wondering-a print of the 4th battle of Kawanakajima is identified as such, but also contains totally unrelated text about the effect of Korean and Chinese culture on Japan over a thousand years before the battle was fought. What makes all this even more unforgivable is that these are the SAME EXACT BLURRY AND MISCAPTIONED SHOTS USED IN ‘SAMURAI LEADERS’. The strategic and battle maps in the book are well done, but upon closer examination proved to have been copied from Turnbull’s ‘Samurai Sourcebook’, Sansom’s ‘History Of Japan’, and Solum’s ‘Saga Of The Samurai’. They’re more colorful, but there’s no doubt where they were ‘borrowed’ (and I use the word loosely) from. And yes, they have errors too-the most obvious being the forces of the Western and Eastern armies being reversed in the Sekigahara campaign map.

In summary, there’s little here for either neophytes or scholars. Don’t be fooled by the eye-catching cover. Perhaps someday Kure will indeed write a ‘Samurai Battles’ book, and I’ll be looking forward to it-but my advice to all would be to avoid the Sharpe version at all costs.

On Board With Dan Free, Author Of 'Early Japanese Railways'

2009-03-13T02:49:00.013-10:00

Author Dan Free of "Early Japanese Railways 1853-1914: Engineering Triumphs That Transformed Meiji-era Japan" (released by Tuttle Publishing and available through the SA-Amazon Store) received a graduate degree in law from George Washington University in Washington, DC as well as an undergraduate degree in French (with a dual minor in German and Italian) from Ohio State University. He's also studied Japanese and Korean. Dan has traveled extensively in Japan, China, Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, Nepal, Myanmar, and Thailand. Early Japanese Railways represents the culmination of 25 years of research on Dan's part and is a comprehensive work tailored to both scholars and casual readers (see the SA review below this interview). In the following interview, SA is the Samurai-Archives and DF is Dan Free.

SA: Mr. Free, thanks for taking time to speak with the Samurai Archives. What factors led you to develop an interest in railroads, and Asian railroads in particular? Did your curiosity predate your discovery of the documents submitted in 1904 to 'The Locomotive Magazine' by Kashima Shosuke?

DF: I grew up in a time when the prospect of air travel was beyond the means of most people I knew, and a train or ocean liner journey provided the early image of what travel was meant to be - trains that offered staterooms that converted from seats into your bed at night, after you'd returned from the dining car and a full day watching mountains roll by under a glass dome set in the top of a passenger car - or at least that was how it was presented, and the concept seemed good enough to me as a child. So I was intrigued by railways out of wanderlust, I suppose.
My interest in Asian railways came considerably later as an adult. I had been an admirer of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, one of the great engineering geniuses of the first half of the 19th Century, and was in touch with several antiquarian book dealers in the UK specializing in railways and engineering to obtain materials on his Great Western Railway. By off-chance I ran across a packet of materials on turn-of-the-century Japanese railways among the stock of one of them. I'd been interested in East Asian culture generally since my teens and had by that time started a miserably small collection of Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, so that packet was a curiosity that combined two of my interests. The lot turned out to be the Kashima Shosuke submissions, and of course those materials arrived a whole set of questions in tow and started a chain-reaction that two decades later led to the book.

SA: The book features a nice blend of power politics, tech, and cultural impact. Was this a conscious decision on your part to make it more accessible to a general audience?

DF: Yes. I realized that this was a classic example of a "niche market" book and that I had three constituents who might be interested: general readers with an interest in Asian history or culture, railfans, and scholars, and the trick would be to find the appropriate balance to please all three in order to appeal to as broad a market as possible. It was a bit like trying to find where the proper place to hit would be in a bull's-eye target that looked like a circle surrounding a three-point star. I never had any intent to produce something along the lines of the "Romance of the Orient Express" style coffee table books you find in a big-box bookstore, so I had planned to weight the book more heavily on a technical/scholarly bias, but as I got involved in the actual process of writing, realized that while an East Asian studies major would be conversant with the "railway colonialism" of the 19th Century, he or she wouldn't necessarily appreciate railway economics or engineering points and that a railway aficionado might have little if any grounding in Japanese history, and so on. So I found that I had to be sensitive to making sure issues and facts that I sometimes take for granted were put in proper context, at the risk of losing some readers' interest.

SA: The Tokugawa Shogunate granted the United States the first railway concession in Japan in early 1868-a short line from Yokohoma to Edo. However, after the Shogunate was ousted from power, the Meiji government refused to recognize the grant although they had agreed to assume all international agreements made by the Bakufu. Why was this done and how did the Japanese go about nullifying it?

DF: I think the ultimate reason that doomed the American efforts was the Japanese Government's fear of foreign control and the potential exposure to the dangers of colonization that was inherent in the Bakufu's concession, which envisioned that the projected line would be foreign-owned and operated. The new government hinted at this in its insistence that the line be built as an undertaking of the Japanese people - I forget the exact words. What was presented on its face as a matter of national pride and honor actually was masking the fear of colonization that was the chronic bête noire for the new Meiji government's policy makers. They couched matters this way for positive spin, as it was naturally not a subject openly discussed with their Western counterparts. The Japanese at the time had to play a very careful and delicate game of playing one power off against the other, all the while not becoming too dependent on any one of the powers at their doorstep. At bottom line, the Japanese government saw it as too big a step down the slippery slope of endangering the survival of an independent Japan. What I find intriguing and unanswered is why the American Resident Minister Van Valkenburg, his successor DeLong, and the Deputy Secretary of Legation Portman didn't actively push the concept of a compromise where the American government would agree to Japan financing (through American banks or markets or by its own means) and owning the railway, but build it using American equipment and technical advisors, which is, after all, how the project ultimately was structured with the British. We know that in the course of the negotiations the Japanese foreign minister offered to trade the railway concession for some other thing of value to the Americans, but no one at the American Legation seemed to have taken this as an opening to explore restructuring the terms of the grant to calm Japanese fears, while still salvaging a potential for American involvement as the source of equipment and technical advise.

SA: The early decision made by the Meiji government to adopt a smaller rail gauge (3' 6") for their system than was generally used worldwide (4' 8 1/2") was to have far reaching consequences. How might the Japanese rail industry have developed differently had they used the Western standard?

DF: The ramifications of that decision - and who actually made it is still not a settled point of history - are still rippling today, and the "what-if" scenario for the Japanese rail industry is timely. The three factors of the opening of access to the Trans-Siberian Railway to external shippers with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the increased cost of petro-fuels, and the hazards of piracy off the Horn of Africa on the main Asia-Europe sea route have all combined to make the prospect of shipping Japanese goods to the markets of Europe by rail not only within the realm of feasibility, but increasingly attractive. China and Korea's railways are fortuitously both built to the standard gauge of 4' 8 ½“ used in almost all of Europe, and the US for that matter. And the simplest route would be across the narrow strait dividing Japan from Korea, then to China for transit through Manchuria, and on to Europe via the Trans-Siberian. There would be a notable time savings over the ocean route, and there would be a dramatic savings in fuel cost compared to a land route using conventional trucking. The problem of North Korea is an obvious stumbling block in such a scheme, but North Korea could be by-passed by rail-car laden ferries calling at Chinese ports, and Dalian or Lushun come to mind immediately. The Russian gauge of 5' is close enough to Europe's, China's, and Korea's that adjustable wheelsets could be devised for the railcars to handle the 3 ½ inch difference. This has been done for trains changing gauge at the Franco-Spanish border where there’s a break in gauge. But the gauge of Japan’s freight railway system is an obstacle. While the Shinkansen “Bullet Train” system has been built to the worldwide standard of 4’ 8 ½", freight traffic is still confined to the old 3' 6" gauge network, and for safety reasons, it isn't smart to have slow-moving freight trains moving in and out of passing sidings on a high-speed passenger network that is already congested enough. If you add one more "what-if", the equation becomes even more intriguing. What if Japan's colonial administration of Korea had been much more benign and focused on assisting Korea in attaining early independence rather than absorption into the Japanese state such that the two nations were now friendlier and on more trusting terms today? At some 33 miles, Japan's Seikan tunnel linking Hokkaido with the mainland is the world's longest undersea tunnel, beating the Channel Tunnel by a couple of miles, yet few people in the West are even aware of the fact that it exists. The Strait of Tsushima that divides Korea and Japan is only about 100 miles wide, conveniently interrupted roughly mid-way by the island of Tsushima. If Japan and Korea had had a less acrimonious history that now haunts them, and Japan had adopted "Standard Gauge", would we be reading press releases today about construction of an undersea tunnel linking the two nations, the prospect of shipping Japanese goods to Europe via the Trans-Siberian, and the possibility of stepping onto a Bullet Train in Tokyo bound for Seoul?
The other side of the coin is the fact that it was the congestion and inadequacies of the Japanese narrow gauge lines that gave rise to the decision to build an entirely new network fresh from the ground up in the 1950s that came to be the Shinkansen or "Bullet Train" network. It was a very bold step when taken and hand-in-glove with it came the decision to be bold when planning for high speeds. If Japan had an existing Standard Gauge network in place, it is possible that a much more timid and budget-conscious approach might have been taken to traffic congestion problems in the 50s, and rather than a solution resulting in the so-called Bullet Trains, it might have been much easier and less risky to have simply quadruple-tracked the existing lines and use conventional trains.

SA: As you point out in the book, the Japanese armed forces were generally opposed to the early rounds of rail construction (citing foreign influences, clashes over budget allocations, and conflicts over the use of land controlled by the military). What in your opinion was the turning point that brought them 'on board', so to speak, becoming enthusiastic backers of the railroads and increasingly involved with the planning behind them?

DF: I think the point was driven home in a two stage process, and as often seems to be the case, not because the concept carried the day in principle, but because railways were put to the two separate "acid tests", didn't fail, and actually made the job of logistics easier for the military. This latter point seems absurdly obvious today, but there were deeply reactionary skeptics among the military in Japan in the early Meiji era who doubted that privately owned railways would be capable of coordinating transport and supply movements of such magnitude and could be - or ought to be - relied upon in times of national emergency. It was a concern of the era that wasn't unique just to Japan. The mid- to late 19th Century was a time when a spirited polemic was swirling in Europe and the US on just that point, when the state-owned systems of Russia, France, and Prussia/Germany were often cited as examples giving those nations a military edge in time of war over the UK and US with their publicly owned and operated systems. There were only about 65 miles of railway lines in Japan at the time of the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877, in two segments no less that were not even inter-connected. What support they provided was undoubtedly a welcome "nicety", but this probably served enough of a purpose to make more forward-thinking minds take note and enough to end the days of real, active opposition. But there was still a lingering concern among military thinkers that Japanese railways could be captured by invading powers and used against the Japanese. To the extent there was an actual "Eureka Moment" then it would have to be the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95. Here was Japan, "little Japan" to paraphrase some of the commentators of the day, taking on China, the most powerful nation in Asia for century upon century. The Japanese railway network at that point stretched from Hokkaido in the north, down the entire length of the main island Honshu, with transversal lines accessing both coasts along the way, to Hiroshima, and had also reached into Kyushu. Out of necessity, the military discovered that the Government and publicly owned railways that formed the system could indeed coordinate their movements and sustain heavy transportation of critical resources and troops from almost every corner of the nation to ports of embarkation in southern and western Japan at levels never before attainable in Japan. China on the other hand had only one rail line, from Beijing to just beyond Shanhaigun, where the Great Wall met the sea in Manchuria, and precious few of its resources and troops from its vast interiors could be brought to the theatre of war as quickly and easily as Japan was able to, thanks in large part domestically to Japan's rail system. By the war's conclusion, the military thinkers had been converted almost en masse and they could barely contain their eagerness to be involved more closely in state policy and regulatory matters concerning railways.

SA: One of the more interesting side stories in the book deals with 'Jinsha Tetsudo', or human powered railroads. These non-mining railways literally used manpower to push small railcars to local destinations, although the distances on some lines featured impressive levels of mileage. Were these unique to Japan, or did the Jinsha Tetsudo have parallels in other industrialized countries?

DF: The key to this were two facts: Japan was horse-poor and Japan was capital-poor. There are any number of examples in both Europe and America, when a nation was in the infancy of its industrial development, of railways initially being horse-drawn - in fact in the early 1830s almost every nation that started building railways had tried it. Horses used to draw trains up what is now Park Avenue in New York City before the tracks were built under it, for fear passing steam locomotives would scare the horses in other traffic. But horses were a scarce and expensive commodity in mid-19th century Japan. On the other hand, human labor was cheap and plentiful. Japan simply borrowed a page from the industrial revolution playbook that had gone out of vogue in the West by, say 1839 or so, and with the usual Japanese ingenuity, adapted it to its own purposes. If the horses for hansom cabs or hacks like there were in London, Paris, Berlin or New York are too scarce and expensive, then we'll create the rickshaw. If we can't afford an expensive steam locomotive imported from England, or even horses imported by way of British India or California, then we'll make do with a railway powered by human runners - and that was the solution hit upon by small, rural railways serving villages where the traffic potential would never have justified the outlay for a stable of steam locomotives. So, while the concept was uniquely Japanese in inspiration, it was based on horse-drawn antecedents from the earlier days of the industrial revolution. As far as other Western industrialized countries go, I know of no man-powered railways that ever existed - it was cheaper in the long run in the US and Europe to buy and feed a horse than to pay a crew of men. But by the time Japan had become a colonizing power and raised its standard of living to the point where the Jinsha Tetsudo's days were numbered domestically, it built other examples of the Jinsha Tetsudo in both Korea and Taiwan - again, two countries where horses were scarce and expensive and where there was cheap and plentiful labor.

