text:
Torahiko Terada

Torahiko Terada (寺田 寅彦) was a Japanese physicist and author who was born in Tokyo. He was a professor at Tokyo Imperial University, a researcher at RIKEN, and worked on a wide range of topics in physics. He was also a professor at the Earthquake Research Institute.

As an author, he studied under Natsume Sōseki, who was a teacher at his high school in Kumamoto. His pseudonym for his literature-related work was Fuyuhiko Yoshimura.

He is best known for his numerous essays on a wide variety of topics ranging from science to manga.

Biography
Torahiko Terada was born in 1878 in the Tokyo Kojimachi District. He was named "Torahiko" because he was born under the Year of the Tiger. While in high school in Kumamoto, the young Torahiko studied under Natsume Sōseki and science teacher Takuro Tamaru. It was the influence of both men whom Terada attributed his inspiration to seriously pursue studies of science and literature during the course of his life.

In 1897, Terada met and courted student Natsuko Sakai, who was to become his first wife. He continued his studies and in 1899, earned his PhD at the Tokyo Imperial University. His thesis concerned the acoustics of the Shakuhachi bamboo flute. His adviser during this period was Hantaro Nagaoka and Aikitsu Tanakadate.

In 1902, Natsuko Sakai died, prompting Terada to move on. In 1903, he graduated from the Experimental Physics Department of Tokyo Imperial University with chief honors. During this period, he courted Hiroko Hamaguchi, who was to become his second wife.

Finally in 1908, Terada obtained his Doctor of Science Degree and was elected to the position of an associate professor at Tokyo Imperial University. From there, he went to study abroad at the University of Berlin. While studying in Stockholm, he corresponded with Swedish physicist Svante Arrhenius. In 1911, Terada made the trek back home to Japan by way of Paris, the UK and the United States.

When he returned to Japan, he was assigned to oceanography studies by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce. His results were published in the book Umi no Butsurigaku, published in 1913. Around this same period, Terada became heavily involved in studies of x-ray diffraction. Inspired by the work of Max von Laue, Terada devised a technique for greatly accelerating the photography process used for data gathering in these studies. However, Terada failed to get his results sent to Nature in time due to the distance of Japan from the publisher's location. Consequently, the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg, who had come to the same discoveries through their research. Terada turned away from X-ray diffraction studies and did not encourage his students to pursue the course. Despite this setback, Terada was still awarded the 7th Imperial Prize of the Japan Academy for his work in 1917. It was at about this same time that his second wife, Hiroko, died. After recovering, he courted Shin Sakai in 1918, who was to be his third and final spouse.

In 1922, Terada attended the welcome party for Albert Einstein during the physicist's visit to Japan.

In 1923, the Great Kantō earthquake struck, prompting Terada to seriously begin investigations of the causes of the phenomenon. This led to the development of a new field of earthquake studies. In 1924, Terada was elected to the position of senior researcher at RIKEN Institute. In 1926, he founded the Earthquake Research Institute at the Tokyo Imperial University and served as one of the senior professors there. His research continued to develop and gain attention, and in 1928 he was elected as one of senior staff of Japan's Imperial Academy.

In 1935, Terada began suffering from a bone tumor. He died on December 31, at the age of 57. His ashes were buried in a cemetery next to his childhood home in Kochi. The house has since been transformed into Torahiko Terada Memorial Museum.

Legacy
The small planet 6514 Torahiko is named in honor of him.

In fiction

 * The character of the scientist Kangetsu Mizushima, from Natsume Sōseki's novel I Am A Cat, is believed to have been modeled off Torahiko Terada.
 * Torahiko Terada, along with many other historical figures from the Meiji Restoration, is a central character in the award-winning 1985 historical fantasy novel Teito Monogatari by Hiroshi Aramata.
 * The comedic play Fuyuhiko and the Good Luck Cat (1987) by Makino Nozomi is based on the life of Torahiko Terada (the title being derived from Terada's pseudonym Fuyuhiko Yoshimura). The play is a dramatization of Terada's life after the loss of his second wife, and his stress in holding his family together in the face of his third marriage.  The production won the Yomiuri Theater Award in 1998.

title: Torahiko Terada


text:
Eisuke Yoshiyuki

Eisuke Yoshiyuki (吉行 エイスケ) was a Japanese author.

