Japan-China Relations through the Lens of Chinese Politics

Kokubun Ryosei

Why is the relationship between Japan and China so volatile that it keeps fluctuating between...

The Japan-US Alliance of Hope

Edited by Nakasone Peace Institute
Supervised by Kitaoka Shinichi and Kubo Fumiaki
Translated by Charles Stewart and Anai Ikuo

The Japan-US alliance has continued to deepen and develop for around sixty years, responding to the...

Japanese Art in Perspective

Takashina Shūji
Translated by Matt Treyvaud

How do Japanese and Western aesthetics differ? In this comparative cultural study, Takashina Shūji,...

The Japanese Linguistic Landscape

Nakanishi Susumu
Translated by Ryan Shaldjian Morrison
Photographs by Nakanishi Kimiko

Languages change over time. No matter how hard we try to control and regulate them, they exist in a...

The Japanese Sense of Beauty

Takashina Shūji
Translated by Matt Treyvaud

What makes Japanese art unique? In The Japanese Sense of Beauty, art critic and historian Takashina...

Japanese Tea Culture

Kumakura Isao
Translated by Martha J. McClintock

Why is the tea-room entrance, or nijiriguchi, so narrow? How did the practice of “passing the...

Kabuki, a Mirror of Japan

Matsui Kesako
Translated by David Crandall

In this delightfully engaging look at Japan’s traditional dance-drama, Matsui Kesako approaches...

The Kidai Shōran Scroll

Ozawa Hiromu and Kobayashi Tadashi
Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter

The Kidai Shōran is a magnificent painted Japanese scroll, an artistic rendering of one of the most...

Komura Jutaro and His Time

Okazaki Hisahiko
Translated by Noda Makito

After the Meiji Restoration, the Sino-Japanese War, and the Russo-Japanese War, Japan found itself...

The Legacy of Kano Jigoro

Edited by The Committee for the Commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the Birth of Jigoro Kano
Translated by Tom Kain

The founder of judo, Kanō Jigorō, is a highly revered figure amongst those who pursue the sport....

Listen to the Voice of the Earth

Oki Satoko
Translated by Iwaki Takako

“I wrote this book in the hope that readers will be able to save their own lives as well as those...

Living Life as It Comes

Gen'yū Sōkyū

It was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which had a particularly profound impact on my home...