SA: While the railways were best known for their role in economic development and military matters, they also had a major impact on the common people as the rail net slowly tied together every province of Japan. How was the life of an average Japanese citizen enhanced by this new technology?

DF: In ways no less that it did in America or Europe. This is where certain universal principles of what railways have done globally for the world's standard of living start to become clear, but the most profound change in Japan was in large part unfelt, in the "social safety net" it provided. Many country folk in Japan at the dawn of the Meiji era were living at close to a subsistence level. Imagine trying to feed a population with emergency food supplies in times of famine or natural disaster using porters and the occasional pack horse or ox as transport, and imagine that many of the backcountry roads were so narrow that traffic had to go single file along some stretches. That was the situation before railways. As railway stations opened, medicines not readily attainable in small towns came to be distributed more easily, and canned food as well. Specialized tools or other items not yet manufactured in Japan became more easily available. Ideas spread as the people who brought them were able to travel. Journalism grew as newspaper circulation increased due to railways handling of mail, newspaper, and parcel services, and with that, the seeds of a modern public opinion started to sprout. The possibility of shipment of fresh food in from outlying agricultural areas meant cities were able to sustain larger populations, who arrived from smaller towns by rail to take the jobs being offered by the new industrialization starting to take root. The list goes on...

SA: What type of adaptations did the Japanese make in the locomotives and rolling stock built for them by the British, Americans, and Germans? Were there any unique contributions made to railroad technology by Japanese designers? In your opinion, what was the most successful Japanese-built locomotive design of the pre-WWI era?

DF: There were few notable ones in the Meiji era, other than small modifications. Much rolling stock tended to be ordered from Western manufacturers "straight from the catalogue" and not special-ordered, to keep cost low. The first Meiji adaptation that comes to mind is that seats on domestic-built passenger cars in those times were often made deeper, so that a person could sit cross-legged in traditional Japanese style. Freight train cabooses or brake vans were seen as additional expense items for many railways during the Meiji era, so costs were saved by building a small cabin in box cars for the brakeman to ride in. You'll also notice in many of the photographs in the book that the cylinders that drove the connecting rods and cranks on locomotives were often inclined on an angle, which is much less prevalent in British, German or American steam locomotives of the day. This was done in part to give the front wheels added lateral clearance on the tight curves used on some of the narrow gauge lines and due to the tight loading gauge originally used in Japan. Of course, one of the most lasting adaptations, not to locomotives or rolling stock but to railway passenger operations, was the creation of the ekiben - the pre-packaged box lunch still sold in stations today. The truly revolutionary contributions Japanese designers were to make to railway technology would have to wait for the 1960s when they showed the world what the future of railway passenger transportation could be with the Shinkansen network. As far as the most successful pre-WWI era design, this was undoubtedly the 9600 class locomotive, which was introduced just before your cut-off point. They were initially intended as slow speed heavy freight locomotives or mountain helper units, but proved to be very serviceable Jack-of-All-Trades and lasted to the very end of steam in Japan.

SA: As they are wont to do, the Japanese rapidly conquered the basics of railroad construction, phased out the foreign experts they had employed to help get them started, and began to set themselves up as exporters of rail technology to other locations in Asia. Did the Japanese model of exported rail construction differ significantly from, say, Britain's? Was it perhaps more suited to the tighter budgets and economic conditions found in China and Korea?

DF: On lines like the former "Swatow - Chaochowfu Railway" in southern China, where Chinese administrators and investors hired the Japanese to serve as engineers, supply the equipment and rolling stock, and staff operations, they could be very cost-conscious, yes. On lines like the South Manchurian Railway, where national prestige was an issue because the line was one of the prizes of the Russo-Japanese War, and where there was a hidden political agenda in play, the Japanese built boldly, solidly, and to top quality, but seldom squandered resources on unnecessary extravagances.

SA: Early Japanese Railways features an impressive display of period woodblock prints, photographs, postcards, advertising materials, timetables, and other visual aids-all of which are owned by you. Please tell us about the various sources you've procured these items from. Many of the captions are quite detailed, far exceeding the level of detail seen in other books. Was it difficult to ‘place’ many of the photos both as to location and on a timeline?

DF: Any flea market, second hand bookstore, antique dealer, print gallery, post card collectors' convention, or antique fair became fair game. If I saw an old photo album at yard sale, I'd glance through it. It was something I came to be always on the look-out for. And yes there were quite a number of photos that presented challenges. One example is the photo of the first line of railway to be abandoned, which gave rise to a good bit of research to determine its route, in order to confirm that it ran alongside a river, as seen in the photo. A large number of the station photographs had to be checked to see whether the image was that of the first station building to be built, or a later replacement. The names of towns or stations could have changed, so I started to collect and buy any good Meiji or Taisho era atlas I could find to check route and right-of-way questions. The photo of the troops and horses at Muroran station gave me concern, as I suspected the uniforms might have been later in the WW I era. I had launched into researching Japanese military uniforms of the Russo-Japanese War and WW I before one of my correspondents in Japan was able to write that he had found an old newspaper article pin-pointing the troop movement in question to the Russo-Japanese War. Two of the photos ultimately not included in the book showed the aftermath of a railway yard and station after severe flooding, and while I felt fairly certain of the identity of the railway line, and could roughly guess an approximate date, there were no clues as to the name of the station. Again, several of my correspondents in Japan joined in the fun, and I can remember at one point we were attempting to guess the location based on which towns had a known pickle-producing industry in Meiji times, as there were numerous pickle barrels to be seen on the loading platforms or scattered about as débris in the photos. We never did succeed in pinpointing the station. Other times, information fell into my lap like ripe fruit. While I was researching a totally different issue, I unexpectedly ran across a reference to the date Otaru harbor improvements were made, which permitted me to give an approximate date to the photo of the hoisting gantry and construction locomotive on the breakwater being built in the harbor there.

SA: During your extensive research done for the book, did you run across any information that surprised you or challenged any pre-conceptions you might have had?

DF: I was surprised when I found the official US diplomatic correspondence that surrounded the original Tokugawa railway grant. Most of the other histories I had read rarely mentioned Anton Portman, and most failed to mention that he was the deputy chief of the US legation. I suspected that if there were anything of worth to be found in the official diplomatic records, some historian before me had already been there, and the fact that there was nothing of note mentioned in the histories I had read was an indicator that there would be nothing to be found in the diplomatic dispatches. So I was amazed when I found the materials emanating from the US Legation in Tokyo. I had started the book with the notion, obtained from British commentators and Japanese writers in English of the late 19th / early 20th Century period, that the breakdown of the Horatio Nelson Lay financial arrangements was something of an "unfortunate but innocent amicable misunderstanding." After I had obtained the US diplomatic materials, saw who was involved on the Japanese side, worked them into the existing timeline, and realized their import, I started to look more closely at the career of Mr. Lay, and came away convinced that there was a darker side to things - and that perhaps the British and Japanese writers of that era were being more circumspect in what they wrote out of a desire to gloss over past difficulties and put recent unpleasant dealings behind them. I was well along in later chapters of the book when I found those materials and I knew immediately that the first chapters would have to be substantially re-written. I think mine is the first book in English to bring this information to light.

SA: You submitted your manuscript to Japanese rail historian Dr. Aoki Eiichi for review. Did any major changes arise from this or it was it more of a 'fine tuning' process?

DF: Dr. Aoki's review didn't result in major changes, no. What it did result in was the usual number of "fine tuning" corrections, as you said, but more importantly the addition of a very generous amount of additional details and encouraging suggestions as to where I might add more exposition that would be worthwhile. Dr. Aoki was unbelievably kind in adding some notes that fleshed out additional names and dates and added elements of interest.

SA: What other books might you recommend to readers looking for more on the subject of the Japanese railroad industry? Are you currently working on any other projects?

DF: For English-language books, two come immediately to mind. The first is "A History of Japanese Railways 1872 - 1999", a collaborative effort in English by Prof. Aoki, Mitsuhide Imashiro, Shinichi Kato, and Yasuo Wakuda, East Japan Railway Cultural Foundation, 2000, ISBN 4-87513-089-9 and well worth having. The second is the Harvard monograph of Prof. Steven Ericson, "The Sound of the Whistle", Harvard Council on East Asian Studies, 1996, ISBN 0-674-82167-X which details the history of finance and state policy decision making concerning railways in the Meiji era far better that I could ever have done. For those who read Japanese, the ultimate is Japan National Railways' ten-volume official history which was produced in 1972 on the hundredth anniversary of railways in Japan, now unfortunately out of print and increasingly hard to come by even in Japan. For modern railways, Prof. Christopher Hood has produced a timely volume titled "Shinkansen: From Bullet Train to Symbol of Modern Japan", Routledge, 2007, ISBN 0415444098. To answer your second question, yes, I've turned my attention to China and have started work on a companion volume on railways there before 1914.

SA: Thanks, Mr. Free-it's been a real pleasure speaking with you.

Early Japanese Railways 1853-1914: Engineering Triumphs That Transformed Meiji-era Japan

2009-02-28T02:22:00.007-10:00

When we received Early Japanese Railways by Dan Free, we weren't quite sure what to expect. Would this oversized 288 page book be a tech-heavy examination of the nuts, bolts, and hardware involved in railroad building, heavy on the industrial jargon and light on history? Perhaps an examination of the cultural, economic, and political implications that the railways had on Japan? A collection of anecdotes and travel diaries? A coffee table book backloaded with photos and prints? Well, after an in-depth examination, it seems that Free has managed to pull off something special-a book that combines all of the above features and manages to do them justice. It's an impressively well written and even more meticulously researched work that Free has spent 25 years working towards, and a welcome new addition from Tuttle Publishing.

The book begins by dividing the timeline up into themed chapters: The Introduction Of Railway Technology (including the initial rail concession by the Tokugawa Shogunate to the United States), Intrigue, Influence, and Incompetence (the early days of British dominance of the Japanese rail industry and the planning phase of the Meiji rails), Building the First Railway (Yokohama to Shimbashi in Tokyo), Kobe To Kyoto (the first rails in central Japan), Otsu, Tsuruga, Nagahama and East to the Nobi Plain (as the network becomes more connected), Expanding and Integrating the System (more of the same), The Second Railway Mania and the Russo-Japanese War, Nationalization and Self-sufficiency, and Tokyo Station (the final link in a rail system stretching from the north of Hokkaido to the south of Kyushu). Particularly interesting to Samurai-Archives readers will be the early chapters where the political double-dealings and diplomatic blunders committed by both the Japanese and Western powers are laid out in impressive detail.

For instance, the Shogunate's rail concession to the United States (although legally binding to the Meiji government) was seen as something to be negated by the former enemies of the Tokugawa who now found themselves in power. Using the time honored Japanese techniques of stalling, failing to reply to diplomatic requests, and not addressing any of the real issues when a reply was given, the Japanese diplomat Sawa Nobuyoshi ran rings around American diplomat Charles DeLong, taking full advantage of his inexperience in the world of international relations. Instead, seasoned politico Harry Parkes of Great Britain managed to maneuver his country into overseeing and supplying (at great benefit to the coffers of English businessmen) the embryonic Japanese rail industry. Closely tied to this are the examinations of the effect of railways on the Japanese economy, and how it in turn aided the rapid development of other industries. Initially relying on foreign suppliers and engineers (not to mention cash strapped by the extravagance of British construction methods), the development of Japanese engineering and the eventual replacement of foreign experts and suppliers by 'home-grown' ones shows that the long term goal of 'sonno-joi' activists years before actually did see the light of day. In fact, Japan turned the tables, being a major exporter of rail expertise and supplies to its Asian neighbors. It's also shown how the former samurai class managed to stay among the ranks of the elite by using their government buyouts to become one of the biggest investors in railroads. The hand in hand relationship of Japanese industry with the government is shown in the switch from a national railway system to private industry and back again. The increasing dominance of the military in the political sphere can be seen by the growing influence of the army in rail planning decisions.

The effects on the culture of Japan are well documented as well. A national network of rail lines that connected every province had wide reaching repercussions, encouraging travel, trade, and nationalism. Electric lines, tram cars, and the fascinating Jinsha Tetsudo (commercially viable railways operated by manpower) are also examined in detail. Many of Japan's hot springs became famous during this era as these low cost options made them accessible to everyone. With railways and industrialization came more disposable income and a higher standard of living for the Japanese people. The special 'Imperial Trains' of the Meiji Emperor are also given a detailed examination. When the text threatens to become bogged down with facts and details, Free is always ready with an amusing story to break things up. Whether it's a fussy English traveler's complaints about trainboard amenities, early field surveys being thrown off by the refusal of samurai to remove their swords (the metal threw off the calibrations of the instruments being used), or former American President U. S. Grant being chased down a corridor of Shimbashi station in 1878 by a crowd of girls (seems Grant was the Brick McBurly of his day), Free never forgets the human side of railway development.