He was born in Okayama Prefecture. His son, Junnosuke Yoshiyuki, was also a noted author; his daughter, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, a well-known actress; and his other daughter, Rie Yoshiyuki, was a poet and novelist. The 1997 NHK Asadora Aguri was based on Eisuke's life with his wife Aguri. He also took a role in the Japanese Dada Movement

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Eisuke Yoshiyuki


text:
Fukuda Hideko

Fukuda Hideko (福田 英子), born Kageyama Hideko (景山 英子), was a Japanese feminist activist. She was educated at a young age and pursued socialist and feminist goals for most of her adult life. She was a participant in the Osaka Incident of 1885, where approximately 130 liberal activists were arrested on their way to attempt to incite revolution and liberate Korea. The group had planned to provide guns, bombs, and manpower to support reformist movements in Korea before the police intercepted them. After being freed, Fukuda continued to pursue social and gender reforms in Japan, playing an active role in the Freedom and People's Rights Movement which pushed for democratic changes to the government. She eventually established the magazine Sekai Fujin (Women of the World), which aimed at empowering women in Japan and getting them involved in international affairs. Throughout her life, Fukuda was involved in Japanese reform movements as they transitioned from aiming on increasing citizen's political rights to the more socialist-focused waves which attempted to exact nationwide social and economic revisions.

Early life
Fukuda Hideko, born Kageyama Hideko, was the child of samurai Kageyama Katashi and his wife Umeko. Her mother was a teacher and often brought Fukuda along with her to school. Like some other prominent women in the reform movement, Fukuda's family found her resistant to conforming to "proper" feminine behavior. Fukuda even described herself as a tomboy during her childhood. By fifteen, the bright Fukuda was exposed to Japanese, Chinese, and Western thought. Fukuda first began her political activities after encouragement from her friend and future fiancé Kobayashi Kusuo. It was Kobayashi who loaned her a translated biography of Joan of Arc, who Fukuda then aspired to emulate. In 1882 she was inspired by a speech from Toshiko Kishida, a prominent women's right activist at the time, to join the Freedom and People's Rights Movement. The People's Rights Movement was a group quickly garnering support that pushed for democracy and more egalitarian laws in the country. One year later, Fukuda and her mother founded an all-girls private school, at which they both taught. The school was founded on the ideals of the popular rights movement, and aimed at teaching children of working mothers. However, the school was shut down in 1884 on order of the government, which was worried about the spreading popularity of the People's Rights Movement and the growing political ambitions of women. Angry and wishing to provide more significant support, Fukuda moved to Tokyo.

Incident
Soon after arriving in Tokyo she met Oi Kentaro, the leader of a radical wing of the Liberal Party. The group was an offshoot of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement that was sweeping across the nation. Fukuda joined the group in attempting to transport weapons and money to Korea. Their goal was to create a disturbance large enough to undo the Sino-Japanese accord signed in 1885. Both Fukuda and Kentaro were angered at the government's perceived lack of action in Korea. They hoped that inciting reform movements there would either push the Japanese government into following suit or initiate a war, giving the liberals an opportunity to make domestic reforms. Fukuda helped raise funds for the Korean Revolutionary Movement, but she was frustrated by the lack of discipline and habit of many of the male members to go visit brothels, which delayed the group's acquisition of supplies. However, eventually they succeeded in raising enough money and gathering weaponry, including guns and bombs. The party then traveled to Nagasaki on November 20, 1885, from where they planned to depart for Korea. However, the police had already been investigating the large number of robberies in the Osaka area caused by the group, and before the party could travel to Seoul, on November 23, 1885, the roughly 130 members were arrested and charged with the illegal possession of weapons and encouraging riots. Fukuda, the only female included in the trial, was given a sentence of eighteen months, but was released after ten months.

Aftermath
Although Fukuda wrote that she regretted her involvement in the incident, her trial was widely publicized and served to bring her national attention. The media popularized her as "Japan's Joan of Arc", and she was met with enthusiasm after her release. Afterwards, she and Oi Kentaro became involved in a relationship that produced one son. The partnership was short-lived, and within a year Oi had left her for another woman. Fukuda's family came to Tokyo to support her, and together they opened a women's vocational school. Shortly afterwards, however, her father, aunt, and brother died and Fukuda was unable to maintain running the school. In 1892 Fukuda married Fukuda Yusaku, another liberal intellectual, with whom she had three sons. Yusaku had studied in America and was influenced by the labor movement there. He became ill and died in 1900, leaving Fukuda the single mother to four children.