That's not to say there isn't plenty of technical information. Free has done his homework and if you want to know what company built what line, where it ran to, what the rail gauge was, what their company shamon looked like (along with the visual puns on kanji they incorporated), the arrangement of the running lights, the technical specifications for the locomotives and rolling stock, numbering schemes, and virtually anything else, it's a good bet you'll find it within these pages. Free has taken care not to let the hard information dominate the book, as much of this is related in picture captions and in the amazing compendium of information in the book's appendix (which also includes a helpful list of 'Dramatis Personae' with short biographies of the major players, a Japanese railway/geography lexicon with kanji, and notable documents pertaining to the rails in the political arena). That being said, one area that the book falls short in was not including a simple line drawing of a representative locomotive with rolling stock labelling the different parts of the machinery with an explanation of each part's function. As the book is aimed at a general as well as a scholarly audience, many readers will be in the dark about what many of the things being talked about mean. While most readers will eventually come to know what a '4-4-0' locomotive is, they'll be left scratching their head the first time they see it. Overall, though, Free does a good job of explaining the evolution of locomotive design and also the differences in the British, American, German, and (later) Japanese designs that were used.

The book would be perfectly capable of standing on its own as a picture book. It is loaded with quality photos and prints, both in color and sepia. Free gives these the same care he shows the rest of the book, with detailed captions pointing out things going on in the photographs that are easily missed. Any train enthusiast would be thrilled to have this book on the basis of the images and the appendix alone.

Finally, the quality of the writing and the research behind it is superb. The bibliography, although containing only a handful of Japanese works, is extensive. Free submitted his manuscript to Aoki Eiichi (famous Japanese rail historian) for review and comments, and solicited help in securing information from many museums and individuals within Japan. Unlike many books aimed at a general readership, you'll find few, if any, factual errors within its pages. How meticulous is Free? So meticulous that his book listing on Tuttle's website includes an errata page detailing the few grammatical errors made within (not that there are that many-you'll probably find more just within this review). If every author took the care that Free shows, there would be a lot less eye rolling on the Samurai Archives.

Whether one has a scholarly interest in the impact of railways on development of the Meiji era or enjoys being a dedicated 'train spotter', they'll find a lot within these covers to keep them busy. As we read through the book, it struck us that the history of the rail industry in the Meiji era was a metaphor for the country as a whole-a sentiment Free shares in his concluding remarks. "Few would be able to find a better-suited microcosm more emblematic of the development of the Japanese nation as a whole during the Meiji reign". Early Japanese Railways is a rare example of a work that combines technical excellence and a plethora of information with a lively writing style that always gives the human element its due. Combined with an excellent graphical presentation of hundreds of rare photographs, advertising material, timetables, maps, woodblock prints, and postcards, the book provides a fascinating glimpse of Japan as it moved from self-imposed seclusion to being the 'most Western of Eastern nations'.

Early Japanese Railways: 1853-1914 is available through Amazon at the Samurai Archives store HERE. We'll also be running an interview with the book's author, Dan Free, within the next month or so.

Review: Imperial Politics and Symbolics in Ancient Japan: The Tenmu Dynasty, 650-800

2009-02-25T01:42:00.002-10:00

If you are looking for a title that will scare the bejeezus out of any but the most academically minded folks, look no further than Herman Ooms' cover. Now add to that a little understood Chinese style ceremonial garment which spans a hardback cover including over 353 pages (87 of which make up the notes, bibliography, and indices), and you have little fear of the novice historian sullying your hallowed tome with his ungrateful lack of comprehension. Those willing to brave such daunting warning signs of academic minutiae, however, will find themselves in a quite interesting and engaging discussion of the turbulent Asuka and Nara periods, when much of the groundwork for later Japanese society was laid down.

Don't get me wrong, this is not a book for one who balks at technical language. Ooms's use of such terms as "autochthons" and "allochthons" to describe "native" and "foreign" Japanese may strike some as unnecessarily cumbersome, but Ooms makes a case for the use of more technically precise and neutral terms to describe a history that is already overlaid with so much political bias. He breaks up an otherwise monotonous technical discussion with a subdued humor that keeps you consistently interested.

Herman Ooms begins with a description of what he terms the Temmu dynasty--the lineage of rulers starting with Temmu, who came to power in a bloody coup and civil war, and ending with Kōnin and Kammu, the lineal descendants of Temmu's brother and predecessor, Tenji. He goes on to show how Temmu--the first ruler of Japan to use the term "Tennō"--combined traditional and foreign religio-political symbolism to legitimize his reign and that of his successors. He emphasizes the role of the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki as further legitimizing documents; the compilation of the former overseen by Temmu's own son, Prince Toneri.

In explaining the complex inter-familial ties and squabbles that mark the Asuka and Nara periods, Ooms provides a helpful chart on cardboard in the back of the book, perforated to allow you to remove it and use it as a guide as you read. This proves an invaluable asset as you read through the convoluted history of royal scheming and succession. Inextricably intertwined with the origins of the symbols of imperial power were the political struggles of the royal and noble families. Over a span of only a century, we see a total of ten official rulers--one of them ruling twice--with the last being only two generations removed from the first. On the back of the handy genealogical chart is a second diagram, this one an attempt to untangle the complex political plots that crisscross the period.

An example of the religio-political maneuverings that Ooms covers is the strange case of Empress Kōken/Shōtoku and her Buddhist concomitant consort, Dōkyō. Not only is Kōken the first recorded woman to be appointed crown prince, but she also takes the throne later as Empress Shōtoku without renouncing the Buddhist vows she had earlier taken. In addition, she appoints the priest Dōkyō, her consort in all but name, as Dajō-Daijin who, in turn, saturates the government with his Buddhist cohorts. Things are looking up for Dōkyō, who is poised to become the next heir-apparent, despite his lack of a royal pedigree.

The climax of his explosive rise to power comes in a message from the god of the syncretic and opportunistic Usa Hachiman shrine, who appears to endorse the Buddhist clergyman as the future ruler of Yamato. After an uproar from the nobility, however, it is quickly found that the deity was misinterpreted and Dōkyō was not in fact the kami-approved future sovereign. This is only one instance of the complex interplay of politics and religion in this dynamic period.

This book is a must-read for those interested in this exciting and tumultuous, if brief, period. Ooms explores the foundations of the Japanese state and the interplay between politics and religion. It is a deep and weighty subject, made digestible through gentle sips of a dry and erudite wit.

For more information, see the review posted in the S-A Bookstore, hosted by Amazon.

Review: Samurai of Ayutthaya

2009-02-13T18:44:00.005-10:00

Title: Samurai of Ayutthaya: Yamada Nagamasa, Japanese Warrior and Merchant in Early Seventeenth-Century Siam
Author: Cesare Polenghi
Publisher: White Lotus Press
ISBN 978-974-480-147-0

When I began browsing the Siam Society bookstore in downtown Bangkok the other day, I did not intend on making any new purchases. However, how could I pass up this small, white treatise on what has become a personal quest in this sweltering tropical country? And in reading it, I see I'm not alone.

In Samurai of Ayutthaya lies the current culmination of Polenghi's work on sorting through the fact and fiction of one of Japan's most famous merchant-adventurers of the early 17th century, while expanding upon the early Japanese international entrepreneurs who flourished in the late Sengoku and early Edo periods, prior to the implementation of harsh restrictions and closing of the country. Some may remember an earlier paper of his, written in 2004, entitled "The Japanese in Ayudhaya in the First Half of the 17th Century" (hosted on the S-A Citadel Japanese History Site). He has clearly delved further with his research, and he presents it here in a concise and readable manner. Perhaps my biggest issue is the question: what has he left for the rest of us?

As it stands, Polenghi certainly appears to have made use of all available scholarship on the issue of Yamada Nagamasa, and he puts forth a strong case that he was a real and important individual in Ayutthaya and Japanese-Thai relations. He also delineates fact from fiction, putting much of Nagamasa's later praise in the proper context of pre-war Japanese nationalism, countering with information from the Siamese and Europeans who were there during, or just after, Nagamasa's term as head of the Nihonmachi (or Baan Yippun as it is known in Thai). He also goes into the question of the general presence of the Japanese in the waters of Southeast Asia, describing the inroads they made and challenges they faced as they briefly connected with the larger international community.

If I were to admit any fault in the book, it would only be its first chapter, and that for personal reasons. Polenghi starts out with an admittedly fictional account of Nagamasa's life; this felt out of place in a book that is otherwise about drawing the facts out of a tangled narrative overlaid with anachronistic and unverifiable accounts. I would prefer it stand alone, perhaps as an expanded work, or something akin to Shiba Ryotaro's treatment of Tokugawa Yoshinobu.

Regarding the rest of the book, however, Polenghi does a terrific job of laying out the story of Nagamasa as he appears in the historical record. He begins with a background of the times in which Nagamasa lived, and the relationship between Japan and Siam, and continues to lay out what evidence remains of the records. Regrettably, most of the best sources were lost when the Burmese sacked and burned Ayutthaya in the 18th century, but enough foreign correspondence remains to plausibly reconstruct what happened. We trace Nagamasa's life, from birth to death, as closely as one could hope. We also catch a detailed glimpse of the lives of the merchants of the red seal ships, which plied the seas in the early 17th century.

I also found the work well annotated, but not in a way that could be considered confusing. Polenghi is also honest about the reliability of his sources, and shows an admirable preference for the more trustworthy texts. That doesn't mean he won't drop in a few legendary tidbits every now and then, but he is clear regarding their origins.

Towards the end, we also gt a taste of how Nagamasa has been handled by his fellow Japanese, particularly in regards to the PR campaign that thrust him center-stage as a symbol of Japanese warrior-explorers in the politically charged pre-war era.

This is definitely a must-have book for anyone interested in Yamada Nagamasa, but it is also recommended for anyone interested in Japan's foreign relations in the early 17th century--a dynamic age when intrepid merchants and soldiers-of-fortune were spreading abroad just as their home government was retreating from the rest of the world.

If you are interested in buying this book, you can help out the S-A website by purchasing it and other books through the Samurai Archives Amazon Store.

Jōi and Pain: Trying to Make Sense of Tokugawa Nariaki

2009-02-07T03:34:00.006-10:00

Tokugawa Nariaki: Devil or Saint? Who knows?!?

If anybody was the living embodiment of Mitogaku and all of its inherent contradictions, it had to be the retired lord of Mito himself, Tokugawa Nariaki. Outspoken, brash, lecherous and just plain clever, Nariaki was certainly one of the more colorful personalities that strutted across the early Bakumatsu stage. In the theater-in-the-round that Japanese politics devolved into as a result of the Perry expedition, all eyes were on Nariaki, who certainly dominated a large part of the action on center-stage. Wherever he went, whatever he said or wrote, controversy and riotous debate followed. He had a powerful voice that projected his message to all corners of the empire, no doubt rankling the ears of the Bakufu and certain powerful fudai daimyo. However, Nariaki’s soliloquies on how to remedy Japan’s ills and successfully deal with the ‘foreign issue’ found an adoring audience among reform-minded daimyo, courtiers within the halls of the imperial palace, and among all strata of samurai and commoners alike. Yet just what was Tokugawa Nariaki’s message?

To a lot of us living in the here and now, at first glance, the message looks garbled if not just downright confusing. Trying to decipher the message has led to many of those now famous ‘Bakumatsu headaches’ that some of us have been complaining to each other about recently. How can it not? Nariaki was a walking bag of contradictions. It’s a lot like some of the contradictions we all studied in high school world history classes about Europe in the age of ‘enlightened despotism’. I think it is safe to say that Nariaki was an enlightened feudal lord cut from a mold very similar those of the ‘enlightened despots’ of the European variety, and in some ways, he’s even more difficult to analyze than Frederick the Great, Louis XIV, or Catherine the Great. When it comes to Tokugawa Nariaki, “pro-reform/reactionary conservative; xenophobic/eager to import foreign ideas and technology; pro-Tokugawa/pro-Imperialist” are all words and phrases that are commonly used to describe him. To unravel his message, let’s take a look at his policies and what he stood for and in the process clarify some of these contradictions.

Pro-Reform/Reactionary Conservative Nariaki’s reforms were focused on the preservation of han unity and harmony on a local level and national unity and harmony on a macro level. As written by Aizawa and others, Nariaki firmly believed that harmony could only be maintained if all classes of society respected the existing social hierarchy and political institutions. And the political institutions and social orders were dependent on being sanctioned by the imperial throne—the source of all legitimacy in Japan. Therefore, full-hearted and proper respect must be shown to the emperor in order for Japan to enjoy the benefits of peace and prosperity. Without the proper level of respect being shown for the throne or the political and social orders, Japan would sink into chaos and misery. To Nariaki, the famines and the resulting turmoil of the Tempō period validated his Mitogaku inspired political theory. This is evident in a memorial Nariaki wrote to the Bakufu in 1839 that William Beasley quoted in The Meiji Restoration: “When superiors ignore the hunger and death of farmers in bad years, when they are remiss in making military preparations, when the samurai are weak and idle, then inferiors hate their superiors and do not fear them.” This is in reference to the peasant revolts that were rocking the nation at the time. Taking this a step further, a letter written to Mizuno Tadakuni in 1842, that also appears in Beasley’s book aptly sums up the essence of Nariaki’s beliefs about political and social order: “If the shogun takes the lead in showing respect for the throne, the whole country will inevitably unite in so doing; but it is vital that in this each should observe his proper place. The samurai shows respect for his lord, the lord shows respect for the shogun, the shogun shows respect for the emperor. To forget one’s place and take matters into one’s own hands is an evil act, worthy of the name of rebel.”

Thus, as we can see, Nariaki’s views quite neatly fit inside the Mitogaku interpretation of the Confucian social hierarchy triangle. And to help ensure that merchants remembered their proper place in the pyramid’s lowest rung, Nariaki enacted strict anti-commerce policies that were designed to discourage the growth of the merchant class’ power as well as to help keep farmers on the land, rather than try their luck as shop keepers or traders in urban centers. As for samurai, Nariaki felt that their decline in fighting ability and moral righteousness were due in part to commercial-related activities, giving him another reason to crack down on the merchant class. He, like Shimazu Nariakira, was also against the giving of two swords and a surname to merchants who sought to buy samurai status. It was an outrage to allow bushi status to be bought. And by allowing this sort of thing to happen, samurai morale, morals as well as ethics would erode.

So, what is the substance of Nariaki’s domestic political reforms? He seems like a classic Confucian conservative, does he not? If you agree with that statement, than it shouldn’t surprise you that in essence, Nariaki strove to bring his han back into a traditional Confucian framework that was envisioned by Ieyasu, but of course, with the emperor at the very top of the pyramid. Strong and just leadership combined with the enforcement and study of strict moral and ethical guidelines that constantly reminded all classes of their place, duties and obligation to respect society’s structure, would serve as a bulwark against the erosion of domain strength. Nariaki believed, as did many of his fellow daimyo, that if enactment of this ideal ‘reactionary’ neo-Confucian social structure could be replicated in every han, all would be well and Japan’s domestic troubles, as experienced in the Tempō period, would not and could not occur again.

In nearly all that he did, Nariaki strove to instill his ‘reactionary’ domestic reforms in a way that would preserve his ability as an individual daimyo and that of his beloved han to operate as independently as possible from Bakufu control. This makes perfectly good sense if you agree with Beasley that a feudal daimyo like Nariaki only had three things to be afraid of: Bakufu intrusion from above, peasant rebellion from below and foreign attack from outside. Makes you think Nariaki is really in it for himself, doesn’t it?

Xenophobic/Eager to Import Foreign Ideas and Technology It was Mitogaku that first coined the catchphrase sonnō jōi, and as spokesman for the movement, it is clear that Nariaki didn’t want Japan’s ports opened to the West nor did he want foreigners on Japanese soil in any large numbers. However, Nariaki wasn’t opposed to the importation of foreign ideas, education and technology--if it could be used to strengthen Mito and the various han throughout Japan. Again, Shimazu Nariakira, daimyo of Satsuma, held similar views to Nariaki—after all, he too, was a follower of Mitogaku, Nariakira built Japan’s first steam powered ship, established a telegraph line, started making modern weapons and other products—all aimed at strengthening Satsuma’s military and economic strength. Mito, not having the financial means as Satsuma, followed similar lines, but Nariaki’s economic view of the world was more agrarian-centric, as rice, not industrial products, served as the backbone of the Japanese economy and society. Nevertheless, from the 1840s, Nariaki argued to have the Bakufu’s prohibition on building large-ocean going ships overturned as he felt that there was a need for a strong navy. And once the Bakufu reversed course on the building of large blue water ships after Perry’s first expedition, almost immediately, Mito ordered one of Japan’s first western warships from the Dutch. Nariaki also tirelessly called for an overhaul of the baku-han military system in order to ensure Japan could enact jōi when the time came. In other words, it was acceptable to hold foreigners in contempt, but their goods, services and ideas, if they could be used to defeat or hold at bay those same foreigners, were perfectly okay! I just can’t help to wonder how if Nariaki really felt that in order to import all of these concepts and build up Japan’s defensive capabilities, was the open port of Nagasaki, along with its heavy restrictions placed on the Chinese and Dutch traders, enough to guarantee a big enough trickle of practical ‘barbarian’ ideas and goods?

Pro-Tokugawa/Pro-Imperialist This is the last contradiction that I’d like to take a look at. We know that Nariaki was probably the loudest daimyo when it came to preaching loyalty to the emperor, as espoused in Mitogaku. As a Tokugawa, and a descendent of Ieyasu and a blood relative of the shogun, it may strike people as odd that Nariaki sought to put the emperor above the shogun in the social and political order. But that’s exactly what he did. He even would go out of his way to point out, as he did in a letter to Abe Masahiro in 1846, that although Japan had been a ‘Tokugawa’ country since Sekigahara, there was no law or guideline saying that it should always remain this way. If the Bakufu failed to act to secure the safety of Japan in a time of crisis, others, such as some tozama daimyo, may accuse the Bakufu of failing to live up to its obligations, and an overthrow of the Tokugawa could then become a reality. To avoid this from happening, Nariaki argued that remaining passive and awaiting the outcome of events before making decisions was not an option. He continuously pushed for more proactive policy-making and planning on the part of the Bakufu.

Looking at the above paraphrased letter, it makes Nariaki look like soothsayer, as what he said could happen, eventually did in 1868. And it is clear, that although Nariaki noisily advocated that everything and everyone was subservient to the imperial throne, he did not want to see the Tokugawa fall from power. After all, Nariaki was a Tokugawa and he owed his own life of privilege to the very system that was in place. He clearly did not want the system to fail!

Whether regarded as an devil a saint or a walking bag of contradictions, Tokugawa Nariaki is truly one of the more interesting, yet puzzling figures of the Bakumatsu era.

Karl Friday's The First Samurai: The life and legend of the warrior rebel Taira Masakado

2009-01-04T13:35:00.003-10:00

You know, I've always heard the phrase 'never judge a book by its cover', but until recently I've paid it little heed. Thus, when I saw the cover of Karl Friday's book on Amazon I kept putting it off. After all, what meat could there be in a book with bright, flashing colors on the front and a confusing, anachronistic woodblock print shown in relief? In short, it looked like just another of the myriad populist books on Japanese history, designed to get readers to plunk down money just so the author can rehash old material and convey the same vague generalities about samurai warfare. It seemed to be playing off of the success in the English speaking world of the Tom Cruise "you, too, can live out your doomed romantic warrior fantasies" movie, and pandering to the sammyrai fanatics.

On the other hand, it is Karl Friday, who brought us Legacies of the Sword, Hired Swords: The Rise of Private Warrior Power in Early Japan, and other notable works, so it was on my list.

Now I'm kicking myself that I didn't get this book sooner. The information on not only Taira Masakado, but on the life in Japan during the 10th century and other famous figures of the time, is absolutely wonderful. Not only that, but it presents the facts in a way that is easy and enjoyable to read. I would easily compare it to other recent biographies, such as David McCullough's "John Adams", which open to the reader not just a dry tome of the dust from a person's passing, but the rich texture of life in their day and age.

Taira Masakado is a figure that is famous in Japan, but his name has hardly made a splash in the English speaking world until this book, which will likely, as Thomas D. Conlan lauds, "remain the definitive study of the legendary warrior and his age for years to come." Friday begins by introducing his audience to the Masakado story as it is known in Japan--his rebellion, beheading, and the subsequent legends of that same vital appendage flying about Japan and causing havoc even as late as the mid 20th century. He illuminates for the reader the common conception of Masakado as the first warrior of the early medieval period to rise up in rebellion and challenge the imperial authority.

However, just has he has laid out the groundwork for you, Friday turns the whole thing on its head. He lays out a cogent argument for Masakado as a victim of circumstances and poor judgment, rather than a committed rebel. Masakado comes off as a an able warrior and administrator who was invested in the imperial system and likely had no real intention of setting up anything else, but he was driven into a position where he felt he had no other choice. In fact, the reader comes away with the feeling that Masakado's entire reputation is quite overblown by later historians, and yet the story of his life is no less enlightening about the times he lived in. In fact, it is because he was an exemplar of his times and not an outlier that a study of his life is of such import.

While examining the actions and motives of Masakado, Friday also examines the lifestyles of the provincial warriors during the Heian period and the combination of centripetal and centrifugal forces that kept court and countryside in balance. He reveals for the reader the economic politics of the often hastily assembled warbands, whose ties to their nominal general were often tenuous at best.

He also dispels the later veneer of romance that later authors were prone to place on samurai warfare, putting pragmatism in its proper historical place. For example, he describes not only the lauds given for men skilled at ambush tactics, but the reasons why they were so necessary in this age of the horse and bow.

His research is neatly referenced, with both in-page footnotes and 26 pages of footnotes at the end of the book. His bibliography is divided into Primary and Secondary sources, and the work contains a helpful index for looking up specific topics.

Admittedly, the swirl of "Taira", "Fujiwara", and "Minamoto" surnames can often make following the complex familial relationships of the time difficult for the uninitiated, but Friday uses that confusion to highlight the all too real social complexity of Heian period Japan.

In conclusion, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Anyone interested in the history of the samurai and the rise of the warrior class should have a grounding in the provincial warriors of the Heian period, who were adapting the previous ritsuryo military guidelines to the new era of private bands of horsed archers, and this book, by highlighting one such individual, brings that transition sharply into focus.

If you liked this review, and want to have a look for yourself, then why not buy The First Samurai at the SA Amazon Bookstore!

Samurai Archives Interview With Historian Thomas D. Conlan

2008-12-12T02:57:00.011-10:00

Dr. Thomas Conlan is an Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies at Bowdoin College. He received a BA in History and Japanese at the University of Michigan in 1986, a PhD in History from Stanford in 1998, and attended Kyoto University from 1995 to 1997 on a PhD Program. Dr. Conlan has written the groundbreaking books "In Little Need of Divine Intervention", "State of War", and "Weapons & Fighting Techniques of the Samurai Warrior AD 1200-1877". In addition, he has written articles on Japanese history (as well as done book reviews) for many notable works as the Harvard Journal Of Asiatic Studies, Monumenta Nipponica, and The Origins of Japan's Medieval World. He's also appeared as a guest expert on History Channel specials involving samurai, as well as helping put together acclaimed websites featuring in-depth examinations of two important Japanese documents/works of art-the Mongol Invasion Scrolls and the Heiji Disturbance scroll. Dr. Conlan was kind enough to take time from his busy schedule to speak to the Samurai Archives, and we think you'll find what he has to say to be as thought provoking as his books.

Thanks to forum members Dash and JLBadgley for submitting questions, and Obenjo, Kitsuno, and Ashigaru for their input.

SA: Where did your interest in Japanese history first begin, and why is it that you've chosen to dedicate your career to this pursuit? What period are you most personally fond of, and why?

TC: I first remember reading a book about the samurai when I was in junior high school (one of Turnbull's books). That first got me interested in Japan, and while I was attending Harvard Summer School, I decided to devote my life to studying Japan. Sounds corny, but it is true. As a sign of my promise, I used all of the money I had saved that summer to buy an ivory netsuke of a man carrying a monkey in a sack. (I still have that netsuke).

I feel fortunate that I have been able to learn under so many great professors at the University of Michigan and Stanford, for they have helped me along this career. I don't have a good reason for why I have dedicated my career to this save that I continue to find Japanese history interesting. I love the fourteenth century, for the sources are unparalleled, and there is a refreshing honesty to the documents. The precision of the documents also amazes me. When I first read a battle report describing wounds, and saw notations by a battle administrator describing them as "deep" and "shallow." I knew that through such records, I could reconstruct how men were wounded, and thereupon understand how wars were fought in the fourteenth century. It was a September day in 1992 that I knew that I would write about the wars of the fourteenth century for my Ph.D. dissertation (this became State of War).

SA: “In Little Need of Divine Intervention” was your first book and brought new insights to the Mongol Invasions of 1274 and 1281, using the reward petition scrolls (Moko Shurai Ekotoba, commonly known as the ‘Mongol Invasion Scrolls’) of Takezaki Suenaga as its focus. This was fascinating both for its examination of what the scrolls tell us about the invasions as well as the history, changes, and variant copies made of the scrolls themselves. How was the central point of the book (that the ‘kamikaze’ was only the exclamation point on a set of failed invasions rather than the major cause of them) received both in the west and Japan? Did the lack of access to the original scrolls (held by the Imperial Household Agency) cause any difficulties in your research?

TC: I often think of In Little Need as my second book, as I wrote it after I had completed State of War. It came out of my classes at Bowdoin, for as I was teaching a freshman seminar at Bowdoin on the "Wars of the Samurai" in the fall of 1998. I was amazed that the Suenaga account had not been translated, so I set about doing it.