Heiminsha
Fukuda went on to establish a women's technological school one year later, relying on philanthropist support to teach impoverished women trade skills. Here she met Ishikawa Sanshiro, a reformist collaborator and eventual lover. She was introduced to socialism via her neighbor, Sakai Toshihiko. This was at the same time as Japan's first socialist party-the Social Democratic party- was being created. Sakai was anti-war and promoted equal rights between men and women. In 1903 he and a group of collaborators called the Heiminsha started the Heimin Shimbun, a newspaper dedicated to spreading the socialist message. The paper, focusing on both domestic and foreign affairs, attracted worldwide attention and achieved wide circulation. Fukuda often socialized with members of the Heiminsha and attended their meetings. It was around this time that she published her autobiography Half my Life, which proved to be highly successful. Half my Life was the first autobiography written by a woman in Japan, and included references to the works of Benjamin Franklin, Joan of Arc, and Russian nihilists, among others. With the introduction of socialist thought, Fukuda's views on reform began to solidify. She disagreed with Japan's imperialist policies and the excesses of the upper class, but also found issue with the Liberal Party's "insincerity" and disreputable behavior, which had led her to break off with the group responsible for the Osaka incident. The government eventually suppressed the Heimin Shimbun in 1905 due to the articles protesting the Russo-Japanese War.

Sekai Fujin
On January 1, 1907, the first issue of Sekai Fujin (Women of the World) was published. It was the first Japanese socialist women's newspaper. Established by Fukuda, who was also its chief editor, and Ishikawa Sanshiro, the newspaper focused on women and reform interests. Fukuda declared the intention of the newspaper to be to “find women’s talent and vocation and to inspire women to join a reform movement based on their natural talent." While it included articles about domestic women's interest, such as sewing or poetry, Sekai Fujin had an international emphasis and attempted to bring global ideas to women in Japan. Aside from extended discussion of socialist figures such as Karl Marx and Peter Kropotkin, Sekai Fujin also published translations of foreign fiction, such as Maxim Gorky's Chelkash (as Wandering (放浪) ) and Guy de Maupassant's Le Diable (as Devil (魔) ). Fukuda hoped the newspaper would advance the cause of women's emancipation. Two major campaigns supported by the newspaper were the repeal of a law banning women from being a part of political meetings and the Yanaka Village Relief Campaign. The law, Article Five of the Police Security Regulations, specifically forbade women from joining political parties or taking a public role in policy or debates. Fukuda organized petitions to the Senate and helped the bill reach the House of Representatives, where it passed, but it repeatedly failed in the House of Peers.

Yanaka Village
Yanaka village was a small town near Tokyo that was the proposed site of a reservoir for the Watarase River. When some families refused to leave their homes, government officials began a series of attempts to force them off the land. Sekai Fujin backed the efforts of local villagers who refused to move out. Fukuda and her supporters provided funds and aid after the government officials destroyed the villagers houses and left the dike protecting the village from flood unrepaired. Following the end of the post-war economic boom, the government began to go after socialist groups with increased vigor. The Heimin Shimbun was shut down, labor revolts were violently repressed, the socialist party was banned, and Sakai Toshihiko was imprisoned. The government began a process of heavy suppression against Sekai Fujin, usually through heavy fines and censorship. The newspaper was eventually banned from discussing current events, and co-founder Ishikawa Sanshiro was arrested. This eventually forced Sekai Fujin to close down in 1909.

Seito article
Fukuda's last years were spent in poverty and hardship. Ishikawa moved to Belgium and shortly afterwards Fukuda contracted beriberi. Nevertheless, she continued writing and had her article "The Solution to the Woman Question" printed in Seito, a popular women's rights magazine. Inclusion of Fukuda's article caused the entire issue to be banned. The government was especially sensitive to Fukuda's article because it not only focused on women, but brought in issues of class. Fukuda saw the difficulties faced by women as intrinsically tied to the exploitative capitalist system in place, and yearned for a return to an agrarian-modeled society. The article also spurred intense debate within the Seito group, composed primarily of educated young women. Fukuda moved beyond the goals of many other prominent feminists by discussing the plight of the labor class and impoverished in Japan. Fukuda saw the issue of gender inequality as intrinsically tied in with class inequality, saying "along with the liberation of women, the liberation of men, too, must be accomplished." Fukuda's article pushed for an encompassing discussion of equality as a societal issue over the more personal approach taken by other leading feminists of the day. She was one of the pioneers of reform movements in Japan, and pursued reforms in the Meiji period longer than any other woman.

Death
Fukuda died on May 2, 1927, aged 61. While her role in helping trail blaze the feminist movement in Japan was not fully acknowledged until after her death, a group of activists celebrated her achievements 100 years after her birth by erecting a memorial in her honor in Okayama. The memorial includes a quotation from her autobiography: “My life has been one adversity upon another. But I always fought back. Not once, not even once, did I flinch from adversity.”

title: Fukuda Hideko


text:
Itō Sachio

Itō Sachio (伊藤 左千夫) was the pen-name of Itō Kōjirō (伊藤 幸次郎), a Japanese tanka poet and novelist active during the Meiji period of Japan.