I was able to view many of the copies of the scrolls while in Japan (2000), and also visit Suenaga's lands and the walls where the Japanese defeated the Mongols in Northern Kyushu. I also had the opportunity to view the important scenes of the original, which is held by the Imperial Household Agency, during a museum exhibit. At that time, I saw two scenes from the originals--1) where Suenaga is being shot off his horse, with the exploding 'teppo' nearby, and 2) where Suenaga, with his ersatz shin-guard helmet falling off his head, is decapitating an enemy sailor. And such excellent photographs exist of the originals from recent exhibits that it is possible to view the scrolls pretty well.

I have been happy with the reception that my book has received. Japanese archaeologists at Takashima, who are excavating the remains of the Mongol fleet, had agreed with my assertion that the Mongol fleet was of a relatively small size; and also my revision of the invasions have influenced the narratives of books in fields outside of the discipline of history. Richard Bowring's The Religious Traditions of Japan (Cambridge 2005), for example, accepts my characterization of the invasions, which is gratifying. Reflecting on the reception, I was surprised that the sources pertaining to the invasions have not been more rigorously analyzed, or that these scrolls were not translated earlier.

SA: In conjunction with the book, a website was put together that allowed viewers to browse and compare side-by-side the different versions of the scrolls, noting the changes and additions made to each version along with other features of note. Later, a similar website was created for the Heiji Disturbance Scroll (chronicling the Heiji No Ran of 1159). This gave readers the chance to see rather than just read about the important features of these documents/works of art, and is a fine example of how the rapidly developing electronic technology field has aided the study of history. Do you believe that the computer age and the attendant ease of procuring copies of source documents has been one of the major driving factors behind the excellent work, new theories, and other advancements in Japanese history made in the last ten years?

TC: I do not know if changes in scholarship were caused by the new technology, but certainly this new technology enables some obscure sources to be better appreciated. We remain in the early stages of appreciating all that can be done on the web.

I believe that the web allows for scrolls and other sources that are not reproduced in a book format to be viewed in a manner approximating the experience of seeing the original. The Mongol scrolls website grew out of a need to scan images for publication in In Little Need of Divine Intervention. It was Peter Schilling, of Bowdoin, who first suggested that we build a site to see the scrolls. It took us several years to do, but fortunately, technology improved, and computers could handle larger images more easily. The Heiji scrolls represent our latest reproduction of the scrolls. I graciously received digital images from the MFA and Kevin Travers designed this excellent site.

SA: “State Of War” centered around the warriors of the 14th century (notable for the destruction of the Hojo regents/Kamakura Bakufu, the Kenmu Restoration, and the subsequent Nanbokucho wars) and how they conducted the art of war. Period accounts and war tales (‘monogatari’) are used to build a model of battle that seemed to be mostly skirmishes where the majority of injuries (around 75%) were received from projectiles (the majority of these being arrows in this time frame). Massed cavalry charges or dense infantry formations were rarely seen. Given the unreliability of many accounts, letters, quasi-official documents like the Azuma Kagami, and monogatari (ranging from ridiculously high estimates of troop strengths to the discounting of the role of lower status warriors), how difficult was it to separate fact from fiction to arrive at a workable model?

TC: It is best to use documents, literary sources, geography and archaeology in tandem to get a sense of a past age. Literary sources can be very illuminating. They just must be used with care and treated with skepticism.I find that literary sources are most useful in their details as to how certain weapons are used, and least useful in their characterizations of specific individuals (who can be easily idealized or demonized), or, for that matter, for their estimates of the size of armies. . People are very poor at estimating the size of large groups. Most accounts overestimate the size of armies by a factor of at least 10. Chronicles such as the Taiheiki use numbers as metaphors and there is no clear consistency. At the same time, a careful read can prove illuminating. Accounts of the Jokyu War provide fantastically large estimates of troops (over 180,000) but at times, refer (more accurately) to armies consisting of hundreds or 1,800 men, which strikes me as plausible.

A fictional account can be used as a historical source. A novel for example, could provide insight into what it was like to ride a bus for someone who knew nothing about them; the same can be the case for details about weapons usage in medieval texts. Exploration of textual variants can prove insightful. I have discovered a roster of the names of the Kamakura warriors who were wounded, killed, or who captured or killed enemies in 1221. This roster (which has not been translated) proves very insightful, and could very well be a copy of an actual list provided to Kamakura after the 1221 conflict. So it is important when studying an age to be aware of all sources; the more primary documents one reads, the better it is to deeply understand an age.

SA: One of the more interesting sections of “State Of War” is the chapter “Sacred War”, which among other things examines the influence of Buddhism, Shinto, and superstition on the warriors of the 14th century (both in a military and political sense). Was the financial, military, and administrative support given by gokenin and samurai to temples and shrines (and vice versa) born out of true belief, or was it largely political expediency?

TC: I am glad that this chapter is of interest. It is one of my favorite ones in the book, and has become the basis for my next monograph.

We cannot know the actual motives of anyone, but all actions seem to suggest that warriors and courtiers believed that various prayers and maledictions determined victory in military endeavors. My most recent research explores how Shingon priests proved to be the most politically powerful men of the fourteenth century. They were responsible for the fighting to continue, and they first enforced the notion that warriors should be loyal to their 'lord'.

SA: Your newest book, “Weapons & Fighting Techniques of the Samurai Warrior 1200-1877” is a lavishly illustrated volume that seems to be aimed at a general readership. How was the experience of writing this book different from your first two?

TC: The short deadlines differed greatly from my previous research, where I could pretty much work at my pace. I received much help in securing permission for photos, and also was able to work with a team of illustrators, so the book came out quite quickly, and not several years as I was used to. I found it hardest to not be able to include footnotes. I compensated wherever possible by mentioning the name of the sources that I used in the narrative. I think it is important to provide information that can be verfied. I included all my sources in the bibliography, but I would prefer having footnotes.

SA: The new book also does to the battle of Nagashino what ‘Divine Intervention’ did to the Mongol Invasions-reappraising the course of the battle using not only primary documentation but also period painted screens, recent excavations, and a survey of the battlefield terrain. What led you to discount the embellished Edo period accounts of the battle and present such a dramatically changed version? Did you find the extremely small number (nine to date) of bullets recovered from the site of the battlefield surprising?

TC: In 2005, I had the opportunity to walk the Nagashino battlefield and in doing so, and seeing where bullets had been discovered, I realized that common characterizations of the battle were wrong.

As a result of this visit, I explored sources about the battle, which have conveniently been published in a volume of the Aichi kenshi (prefectural history of Aichi). This compendium of sources contains all surviving accounts and documents pertaining to the battle, and also reproduces the oldest surviving screens depicting the battles (unfortunately I could not get an image of this reproduced in "Weapons and Fighting Techniques.") My Nagashino narrative represents my first foray into reconstructing this battle; I may do a more extended account in the future.

I find it best to treat Edo accounts and narratives with skepticism, because they tended to be ahistorial thinkers who projected the ideals and assumptions of their age onto a very different Japanese past.

Takeda Katsuyori was not so stupid as he appears in the film Kagemusha. He attempted to encircle the Tokugawa forces opposing him and was tricked into doing so by a Tokugawa commander opposing him. Trickery accounted for the decisive nature of the encounter more than guns per se.

The small number of bullets does not surprise me, as this area was intensively tilled in the Tokugawa era, and the bullets, if discovered by peasants, were probably melted down for their metal. In addition, I believe the number of gunners was less than has commonly assumed--perhaps only 1000 or so.

SA: Much of what is accepted as truth regarding pre-modern Japanese battles (both in English and in popular Japanese publications such as Rekishi Gunzou) comes from the histories of these events written in the 1890’s by the Japanese General Staff ("Nihon Senshi"). These works were written with the agenda of giving Japan an impressive documented military history to present to western eyes. Recent evidence indicates that battles promoted in these histories as major events were in fact rather minor actions. Using Tedorigawa (1577) as an example, it is written up as a major set piece battle involving tens of thousands of troops. However, the scant real evidence on it shows a minor rear guard action involving a small skirmish between a thousand or so troops. With this in mind, how reliable should these volumes (and many other earlier Edo period histories) be considered?

TC: I do not consider them to be very reliable. Far better to critically analyze surviving primary sources. OK to read these sources and use them as a guide to surviving sources, but best not to let them cloud your understanding of the past.

SA: One of the common threads running through your works is stripping the veneer from samurai warfare. Rather than being shining paragons of honorable behavior, samurai are shown (in their own documents and words) to be rather self serving and ruthless. Running from battle, abandoning comrades, switching sides, striking from ambush, setting fires, and looting are the norms rather than the exceptions. Bushido was an idealized version of samurai behavior that as you have pointed out was largely a fallacy and surely not followed as a general ‘code of conduct’ throughout Japanese history. While this question might be more appropriate for a behavioral psychologist, why do you believe the concept of ‘bushido’ exerts such a strong pull on so many self-styled ‘Modern Samurai’? Why in particular bushido, when other outdated warrior codes from other cultures have been left behind in the pages of history?

TC: I characterize what I do as essentially humanizing the samurai and showing that they could be brave, cowardly, or self-serving. One sees the whole range of behavior in their actions. War was in a strange sort of way a very human event and those who fought and survived had to maintain a healthy dose of pragmatism.

Bushido represents an ideal--a remarkable cultural formulation--that is very much alive today. The reason for this stems not from Tokugawa thinkers, who tried to formulate a justification for warriors to exist in a time of peace, but the work of Nitobe Inazo. Nitobe defined Bushido in such as way as to make it understandable in European/American context. Thanks to Nitobe, Bushido became a component of Western cultural consciousness. Bushido represents a moral code not tied to any religion--Chivalry without Christianity-- which accounts for its appeal, I believe.

SA: What are the biggest challenges you face in producing something? Is it the research, the writing, or the actual act of publishing?

TC: Finding the time to research, write and revise a project.

SA: Many acquire an interest in Japanese history through the avenues of anime, manga, martial arts, video games, and Japanese films. Do you see such sources of ‘pop culture’ history as an opportunity to foster a serious interest in Japanese studies, or a hurdle to be overcome?

TC: By all means, they are a good avenue into study; I think that they represent a good gateway into more serious study. If you intend to engage in serious study, then learn Japanese.

SA: What advice do you have for students of Japanese history? For those who wish to pursue a career in the field, what universities would you recommend?

TC: It is important to come from the universities with the best reputation--Princeton, Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley, University of Michigan, Columbia. Many institutions are strong in modern Japanese history, but for premodern instruction, there are fewer specialists. Joan Piggott at USC, Hitomi Tonomura at Michigan, and Andrew Goble at Oregon are great scholars taking on graduate students.

SA: Whose work among the current crop of historians impresses you the most? What other books would you recommend to our board members, either in English or Japanese?

TC: I could write a long list but for historians that come to mind right now, I like Dani Botsman's work on crime and punishment in Tokugawa Japan, the writings of Karen Wigen of Stanford, Mark Ravina's work on Saigo Takamori and local lordship in Tokugawa Japan, and Karl Friday's recent work on Taira Masakado.

SA: Your faculty listing on Bowdoin University’s website lists several articles and projects you are currently working on. What other works might you have in progress you can tell us about?

TC: In addition to those articles, I have completed an account of Medieval Japanese Warfare, 1200-1550, which will be published in the Cambridge History of War, a new multivolume series that I think readers of the forum will be interested in. This will not come out for a few years. I also continue working on my next monograph, about the political importance of Shingon, and how Shingon Buddhists of the fourteenth century were able to create emperors and the symbols of office, and enforce the notion of loyalty to a lord. I am polishing my manuscript, called From Sovereign to Symbol: Regalia, Ritual and the Struggle for Secrecy in Fourteenth Century Japan.

SA: We'll be looking forward to those! Thank you, Dr. Conlan, for an informative and entertaining interview-it's been a pleasure.

Turnbull’s ‘The Samurai Swordsman: Master of War’

2008-11-27T03:20:00.007-10:00

We at the SA just received the newest offering from the prolific Stephen Turnbull-“The Samurai Swordsman: Master of War”. As we speculated in a post a few months ago, the book is an expansion of his previous work, the long out-of-print “The Lone Samurai and the Martial Arts” (as he details in the introduction). You’ll also see it listed on different Amazon sites under its earlier proposed titles of “Art of the Samurai Swordsman” with Honda Tadakatsu on the cover, or just plain “Samurai”. It’s not an Osprey book (surprise!), but rather an impressive lengthy hardback (208 pages) published by Frontline Books (and in the US by Tuttle).

‘Samurai Swordsman’ is a coffee table book with an abundance of full color photos, prints, paintings, and portraits (some taking up two pages). Like most of Turnbull’s books, it’s a visual treat. It’s organized by chapter into several interesting themes and the incidents Turnbull lays out make for entertaining reading. There are basic chapters on general eras of Japanese history (ancient, Kamakura, Sengoku, Edo, and the Bakumatsu) along with several that focus on a specific subject (sword schools and styles, swords in society, vendettas and ronin, and female warriors). The evolution of the swordsman and the role of his weapon is traced throughout Japanese history from the early days of the Genpei war (when the bow was the weapon of choice for most samurai) through the Sengoku (where the spear and arquebus ruled the battlefield) into the Edo period, where the romanticized form of the samurai swordsman most westerners are familiar with (and that populate most chanbara films) began to take form. Notable early swordsmen such as Kamiizumi Ise-no-kami Nobutsuna geared their swordplay towards the practical, where it would be used under battlefield conditions. The (relatively) peaceful times under the Tokugawa Shogunate saw the highly stylized and regulated schools of swordplay take shape, resulting in a much more formal approach to swordplay more suited for individual duels. Also examined is how these more peaceful times gave rise to an idealized form of samurai behavior, bushido (which is espoused and followed much more ardently by self styled ‘modern sammyrai’ than it ever was by the real thing).

Turnbull also displays an excellent writing style, giving life and a dramatic flair to the tales of old. The careers of many prominent swordsmen are brought to life within its pages. From the usual suspects such as Miyamoto Musashi and the Yagyu to the more obscure (but perhaps superior) Chiba Shusaku and Takahashi Deishu, Turnbull gives both the historical reality and glorified legends that have sprung up around these figures. Turnbull’s strength lies in his descriptions and accounts of these old legends (along with the many illustrations and photos pertaining to these events, most from his personal archives), making his book an interesting contrast and companion to other recent works such as Thomas Conlan’s ‘Weapons & Fighting Techniques of the Samurai Warrior 1200-1877 AD’. Whereas Conlan meticulously deconstructs the traditional accounts (many of which are based on Edo period sources written decades after the fact) to show what is perhaps the kernel of truth that lies at their center, Turnbull gives the richness and impact of the stories that defined the glory days of the samurai. They’re interesting treatments of the same subject-the reality versus the ‘public face’ that helped shape the culture of Japan. In effect, they’re different facets of the same gem. Hence, we get the legends of female warrior Tomoe Gozen, the story of Akechi Mitsuhide’s mother being put to death in a botched hostage negotiation, and Asano Naganori (whose inept assault on Kira Yoshinaka in Edo Castle gave rise to the 47 Ronin incident) being called an ‘upstanding’ ‘well respected and experienced samurai’-all of which recent evidence suggests are false, but that have become widely accepted as fact both in Japan and the west.

The book does have a few editing problems (as virtually all texts dealing with history do). There are a few mismatched dates, and some photos appear to be mislabeled (such as a print on pages 182-183 dealing with the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877 that implies the infamous Shinsengumi were present-a rather difficult feat since they hadn’t been around for several years by then). Turnbull’s bibliography is outstanding (with both English and Japanese language sources from academia and general surveys), and will give readers several excellent avenues to pursue further study.

Following Turnbull’s career has been an interesting exercise. From his first book in the late 70’s (The Samurai: A Military History, still my favorite Turnbull effort) through his latest effort 30 years later, he has done more to make pre-modern Japanese history accessible to most westerners than any other author. He’s never been afraid to alter his viewpoints or opinions when new evidence is uncovered (as perhaps best shown in his changing evaluations of the battle of Kawanakajima over the years). As the internet and advanced telecommunications have made certain works much easier to gain access to, his sources have become more varied and of better quality. Turnbull’s research habits and sources have become more involved, detailed, and diversified as well. He has produced some truly excellent and original works the past few years (with ‘Kakure Kirishitan of Japan’ on top, along with ‘Samurai Invasion’ and other short works on east Asian piracy, Kawanakajima, the Osaka Campaigns, and Japanese fortifications). His newest, ‘Samurai Swordsman’, would make a great book to give someone as an introduction to pre-modern Japanese history. It’s available directly from Frontline here. Our friends in Europe can also find it at Amazon UK and in the US from Amazon.

Questions from the Audience - Sylvain Jolivalt

2008-11-23T09:28:00.004-10:00

Here are the results of our question and answer session with Sylvain Jolivault, author of Esprits et créatures fabuleuses du Japon: Rencontre à l'heure du bouef. Enjoy!

Sylvain, who is your favourite Japanese artist, and would you say your work is influenced by any one in particular?

SJ: I'm fond of many ukiyo-e artists such as Hokusai or Hiroshige. I also very much like Toriyama Sekien’s works about yōkai. But I think my favorite one is Utagawa Kuniyoshi, among others for his depicting characters fighting huge monsters in a kind of super heroic style !
As far as modern mangaka are concerned, I like Akira's Ōtomo Katsuhiro, and, of course, Lone Wolf and Cub's Kojima Gōseki.

I've read Pierre Souyri’s book, translated into English as The World Turned Upside Down, which gives a very vivid portrait of medieval society in Japan. What else has he written - I guess he was great to study with.

SJ: We (me and my wife) much liked to attend his lessons. Unfortunately, that very year, I had to do my military service in the same time, so I couldn't attend all of them. His teaching is very lively. He is a very concerned and passionated teacher. His usual field is the study of Japanese society. I haven't read any other book he has written, except Histoire du Japon, which he wrote with several other authors and was edited by Francine Hérail.
(Here is Pierre Souyri's bibliography)

What medium did you use to create your pictures (water color, oil paints, ink) and are they computer enhanced?

SJ: I usually draw it first with a pencil, then I ink it with a fine felt-tip pen, and erase the pencil. After that, I color it up with watercolor.
I sometimes use my computer to clean up a drawing, erase unwanted stains. The computer is also useful for superimposing different drawings. For example, after having drawn a nice character, I may not want to waste it with a messed up background. So I can separate it and use it in different ways.
.
As far as the kyūbi no kitsune (above) is concerned, it has been drawn this way: with a water-colored setting, and then photoshopped!

Being involved in the haunted attraction industry, I'd be interested to know how you went about putting together your 'oni tetsubo'-materials, processes, sculpting, and molding. I seem to recall it being light (so likely foam) and 'customer safe', making it a possible template for weapons to supply our 'American yōkai' with.

SJ: Indeed, it's a safe weapon I made for LARP. The inner core is a wooden staff. On the handle part, the staff is wrapped in an insulated foam tube. The "hitting part" is made out of a long block of foam sculpted in a split hexagonal cone. The staff is glued to the foam cone up to its half-way point and an hexagonal cap is glued on top of it.
The big rivets are in fact split foam balls (like the ones used for beach tennis balls). The loop at the tip of the handle is made with a ring-shaped baby toy (made out of rather hard plastic, so you'd better not hit opponents with it.
At last the whole of it is coated with a mixing of black acrylic paint and pre-vulcanized latex. I finally added a light silver acrylic-paint dry-brushing on balls and angles.
And here it is!

金棒姫 Kanabô-hime

Of the Japanese ones you've seen, what do you consider the definitive book on yōkai?

SJ: If you want to look at a good collection of yōkai woodblock prints, I can recommend you Toriyama Sekien Gazu Hyakki-yagyô Zengashû 鳥山石燕画図百鬼夜行全画集 (Collection of a Hundred Ghost Night Parade's Drawings by Toriyama Sekien).

As far as descriptions and explanations are concerned, Nihon Yôkai Hakubutsukan 日本妖怪博物館 (Museum of Japanese Yôkai) , by Kusano Takumi 草野巧 and Tobe Tamio 戸部民夫, is my favorite one. And Shibuya Yûji シブヤユウジ's pencil drawings are really fine.

Thanks to Sylvain and all who participated for the fascinating interview! Stay tuned for further interviews from the Samurai Archives.

Footnotes of History?

2008-11-15T22:09:00.005-10:00

Have you ever wondered why there seems to be so little scholarship on the Shinsengumi available in English? One may find it surprising, considering all the attention the Shinsengumi get in imported Japanese “pop” culture in the form of films, anime and manga. To date, the only book I know that is dedicated to the study of the “Wolves of Mibu” is Romulus Hillsborough’s Shinsengumi: The Shogun’s Last Samurai Corps published in 1995. On one hand, I have to tip my cap to Hillsborough for writing this book. At least he had the chutzpah to tackle this controversial historical group, and as a result, he’s been beaten up in internet forums for being unbalanced in his approach to the political factions of that day, overly critical of the Shinsengumi by those who adore them, as well as has been accused of writing a book that lacks a coherent flow and contains too many corny and hackneyed phrases. Yet for all of Hillsborough’s faults, both real, imagined or exaggerated, his work remains the only readily available non-fiction book about the Shinsengumi in English. So again, why aren’t there more? I was recently asked this question by a friend and this triggered a serious round of thinking. The following is based on my response.

I think the reason why there is so little on the Shinsengumi in English is that in terms of the overall story of the Bakumatsu/Restoration, they are relatively minor players and don’t do anything save one incident which dramatically affects the pace of events. That event was of course, the Ikedaya affair where they pretty much saved Kyoto from deliberately getting torched by some Chōshū nut job extremists. Other than that, what else can you say about these thugs and their brutal behavior towards each other and the loyalist extremists they hunted down? Sorry-- I use the word “thugs” to describe the Shinsengumi, but what other word best describes these guys? I’m definitely no lover of the loyalists, but let’s face it—the Bakufu thought the best way to fight the loyalist thugs that were terrorizing the streets of Kyoto would be with their own “deputized” gang of thugs—and they were right! So while the Shinsengumi may have been minor players in the overall big picture, they do loom very large in the Bakumatsu period history of Kyoto. It would be ludicrous to think that the Shinsengumi did not have a direct impact on the events in that city and everyday life there for a handful of tumultuous years. Again, their impact on Kyoto can’t be denied and is probably one of the reasons they are popular to this day in Japan. Stories and incidents that took place in Edo and Kyoto dominated the mass media then, so we are left with a wealth of material about their exploits in the not so distant past. This is evident by the number of books about the Shinsengumi that can be found on Amazon.co.jp or in any decent-sized Japanese bookstore. One look at my bookshelf further backs this up.

Okay, so the Shinsengumi remain a popular topic of scholarship in Japan, but why not in the rest of the world?

I think you can look at the Shinsengumi’s popularity in Japan and compare it to why a sizeable portion of American society may be able tell you a thing or two from the days of the Wild West about the James Gang or the Dalton Gang on the wrong side of the law or the Texas Rangers, Bat Masterson and the Earp brothers and their friends on the “right” side of the law. In a 20th century context, I guess you could make a loose comparison to Elliott Ness’ G-Men acting as a crack unit to take down Al Capone and the other gangsters of Chicago. Neither the outlaws nor their “good” guy counterparts were angels, but they all stick out and are relatively well known. Americans can tell you about these people and some of their exploits because they were exciting points in the long and bland history of how as a people and a country, the US got from there to here. Also, these people, both “good” and “bad”, were products of the times as well as the culture. They weren’t catalysts or show stoppers in a historical context, but just interesting, and because of this, they are remembered and studied. I don’t think too many non-Americans know much about these people, besides what they may have seen in movies or in old TV shows. I’m willing to wager that there probably aren’t too many non-fiction books published in foreign countries about these historical American figures for the same reason it is hard to find histories of Shinsengumi in languages other than Japanese.

Just as many Americans can say that they know the name of Jesse James or Billy the Kid, the same holds true for how Japanese look at the Shinsengumi—whether they are fans or not. Everybody in Japan knows something about the Shinsengumi—even the idiot kids who can’t even tell you the name of the current prime minister! So even though the Shinsengumi are a part of the landscape of Japanese history and culture and are fodder for exciting stories of adventure and dark camaraderie forged in blood, how much interest does a non-Japanese academic or his/her peers have in this topic? I’m not so sure they fully “get it” or find the subject matter all that interesting in the larger scheme of things. If we really think about it, there really aren’t too many books out there in English on the Bakumatsu. I’m already hearing groans from those who already think there are enough books on the Bakumatsu and not enough on the Sengoku period, but let’s face it; there really aren’t all that many books available on Japanese history as opposed to say, European or American history, yes? And most of the books on the Bakumatsu are going to focus on the general big picture or on the key individuals or han, such as Chōshū, Satsuma or Tosa. Thus sadly, for western written histories of the Bakumatsu, the Shinsengumi are nothing more than an interesting footnote. This is one of the problems with non-Japanese scholarship on this period. A lot of the exciting stuff gets relegated to mere footnote status as it really doesn’t alter the outcome of events. Hence, at least in English, the Shinsengumi, for the large part, remain footnotes of history.

So, the question is—who is going to write the next non-fictional account of the Shinsengumi in English? Any takers?

Weapons & Fighting Techniques Of The Samurai Warrior 1200-1877 AD

2008-11-11T02:28:00.012-10:00

Wow, I thought to myself as I unwrapped a large parcel from a bookseller in the UK-Thomas Conlan (Associate Professor of Asian Studies at Bowdoin College and a leader in the scholarly examination of samurai warfare) has written a coffee table book-Weapons & Fighting Techniques Of The Samurai Warrior 1200-1877 AD! It's loaded with lots of color photos, diagrams, and artwork, including step by step demonstrations of fighting with bows, swords, spears, harquebus, and more. I can’t say I’m very impressed with the maps. Overall, the graphic presentation is a lot like Kure Mitsuo’s Samurai: An Illustrated History-but with more impressive writing.