Biography
Itō was born in what is now Sanmu city, Chiba prefecture, as the younger son to a farming family. He attended the Meiji Hōritsu gakko (the predecessor of Meiji University), but left without graduating.

His interest in poetry led him to visit the famous author Masaoka Shiki, who accepted him as a student. Itō established the literary magazine Araragi in 1903, and served as its editor until 1908. During this time, he published his poems, literary criticism and studies on the Man'yōshū. He published a sentimental love story, Nogiku no haka ("The Wild Daisy", 1906) in the literary magazine Hototogisu. The story became a popular classic, and was made into movies in 1955, 1966 and in 1981.

Itō came to be regarded as Masaoka Shiki's closest disciple with the posthumous publication of his tanka anthology Sachio kashu in 1920. His own disciples included Saitō Mokichi and Tsuchiya Bunmei.

In addition to his literary career, Itō was also an amateur master of the Japanese tea ceremony. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

title: Itō Sachio


text:
Yūji Takahashi

Yūji Takahashi (高橋 悠治) is a composer, pianist, critic, conductor, and author.

Biography
Yuji Takahashi studied under Roh Ogura and Minao Shibata at the Toho Gakuen School of Music. In 1960, he made his debut as a pianist by performing Bo Nilsson's Quantitäten. He received a grant from The Ford Foundation to study in West Berlin under Iannis Xenakis in 1962 and stayed in Europe until 1966, also stayed in New York under Rockefeller Foundation scholarship until 1972. He founded 'Suigyu Gakudan' (Water Buffalo band) in 1978 as introducing international protest songs, starting from Thailand, mainly performing Asian songs, also published monthly journal 'Suigyu Tsushin'.

Selected works

 * Time (tape)
 * Chromamorphe I (fl, hrn in F, trp in C, trb, vib, vn, cb)
 * Chromamorphe II (pf)
 * 6 Stoicheia (4vn)
 * Rosace I (amplified vn)
 * Rosace II (pf)
 * Operation Euler (2 or 3ob)
 * Metathesis I (pf)
 * Manangali (didactic piece for women's chorus)
 * Three Poems of Mao Tse-Tung (pf or vo[cho], pf)
 * Chained Hands in Prayer (pf)
 * For You I Sing This Song (cl in B flat, vn, vc, pf) (1976)
 * Ji(t) (fl, pf)
 * Sieben Rosen hat ein Strauch (vn)
 * Kwanju, May 1980 (pf)
 * The Pain of the Wandering Wind (pf)
 * Like a Water-Buffalo (acc)
 * Turn the Corner of the Morning (perc)
 * Thread Cogwheels (koto, orch)
 * Insomnia (vn, hp)
 * Bed Story (vo, koto)
 * Sea of Mud (cho, perc)
 * Like Swans Leaving the Lake, for viola and accordion (1995)
 * Mimi no ho, Sail of the Ears, for Shō, viola and reciter (1994)
 * Viola of Dmitri Shostakovich, for viola solo (2002)

Selected discography
Yuji Takahashi has over 100 Japanese releases to his credit.

As pianist
The complete works of Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern and Alban Berg, music by Messiaen (solo pieces, also Visions de l'Amen with Peter Serkin), Iannis Xenakis, John Cage, Rzewski, Na, Cornelius Cardew, Takemitsu, the Indonesian composer Slamet Abdul Sjukur, Earle Brown and Roger Reynolds.

J.S. Bach's The Art of the Fugue (BWV 1080), the E minor Toccata and the complete Inventions and Sinfonias; two volumes of Satie's solo piano music; a Sonata of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and Marche et Reminiscences pour mon dernier voyage of Rossini.

As conductor
Music by Iannis Xenakis, José Maceda, Sofia Gubaidulina, John Zorn and Edgard Varèse.

Suigyu Gakudan

 * 1984 Kyugyo (Cassette)
 * 2001 Suigyu Gakudan (CD)

Award

 * 2006 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.

title: Yūji Takahashi


text:
Shinkichi Hashimoto

Shinkichi Hashimoto (橋本 進吉) was a Japanese linguist, born in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, Japan.

Biography
Hashimoto is especially noted for the discovery of Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai, which makes it clear that Old Japanese made more syllabic distinctions than later periods of the language. This discovery led him to hypothesize that Old Japanese had eight vowels, while modern Japanese has only five. His systematic description of the Japanese grammar also laid the foundations of language education for Japanese children.

title: Shinkichi Hashimoto


text:
Miyatake Gaikotsu

Miyatake Gaikotsu (宮武 外骨) was a Japanese author, journalist and media historian born in the Kagawa Prefecture. His given name was Miyatake Kameshiro (宮武 龜四郎).