While I’ve only given it a quick read through (I’ll post more on it later), these are my initial impressions. As far as text goes, there is a LOT to chew on here for those interested in samurai combat and tactics. Conlan brings the same fresh perspective that he’s brought to his two former books (In Little Need of Divine Intervention and State Of War). Even those who have kept up-to-date with the newest findings among Japanese historians will find some startling new material. Conlan continues the fine work that he (along with Karl Friday) has done in exploding the old myths of samurai combat and bushido. Samurai warfare is shown to have had over 75% of its casualties caused by projectile weapons (this concept isn’t new, but more evidence is presented). The impact of the small Japanese horse on battle is examined in depth (along with the extreme reluctance of horse owners to risk them in close combat), further reinforcing the notion that there were few if any massed cavalry charges in Japanese battles, with cavalry usually only being used in close combat to go after an enemy that had broken and was in retreat. Another interesting point Conlan makes (using contemporary accounts) is that the small horses put brawny warriors at a disadvantage.

Conlan also reexamines some of the more popular accounts given in most history books and puts a new spin on them. His section on Nagashino reinvents the likely course of the battle, beginning with debunking the numbers of guns fielded by the Oda. While most of us on the Samurai Archives realize that the Oda/Tokugawa forces had 1000, not 3000 (normally the number seen in Western histories), guns, Conlan takes it a step further and puts forth the notion it fielded 500 or fewer. Using the results of recent excavations of the battlefield, he postulates that Nobunaga achieved such a decisive victory by using the Tokugawa army as bait, concealing the Oda forces, and unleashing a massive ambush on the Takeda when they attempted to envelope the Tokugawa. The famous notion of ‘three ranks’ of rotating gunfire is largely discounted as an Edo period fabrication. It’s fascinating stuff many people won’t agree with, but it’s a well supported and thought out argument. Likewise, Conlan has a different viewpoint of the Uesugi army than is normally seen-he considers them to be right there with the Oda in terms of innovative and effective use of gunfire (largely due to their contact and friendly relations with the Ashikaga Shogunate, gaining access through them to early gunpowder and firearm technology) rather than the ‘traditional’ cavalry based army it is usually portrayed as. He ascribes the collapse of the major Eastern daimyo (the Takeda, Hojo, and Imagawa) largely to their failure to incorporate firearms technology quickly enough. Conlan even makes corrections to common attributions, such as identifying what is perhaps the most famous portrait of Minamoto no Yoritomo (as seen here) to be in reality a portrait of Ashikaga Tadayoshi (this info has been around since the mid-nineties, but is the first time I've seen it presented in an English language book).

The book comes up short in at least one major area-being written for a more general audience, it has no footnotes or endnotes. This makes further examination or study of Conlan’s points difficult to impossible. For example, he twice brings up a female warrior, Tsuruhime, who according to oral legend fought in several battles in the inland sea around 1542 (there’s an existing suit of modified armor attributed to her). He also mentions that there is an account of a group of female cavalry that fought in western Japan in the 1350’s. I find this interesting, but a dead end-what account? Contemporary? A war tale? Temple tradition? Where do the accounts of Tsuruhime come from? Without the notes, it’s impossible to tell and evaluate these claims.

Still, it’s a book that anyone with a serious interest in samurai warfare, Japanese history, or weaponry should have on their bookshelf. It will be interesting to see how the book is received by the public-the general audience it is aimed for will likely not take kindly to having its romanticized preconceptions dismantled so effectively. It’s sure to cause some spirited debate and get its readers reconsidering their positions on a multitude of topics. At around $13 for a 225 page hardcover loaded with color shots, it’s an absolute steal. Buy it today-you won’t be sorry.

Author and Artist Sylvain Jolivalt - S-A Interview #3

2008-11-01T08:19:00.027-10:00

For our third interview, our pal Obenjo Kusanosuke has taken the time to interview talented artist and author, Sylvain Jolivalt. Enjoy, and feel free to post questions for Sylvain in the comments.

Today we are fortunate to have author Sylvain Jolivalt, our SA Citadel Forum’s own “Akaguma” with us for a special interview, and believe me, we’re in for a treat. Besides being extremely knowledgeable about Japanese history and culture, Sylvain is an accomplished artist, author and yokai expert. These skills are beautifully combined and represented in his book Esprits et créatures fabuleuses du Japon: Rencontre à l'heure du bouef , available from Amazon.co.fr. Also, be sure and check out Sylvain’s website at http://www.shiruban.new.fr and his blog at http://shiruban.over-blog.com where you can see much of his terrific artwork.

Obenjo Kusanosuke (OK): Sylvain, welcome to my little interview chashitsu. It is a real pleasure to have you here.

Sylvain Jolivalt (SJ): Thank you very much! It’s a pleasure for me too. It’s still a bit unusual for me to be interviewed.

OK: I thought we’d start this out by asking you one of my basic questions—how did you become interested in Japanese history and culture? What drew you to it?

SJ: I couldn’t say it’s thanks to japanimation, as when I was a child, I didn’t even know those cartoons took place in Japan, or even were made in Japan. Actually, I became interested in Japanese culture thanks to… American comics! Since I was eight, I was a great fan of Marvel comics. I once read a story about the X-Men that took place in Japan, and found out that my favorite super-hero (Wolverine) could speak Japanese. That looked real cool. A few years later, I got into Frank Miller’s Daredevil (with a lot of ninja stuff), and then Miller’s Wolverine in which I learned my first words in Japanese, which then motivated me to buy a “learn-it-by-yourself” Japanese handbook. At this time, I was also fond of every ninja movie (like the ones featuring Shō Kosugi) that were released on VHS. , and of course, Shōgun could be watched on TV. Since then I began to read everything about samurai and ninja. In Dungeons & Dragons Oriental Adventures role-playing game I first read stuff about yōkai. Then, reaching university, I started to more seriously lean the Japanese language and culture.

OK: I can’t help but to admire your artwork. I think you’ve done a fabulous job of capturing the essence of traditional Japanese landscapes and objects in your work. I think your rich knowledge of Japanese culture really shines through in your work. Your illustrations have a nice modern and sappari (さっぱり)—refreshing—feel to them. At what point did you want to start blending your skills with the pencil and pen with your love of things “Japonais”?

SJ: Thank you. Actually I started to draw more or less Japanese things for quite a long time ago. But it’s since I began my comic book project six years ago that can be seen on my site, that I tried to stick closer to historical reality.

OK: Where are your top three favorite places in Japan that make you want to pick up a pencil and paper and start sketching when you are there?

SJ: Good question. I much liked to visit Mount Hiei. Not only the principal buildings of the Enryaku-ji, but also the forest between them. As we were most of the time all alone, we felt like we could anytime run into a tengu. I also like traditional looking streets like the ones in Takayama, and, of course, castles. The very first one I visited was Matsumoto-jō which impressed me very much.

OK: And at what point did you want to combine your artwork with words and write a book about yōkai? And why yōkai? What’s the allure of these mythical Japanese creatures to you?

SJ: fifteen years ago, I worked as assistant and interpreter for a Japanese geography professor who came in Alsace to study rivers, groundwater, and so on. When visiting different spots in the area, I always told him about local legends, which inevitably made him think I was much interested in myths and tales. He then offered me my very first book in Japanese about yōkai, Mizuki Shigeru’s yōkai dictionary. As there wasn’t any book about Japanese ghosts and goblins in French, I thought it could be interesting to write one. Once in Japan, I found out there were a lot of books about them, So, I came back in France with my luggage plenty full of these books. I then compiled and translated every data I could find. As I didn’t really know how ancient pictures found in those books were copyrighted, and as I liked to draw all sorts of strange creatures, I found it easier to illustrate the whole book all by myself.

What I find interesting in Japanese yōkai are their close links with geography and history-- that historical figures have met them, or that there still are signs of their presence. That’s funny!

OK: It seems there has been a recent rise in the amount of publications on yōkai both in Japanese and other languages over the years. The series of Shabake books by Hatakenaka Megumi about friendly yōkai who help the young heir of an Edo-period shipping company has been incredibly popular over the past few years and was even made into a television movie last year. Why do you think the fascination with yōkai has endured over the years in Japan and now in foreign countries?

SJ: It seems that this taste for fantastique seems to be a common trait in all our country, may it be through movies, books or comics. And with this wave of interest in Japanese horror movies, manga or anime, there are more and more people interested in yōkai. Hence my book.

OK: So do you think yōkai are just as relevant in today’s Japan as they were during, say, the Edo period?

SJ: I feel that Japanese are a bit more superstitious than Westerners can be. I was somehow amazed when a Japanese friend of my wife seriously advised her not to take photos in a cemetery because ghost might appear on pictures. Or I have a friend who felt really uncomfortable merely with looking at demon [inō[/i] masks. Maybe was it the same a long time ago.

OK: Can you please talk a little about your three favorite yōkai?

SJ: I like oni. I don’t really know why. Maybe its their hulkish attitude. Some of them dwell in mountains. Others are infernal jailers who spend their time torturing sinners. I’m sure they can be good drinking companions… as long as you have enough sake to offer

This is a karasu-tengu (raven-mountain-goblin). They are usually mischievous toward humans, but when they find a worthwhile soon-to-be hero, they may teach him secret martial arts techniques.

When I decided to talk about the kūbi no kitsune (nine-tailed vixen) in my book, it was first to show to all those Naruto fans that she did exist before the manga. I then found out that she is a very interesting evil creature that has a long history. She caused the fall of two Chinese dynasties and even traveled to India, before trying her luck with the emperor of Japan. But there, she’d been quickly unmasked by an onmyōji, and hunted down by top-class archers. She had been caught in the shape of a rock that can still be found nowadays.

OK: I recently came across this ukiyo-e by Yoshitoshi. Here, we see a person defending himself from kappa by…aiming a “gas bomb” at the little green guys. Is this really an effective strategy for trying to keep from getting one’s shirikodama? I just need to know if it is a good thing to always bring some Satsuma imo and beer with me just in case I’m headed down to the river and am confronted by a kappa looking to rip into my bowels.

SJ: This can be a good technique that may prevent kappa from getting one’s shirikodama. Otherwise, you can bring your pet monkey… monkeys are supposed to be their sworn enemies. Or you can offer them cucumbers… kappa are really fond on them.

OK: I know I’ve asked this before on the SA Citadel forum, but I’ve got to ask again. Are you planning on having Esprits et créatures fabuleuses du Japon translated into English?

SJ: I’d like to. But my looking for a publisher hasn’t been this fruitful so far. I should insist a bit more.

OK: Let’s talk about a little about the study of Japanese history in France. I know you are very much interested in samurai history, their weapons and their armor. Is the study of samurai military history particularly popular in France? Is there a wide selection of books available books in French covering all the areas of Japanese history? Who are the more prominent scholars of samurai history in the French speaking world and what books opened the “samurai universe” to you? I suspect there is a rich collection of material available.

SJ: The military history of samurai warfare is not particularly studied in France in this detail. There are some nihontō aficionados who happen to write books about weapons. As far as I know, there are a lot of studies about contemporary Japan, but not much that I can recall about earlier periods. I’ve read a good book about the Kamakura period by Pierre Souyri. Francine Hérail’s books are also interesting (both of them were my teachers when I studied at Langues’O).

OK: Who are your favorite Japanese history scholars outside of France—such as in Japan, the UK or the US?

SJ: Actually, I couldn’t tell. I haven’t read this many books by English scholars (except one translation of Turnbull’s). As far as Japanese writers are concerned, only Kure Mitsuo‘s name whose book had been translated in French comes to my mind. I must confess that much of my humble knowledge comes from dictionaries and encyclopedias.

OK: Have you found any significant differences in how French scholars approach Japanese history and culture versus what you see in English language works?

SJ: I can’t really say. Most of the books I’ve read by French scholars are about cults, myth and religions. By the way, Musée Guimet’s Catalogue by Bernard Franck is one of the best introductions to Japanese Buddhist pantheon I’ve ever read.

OK: Which era of Japanese history are you most interested in and why?

SJ: I much like Heian and Edo periods. The Heian period for its heroic-fantasy flavor like in those Onmyōji movies, or Mizoguchi’s Tales of the Taira Clan (I also liked very much Yoshikawa Eiji’s book as well).
And the Edo period, while many might find it boring, it interests me because it is easy to find data about this period. You can easily find which daimyo ruled what fief, how much time it took for a courier to travel from place to place, what was the price of things, and so on. All this information is precious and provides a lot of background material needed to create various characters in RPG or in LARP. I do very much like it when my players feel like their characters could have really existed.

OK: Is there a particular persona from the Heian or Edo periods whom you would consider your favorite?

SJ: Minamoto no Yorimitsu! When writing my book, I found it funny to run into him and his ghost busting Shitennō crew so many times, just because they’ve fought many yōkai: earth-spider, Ōeyama’s oni, Rashōmon’s oni. Even one of his Shitennō – super-strong Sakata no Kintoki a.k.a. Kintarō – is the son of a yamauba (mountain-hag). It seems that numerous Minamoto family members had a brush with yōkai-- Yorimitsu’s father fought an oni as well, Yoshitsune had been trained by tengu on Mount Kurama. Another one fought a nue that haunted the emperor. It’s an interesting family.