The 28 February 1889 issue of Journal of the Society of Ready Wit (頓智協会雑誌), published by Miyatake, printed a cartoon by Adachi Ginkō which parodies an earlier triptych of his own of Emperor Meiji receiving the Meiji Constitution of 1889, called View of the Issuance of the State Constitution in the State Chamber of the New Imperial Palace (新皇居於テ正殿憲法発布式之図). The parody replaces the Emperor with a skeleton and is captioned: "Promulgation Ceremony for the Sharpening of the Ready Wit Law" (頓智研法発布式之図). The skeleton was a play on words of the name of magazine's publisher Miyatake, whose given name is a homophone of the Japanese word gaikotsu ("skeleton").

title: Miyatake Gaikotsu


text:
Ichiyō Higuchi

Natsuko Higuchi (樋口 夏子), known by her pen name Higuchi Ichiyō (樋口 一葉), was a Japanese writer during the Meiji era. She was Japan's first professional female writer of modern literature, specialising in short stories and poetry, and was also an extensive diarist. Her portrait appears on the 5000 yen banknote.

Early life
Higuchi was born in Tokyo on 2 May 1872 as the fourth child and second daughter of Noriyoshi Higuchi, a samurai, and Ayame "Taki" Furuya. Official documentation states her name as Natsuko Higuchi, though she would often refer to herself as Natsu Higuchi (樋口 奈津). Her parents were from a peasant community in nearby Yamanashi Prefecture, but her father had managed to procure samurai status in 1867. Despite only enjoying the position for a short time before the samurai caste was abolished with the Meiji Restoration, growing up in a samurai household was a formative experience for her.

In 1886, she began studying waka poetry at the Haginoya, a private school run by Utako Nakajima. There, she received weekly poetry lessons and lectures on Japanese literature. There were also monthly poetry competitions in which all students, previous and current, were invited to participate. Poetry taught at this school was that of the conservative court poets of the Heian period. She felt inferior and unprepossessing among the other students, the great majority of whom came from the upper-class.

Her compulsion to write became evident by 1891 when she began to keep a diary in earnest. It would become hundreds of pages long, covering five years left of her life. With her feelings of social inferiority, her timidity, and the increasing poverty of her family, her diary was the place where she could assert herself. Her diaries were also a place for her to assert objectivity and included her views on literary art as well as others' views on her work.

Efforts to become a writer
In 1889, two years after her oldest brother's death, her father died. Following a failed business investment by her father, finances were very tight. Her fiancé Saburō Shibuya (who later became a prosecutor, a judge, and the governor of Akita Prefecture) soon broke off their engagement. At the proposal of her teacher, she moved into the Haginoya as an apprentice, but left after a few months due to being unhappy with what she saw as an inordinate amount of household duties. Together with her mother and younger sister Kuniko, she moved to Hongō district, where the women earned their income by sewing and laundry work. Seeing the success of a classmate, Kaho Miyake, who had written a novel, Yabu no uguisu (lit. "Bush warbler in the grove", 1888) and received abundant royalties, Higuchi decided to become a novelist to support her family.

Her initial efforts at writing fiction were in the form of a short story. In 1891, she met her future advisor, Tōsui Nakarai, who she assumed would help connect her with editors. She fell in love with him without knowing that, at 31, he had a reputation as a womanizer, nor did she realize that he wrote popular literature which aimed to please the general public and in no way wished to be associated with serious literature. Her mentor did not return her love, and instead treated her as a younger sister. This failed relationship would become a recurrent theme in Higuchi's fiction.

In March 1892, she gave her literary debut with the story Yamizakura (Flowers at Dusk), published in the first issue of the magazine Musashino, under her pen name Higuchi Ichiyō. The stories from this first period (1892–1894) suffered from the excessive influence of Heian poetry. Higuchi felt compelled to demonstrate her classical literary training. The plots were thin, there was little development of character, and they were loaded down by excessive sentiment, especially when compared to what she was writing concurrently in her diary. However, her style developed rapidly. Several of her trademark themes appear: for example, the triangular relationship among a lonely, beautiful, young woman who has lost her parents, a handsome man who has abandoned her (and remains in the background), and a lonely and desperate ragamuffin who falls in love with her. Another theme Higuchi repeated was the ambition and cruelty of the Meiji middle class.