OK: You’ve made your own set of samurai armor, which looks really nice. What was your inspiration or who’s armor served as a model for your set?

SJ: Thanks. Actually, when visiting Odawara castle, I had the opportunity to wear a real armor (as far as reenactment armor can be real, of course). I then took pictures of every part of the armor:
http://shiruban.over-blog.com/photo-176737-shirubansamurai_jpg.html

How did you make your armor?

SJ: I’ve made this armor to be used in LARP. I took a huge PVC plate, and cut every part out of it. Then, I’ve drilled holes, heated those parts up in order to shape them the way I wanted, and varnished them black. The longest thing was to assemble all those parts. 70 meters of lace was needed for that.

Do you have any new projects in the works—either in terms of your artistic talents or as a writer?

SJ: I’ve written (and drawn) an adaptation of the classical Japanese fairytale Issun Bōshi (who meets two little fairies who strangely look like my daughters) that is being proposed to publishers.
I’m also working on this Azuchi-Momoyama period role-playing game rulebook I spoke about in Tony’s interview.

OK: You’re one of the more popular long-term members of the SA Citadel forum, but you don’t post as much as some of us would like. How can we get you more involved? Do you have any advice on any improvements we can make?

SJ: That’s a good question. I often come to Samurai Archive only to read new posts. I like to write any helpful post when I can, but sometimes, your discussions go past my very knowledge, which is far than being a bad thing since it enables me to learn a lot of stuff.
But soon, I’ll be able to talk with you about another topic-- Japanese dramas. Lately, my wife (my home computer specialist) showed that it was possible to see J-dramas thanks to the internet. I hadn’t had any opportunity to see a whole Japanese drama series… until now !

OK: Thank you so much for taking the time to allow me to interview you on behalf of the Samurai Archives. As always, it is a pleasure to converse with you.

SJ: Thanks to you, too!

OK: If forum members have questions for Sylvain, please place them in the comments section below by November 15.

My Japanese Coach: A Pocket Sized Language Course

2008-10-25T22:57:00.005-10:00

Ubisoft's newest edition to their series of language education programs for the Nintendo DS is 'My Japanese Coach'. A recurrent topic on the Samurai Archives is people wondering how to begin learning Japanese without actually having to attend classes. While there's no software or reading program developed that can take the place of a classroom, My Japanese Coach is a surprisingly involved and well done effort that will give beginners a solid grounding in grammar, sentence structure, writing, and vocabulary. The game claims to have been 'created in association with Japanese teachers' (just who isn't specified), and uses the Kevin Atkinson 2000 Dictionary and the 1997 Word.Net 1.6 by Princeton University.

The program starts you off with a placement test-50 multiple choice questions with three minutes to answer them. Miss two in a row and you're out. Based on your results, the program will skip you forward several lessons (a maximum of 10 if you answer all 50 correctly). There are over 1,000 lessons, all with a minimum of 10 new vocabularly words to master. Each word in the list can be listened to for pronunciation, recorded and played back to hear your efforts (and played along with the correct version for comparison), and there's also an onscreen stylus pad for practicing writing in kana or kanji. The first 100 lessons contain instruction from an animated teacher, Haruka, and do a good job of developing and building upon your skills as you progress in the program (the remainder of the 900+ lessons are open lessons with 10 words each-meaning that you'll know over 10,000 Japanese words if you finish them all). For example, lessons 17-21 are Kana 5, Greetings, Verbs In Sentences, Kana 6, and Informal Verbs. It teaches the basics of kana early on and encourages the reader to scrap the use of romaji as quickly as possible. After lesson 43, kanji is introduced. Proper sentence structure and grammar is emphasized, as is mastering each lesson before you move on to the next one. In fact, the program requires you to 'master' each word in the lesson before it unlocks the next lesson.

Words are mastered by playing through several types of games, many of which seem silly at first (but have an underlying rationale). There's Multiple Choice, Hit-A-Word, Word Search, Flash Cards, Memory, Bridge Builder (sentence construction), Spelltastic, Fill-In-The-Blank, Write Cards, Fading Characters, Scrolls, and Yomi. I found the write cards and flash cards to be very helpful, as each flash card has a time limit and the write cards (where it gives you a Japanese word in English or kana to write out in kana or kanji) give good timed practice as well. The games can be set from easy to difficult as well. The stylus recognition is surprisingly good-almost generous-but brutal on insisting on proper stroke order (occasionally getting the stroke order wrong). Overall it's much better than the stylus pad on my $300 Canon V90 Wordtank. The games can be (and HAVE to be, in order to master words) played apart from the lessons as often as desired, and add points to your mastery skill for individual words. The game ranks you (by showing what age level of native speaker you could talk to effectively) and also keeps track of your stats for each game, letting you see a graph of your progress on each.

In addition, the program serves as a pretty decent basic wordtank as well. All of the over 10,000 words available are in a dictionary with their kanji renderings and a simple English translation (sometimes a little too simple for English words with multiple meanings). You can also get an animated display of proper stroke order and sound for proper pronunciation. If it's a verb, you can bring up a list of conjugations. You can search with an on screen QWERTY keyboard. There's also a phrasebook that lets you search by category or key words. Finally, there's a sketchpad that allows you to 'draw what you need', so they say, if you're in Japan and the proper words escape you.

My Japanese Coach isn't without its shortcomings, however. Simple but vital things such as combining kana to form new sounds or using the character for 'ha' for the subject marker 'wa' (or 'wo' for 'o' on an object) are glossed over quickly or not mentioned. It tells you to see if you can figure out how verbs are conjugated without confirming this information (until a lesson that comes along much later). Sometimes the context is confusing to a beginner (like the particle に is introduced-the program correctly ID's it as 'to', but for some reason they have the particle と next to it as well). Some of the vocabulary words seem a bit advanced for beginners as well, and not all that useful in everyday speech. It also would have been nice to have a more involved placement test, so intermediate speakers could skip straight to the later lessons.

All in all, My Japanese Coach is an excellent low cost program (at about $29) for beginners. It's a no-brainer if you already have a DS (a very small unit, easily carried around in a pocket, purse, or briefcase) and want to learn Japanese, and I'd even say it's worth buying a DS just to have this program. Don't be fooled by the claim on the box that you can "learn Japanese in only 15 minutes a day". Sure, you'll learn a few odd words, but like everything else in life, you'll get out of it what you put into it. Practice hard and often (just like the program encourages you to do). It's no substitute for the feedback and individualized instruction a live teacher can give you, but it's the next best thing.

Film Review: Death Trance

2008-10-20T06:10:00.000-10:00

Death Trance, Directed by Yuji Shimomura, gives the viewer a pretty bare-boned plot: Essentially a super-human fighter steals a coffin from a temple that is supposed to allow the one who opens it to have his biggest desire granted. In this mish-mash cross between a kung-fu movie, Mad Max, and Samurai-chambara, 4 Characters fight it out to steal the magic coffin from each other. That's basically the whole plot right there. Who are these four stolid warriors?

1. Sid (or, Totally Pointless Ronin with 80's Hair) This pointless character is played by Steven Seagal's son Kentaro. The character does nothing to advance the plot (not that there is much of one to begin with), and Kentaro just plain lacks any of the screen presence or bad-ass charisma of his father.

2. Grave (or, Eternally hungry super human number one fighter) Played by Tak Sakaguchi - Sakaguchi makes up for all of Kentaro Seagal's faults as an actor with charisma and stage presence in spades. Well, as long as he doesn't open his mouth. He owns every scene he's in with a Mifune-like flair, but for some reason, all of his lines fall flat. His action scenes are lightning fast and rock-solid whereas Kentaro's one marginal fight scene is pretty weak in comparison.

3. Yuri (or, Pale mysterious death angel lady) More of a plot device than a character, she sort of moves the plot along with the main protagonist:

4. Ryuen (or, Naive Over-His-Head Junior Priest) Tasked by the bishop of his destroyed temple with bringing back the coffin. He's the joe everyman in this crazy story of swordplay, blood, vampires, creepy little kids in kimonos, and kung-fu flying action.

Director Shimomura, who was action director for Ryuhei Kitamura on both "Aragami" and "Versus", obviously brought this experience with him. "Death Trance" is smoother than versus but not as much so as "Aragami", and the action is a combination of both films. I actually watched this movie specifically to see Kentaro Seagal, to see if he has inherited any of his father's screen presence or action skills. He disappoints in both areas. Tak Sakaguchi absolutely steals the show as the super human killing machine. I almost wonder if he actually studied Toshiro Mifune's swagger and bravado - he pulls it off brilliantly. Unfortunately he utterly lacks any power with his lines. Unlike Mifune, his voice definitely does not even come close to matching his swagger in this movie.

The locations and costumes were great, as was the washed out color most of the movie was filmed in, it gives it a dark and stylized look. All in all an OK popcorn movie with lots of katana, gun, and fist action, with some gunkata, capoeira, vampires, a motorcycle, and a bazooka thrown in for good measure. Final verdict:

Three Smilin' Sammys out of five:

Questions Round 2 - Anthony J. Bryant

2008-10-16T06:00:00.000-10:00

Here are some more questions that came in from the blog for Tony Bryant. Thanks everyone for participating, and thanks to Tony for agreeing to the interview in the first place.

Dear Sir Anthony,

Studying history requires us to investigate the past. Like a detective, we start with the easy, known pieces of historical information. We then shuffle other pieces around to see how they may fit together. Once all the pieces fit, we have the full picture. I think, it is really exciting to see the full picture.

Being a writer, how do you plan or prioritise points which you think are more important than others. Would you consider such work out/plan vital, as to make sure everything you write makes sense not only to you, but to the readers?

I don't really know how to answer that in general terms. Each project is different, so each case takes a need for a different approach and view.

History is full of true stories about real people – heroes, good guys, bad guys and ordinary people such as ourselves. When we take a closer look at their successes and failures, we may detect a certain philosophy/pattern. Does reading past historical events have any impact on your real life? What is your philosophy in life? What importance do you consider of being a balanced person? In your journey through life, you may encounter obstacles or some such. What “golden rules” would you like to give/advise which you think will help motivate younger generations?

That's a heck of a lot of questions -- any one of which could be paragraphs long in response. Gah.

Well, I'll have to try to be concise:

Does reading past historical events have any impact on your real life?

Short answer: It depends on the event. I generally can't think of any actual impact, but there are quite a few events that I wonder "what if" about sometimes, events that I would love to know what might have happened had things gone another way. I wonder what would have happened if someone had been with Lee at Gettysburg and had been able to stress the importance of occupying the high ground on his right on the first day -- which would have allowed him to flank the Union forces and possibly win. Or if someone could have told that unknown officer NOT to wrap Lee's complete battle plans around his cigars before the battle of Antietam. (Yes, I'm a Confederate sympathizer. )

To bring it back into Japanese history, if someone could have talked Terumoto into actually marching to Sekigahara instead of sitting in Osaka -- or if someone could have convinced Ankokuji Ekei and Mori Hidemoto to just cut through Kikkawa Hiroie's position and descend on Ieyasu's rear. (Or, just to give some equal time, if someone could have gotten word to Hideyori *sooner* not to attack the Sanada). Likewise, I wonder if the Heian polity might have lasted longer if Taira no Kiyomori had followed his first intention and executed the young Yoritomo and Ushiwaka.

I guess the answer is, it doesn't actually *impact* my life, but it does give me things to think about.

What is your philosophy in life?

Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women.

Actually, my philosophy has little to do with history per se -- I am an Orthodox Christian, and my philosophies on life -- and how one should act -- are a product of that.

What importance do you consider of being a balanced person?

Lots. Instability is Ungood.

In your journey through life, you may encounter obstacles or some such. What “golden rules” would you like to give/advise which you think will help motivate younger generations?

Read history, and learn from it.

As Gandhi said, tyrants may rise and for a time hold sway, but in the end, they always fall.

What makes a difference -- not only to your own soul but to the world at large -- is how you deal with the interim. You can be a Quisling or a Schindler -- a Petain or a deGaulle.

It is a truism that the only thing necessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

3) May I ask some personal questions?

Well.... uh, okay.

a) Have you reached the stage that you wish to have an exclusive relationship? I’m very curious as to why you are still single at this age. ^_^

I've often wondered the same thing. Just Kidding

b) Would you consider appearance more important than personality?

Depends on the appearance and the personality.

c) Could you give 3 best female characters from the past history whom you like best, and why?

Limiting to three is hard. Oof. Hm.. (For the record, I think I stared at this question for almost half an hour trying to think of *only* three.)

The Theotokos. As an Orthodox Christian, I can't possibly leave her out.

Abigail Adams. Damn. Just.... damn. Read some of her correspondence.

Boudica. Sometimes, you win when you lose. Vercingetorix found that out, too.

It’s indeed a gift, the very sweetest and most precious of gifts to have known you and to have a chance to learn Japanese from you from the two forums I visit regularly. May I take this opportunity to wish you and your family good health, happiness and success on all levels.

Thank you.

Back atcha.