The story Umoregi (lit. "In Obscurity") signaled Higuchi's arrival as a professional writer. It was published in the prestigious journal Miyako no hana in November and December 1892, only nine months after she had started writing in earnest. Her work was noticed, and she was recognized as a promising new author.

Last years

In 1893, Higuchi, her mother, and her sister abandoned their middle-class house and moved to a poor neighborhood where they opened a stationery store that failed. Their new dwelling was a five-minute walk from Tokyo's red-light district Yoshiwara. Her experience living in this neighborhood would provide material for several of her later stories, especially Takekurabe, (lit. "Comparing heights"; Child's Play in the Robert Lyons Danly translation, Growing Up in the Edward Seidensticker translation).

The stories of her mature period (1894–1896) were not only marked by her experience living near the red-light district and greater concern over the plight of women, but also by the influence of Ihara Saikaku, a 17th-century writer, whose stories she had recently discovered. His distinctiveness lay in great part in his acceptance of low-life characters as worthwhile literary subjects. What Higuchi added was a special awareness of suffering and sensitivity. To this period belong Ōtsugomori (On the Last Day of the Year), Nigorie (Troubled Waters), Jūsan'ya (The Thirteenth Night), Takekurabe, and Wakaremichi (Separate Ways).

With these last stories, her fame spread throughout the Tokyo literary establishment. She was commended for her traditional style and was called "the last woman of the old Meiji" in reflection of her evocation of the past. In her modest home, she was visited by other writers, students of poetry, admirers, critics, and editors requesting her collaboration. Due to constant interruptions and frequent headaches, Higuchi stopped writing. As her father and her oldest brother had before her, she contracted tuberculosis. She died on 23 November 1896 at the age of 24. She was buried in Tsukiji Hongan-ji Wadabori Cemetery in Suginami, Tokyo.

Selected works
At the time of her death, Higuchi left behind 21 short stories, nearly 4,000 poems (which are regarded being of lesser quality than her prose), numerous essays and a multivolume diary. The year refers to the date of first publication.

Short stories

 * 1892: Yamizakura (闇桜, Flowers at Dusk)
 * 1892: Wakarejimo (別れ霜, Farewell Frost)
 * 1892: Tamadasuki (玉襷, Jeweled Sleeve Band)
 * 1892: Samidare (五月雨, Early Summer Rain or May Rain)
 * 1892: Kyōzukue (経づくえ, Sutra Writing)
 * 1892: Umoregi (うもれ木, In Obscurity)
 * 1893: Akatsuki zukuyo (暁月夜, Dawn Moonlit Night)
 * 1893: Yuki no hi (雪の日, A Snowy Day)
 * 1893: Koto no ne (琴の音, The Sound of the Koto)
 * 1894: Hanagomori (花ごもり, Clouds in Springtime)
 * 1894: Yamiyo (やみ夜, Encounters on a Dark Night)
 * 1894: Ōtsugomori (大つごもり, On the Last Day of the Year or The Last Day of the Year)
 * 1895: Takekurabe (たけくらべ, Child's Play, Growing Up, They Compare Heights or Teenagers Vying for Tops)
 * 1895: Noki moru tsuki (軒もる月, The Eaves Moon)
 * 1895: Yuku kumo (ゆく雲, Passing Clouds)
 * 1895: Utsusemi (うつせみ, Temporary)
 * 1895: Nigorie (にごりえ, Troubled Waters, Muddy Water or In the Gutter)
 * 1895: Jūsan'ya (十三夜, The Thirteenth Night)
 * 1896: Kono ko (この子, This Child)
 * 1896: Wakaremichi (わかれ道, Separate Ways or The Parting of the Ways)
 * 1896: Ware kara (われから, From Me)

Translations
Higuchi's stories have been translated into a variety of languages. The first English translation dates back as early as 1903 (Ōtsugomori, as The Last Day of the Year, by Tei Fujio). In 1981, a selection of nine of her stories appeared with new translations provided by Robert Lyons Danly.

Some stories have also been translated from classical Japanese language, in which all of Higuchi's works are written, into modern Japanese, like Hiromi Itō's translation of Nigorie or Fumiko Enchi's translation of Takekurabe.

Legacy
Higuchi's portrait adorns the Japanese 5000 yen banknote as of fall 2004, becoming the third woman to appear on a Japanese banknote, after Empress Jingū in 1881 and Murasaki Shikibu in 2000.

Her stories Ōtsugomori, Nigorie, Jūsan'ya and Takekurabe have been repeatedly adapted for film and television, notably An Inlet of Muddy Water (1953, dir. Tadashi Imai) and Takekurabe (1955, dir. Heinosuke Gosho).

A film based on Higuchi's life, Higuchi Ichiyō, was released in 1939, starring Isuzu Yamada and directed by Kyotaro Namiki. Higuchi was also the protagonist of a theatre play by Hisashi Inoue, Zutsuu katakori Higuchi Ichiyō, which was first performed in 1984.

title: Ichiyō Higuchi


text:
Shūzō Kuki

Shūzō Kuki (九鬼 周造) was a Japanese art critic, philosopher, and poet.

Early life
Kuki was the fourth child of Baron Kuki Ryūichi (九鬼 隆一) a high bureaucrat in the Meiji Ministry for Culture and Education (Monbushō). Since it appears that Kuki's mother, Hatsu, was already pregnant when she fell in love with Okakura Kakuzō (岡倉 覚三), otherwise known as Okakura Tenshin (岡倉 天心), a protégé of her husband's (a notable patron of the arts), the rumour that Okakura was Kuki's father would appear to be groundless. It is true, however, that Shūzō as a child, after his mother had separated and then divorced his father, thought of Okakura, who often visited, as his real father, and later certainly hailed him as his spiritual father. From Okakura, he gained much of his fascination for aesthetics and perhaps foreign languages, as indeed his fascination with the peculiar cultural codes of the pleasure quarters of Japan owes something to the fact that his mother had once been a geisha.

At age 23 in 1911 (Meiji 44), Kuki converted to Catholicism; and he was baptized in Tokyo as Franciscus Assisiensis Kuki Shūzō. The idealism and introspection implied by this decision were early evidence of issues which would have resonance in the characteristic mindset of the mature man.

A graduate in philosophy of Tokyo Imperial University, Kuki spent eight years in Europe to polish his knowledge of languages and deepen his already significant studies of contemporary Western thought. At the University of Heidelberg, he studied under the neo-Kantian Heinrich Rickert, and he engaged Eugen Herrigel as a tutor. At the University of Paris, he was impressed by the work of Henri Bergson, whom he came to know personally; and he engaged the young Jean-Paul Sartre as a French tutor. It is little known outside Japan that Kuki influenced Jean-Paul Sartre to develop an interest in Heidegger's philosophy.

At the University of Freiburg, Kuki studied phenomenology under Edmund Husserl; and he first met Martin Heidegger in Husserl's home. He moved to the University of Marburg for Heidegger's 1927/1928 winter semester lectures on the phenomenological interpretation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (published as volume 25 in the Heidegger Gesamtausgabe), and for Heidegger's seminar "Schelling's Essay on the Essence of Human Freedom." The following semester (Summer, 1928) he attended Heidegger's lecture on logic in the light of Leibniz (HGA 26) and his seminar on Aristotle's Physics. Fellow students during these years in Europe were Tetsurō Watsuji and Kiyoshi Miki.

Career
Shortly after Kuki's return to Japan, he wrote and published his masterpiece, The Structure of "Iki" (1930). In this work he undertakes to make a phenomenological analysis of iki, a variety of chic culture current among the fashionable set in Edo in the Tokugawa period, and asserted that it constituted one of the essential values of Japanese culture.

Kuki took up a teaching post at Kyoto University, then a prominent center for conservative cultural values and thinking. His early lectures focused on Descartes and Bergson. In the context of a faculty with a primarily Germanic philosophical background, his lectures offered a somewhat different perspective based on the work of French philosophers.

He became an Associate Professor in 1933 (Shōwa 8); and in that same year, he published the first book length study of Martin Heidegger to appear in Japanese. In this context, it is noteworthy that the German philosopher explicitly referenced a conversation "between a Japanese and an inquirer" in On the Way to Language (Aus einem Gespräch von der Sprache). Also, Heidegger expressed a desire to have written the preface to the German translation of The Structure of "Iki".

At the University of Kyoto, Kuki was elevated to Professor of Philosophy in March 1934 (Shōwa 10). The next year, he published The Problem of Contingency, also known as The Problem of the Accidental. This work was developed from his personal experiences in Europe and the influences of Heidegger. As a single Japanese man within an encompassing "white" or non-Japanese society, he considered the extent to which he became a being who lacked necessity. His Kyoto University lectures on Heidegger, Man and Existence, were published in 1939.

From the mid-thirties, while Japan drifted towards totalitarianism and the war in China dragged on, Kuki seemed not to be much disturbed by the growth of fascism.

In 1941, Kuki died prematurely from consequences following an attack of peritonitis. His manuscripts are now kept in the Konan University Library.

Published works
Published during Kuki’s lifetime:
 * On Time [Propos sur le temps] (Paris: Philippe Renouard, 1928).
 * The Structure of “Iki” [「いき」の構造] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1930).
 * The Problem of Contingency [偶然性の問題] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1935).
 * Humanity and Existence [人間と実存] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1939).
 * A collection of Kuki’s essays on philosophy.

Published posthumously:
 * Literary Theory [文芸論] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1941).
 * A collection of Kuki’s essays on literature.
 * Occasional Writings [遠里丹婦麗天] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1941).
 * Paris of My Mind [巴里心景] (Tokyo: Kôchô Shôrin, 1942).
 * A collection of Kuki’s poetry.
 * A Draft History of Modern Western Philosophy [西洋近世哲学史稿] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1944).
 * Lectures on Contemporary French Philosophy [現代フランス哲学講義] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1957).

Collected works
Kuki’s Collected Works [九鬼周造全集], in 12 volumes (often abbreviated KSZ in scholarly publications, for Kuki Shûzô Zenshû), are published by Iwanami Shoten.

Vol. 1
 * The Structure of “Iki” [「いき」の構造], KSZ1:1-85.
 * ‘Introduction’ [序説]
 * ‘The Intentional Structure of “Iki”’ [「いき」の内包的構造]
 * ‘The Extensional Structure of “Iki”’ [「いき」の外延的構造]
 * ‘The Natural Expression of “Iki”’ [「いき」の自然的表現]
 * ‘The Artistic Expression of “Iki”’ [「いき」の芸術的表現]
 * ‘Conclusion’ [結論]
 * ‘The Essence of “Iki”’ [「いき」の本質], KSZ1:87-108.
 * A draft of The Structure of “Iki”.
 * Paris of My Mind [巴里心景], KSZ1:109-218.
 * ‘The Present State of French and German Philosophy’ [仏独哲学界の現状], KSZ1:221-32.
 * ‘Japanese Culture’ [日本文化], KSZ1:233-37.
 * ‘Faith and Knowledge’ [Glauben und Wissen], KSZ1:298-344 (German original), KSZ1:351-98 (Japanese translation by Satô Akio).
 * Kuki's thesis written during his time at Tokyo Imperial University, on the subject of faith and knowledge in European medieval philosophy.
 * On Time [Propos sur le temps], KSZ1:263-94 (French original), KSZ1:399-433 (Japanese translation by Sakamoto Kenzô).
 * Contains two lectures that Kuki delivered at Pontigny in August 1928, ‘La notion du temps et la reprise sur le temps en orient’ and ‘L’expression de l’infini dans l’art japonais’.
 * ‘Things Japanese’ [Choses japonaises], KSZ1:239-62 (French original), KSZ1:435-58 (Japanese translation by Sakamoto Kenzô).
 * A series of short essays, which the editors surmise were written during Kuki’s stay in Paris, including ‘Bergson au Japon’ and ‘À la manière d’Hérodote’.

Vol. 2
 * The Problem of Contingency [偶然性の問題], KSZ2:1-264.
 * ‘Introduction’ [序説]
 * ‘Categorical Contingency’ [定言的偶然]
 * ‘Hypothetical Contingency’ [仮定的偶然]
 * ‘Disjunctive Contingency’ [離接的偶然]
 * ‘Conclusion’ [結論]
 * ‘Contingency’ [偶然性], KSZ2:267-322.
 * Kuki’s doctoral dissertation.
 * ‘Contingency’ [偶然性], KSZ2:323-51.
 * A lecture by Kuki.
 * ‘The Logic of Becoming Contingent’ [偶然化の論理], KSZ2:353-73.
 * ‘An Enquiry into the Basic Character of Contingency’ [偶然性の基礎的性格の一考察], KSZ2:375-84.

Vol. 3
 * Humanity and Existence [人間と実存], KSZ3:1-292.
 * ‘What Is Anthropology?’ [人間学とは何か]
 * ‘Existentialist Philosophy’ [実存哲学]
 * ‘View of Life’ [人生観]
 * ‘My View of Philosophy’ [哲学私見]
 * ‘Aspects of Contingency’ [偶然の諸相]
 * ‘The Feeling of Surprise and Contingency’ [驚きの情と偶然性]
 * ‘Metaphysical Time’ [形而上学的時間]
 * ‘Heidegger’s Philosophy’ [ハイデッガーの哲学]
 * ‘The Japanese Character’ [日本的性格]
 * ‘The Problem of Time: Bergson and Heidegger’ [時間の問題——ベルクソンとハイデッガー], KSZ3:295-337.
 * ‘The Temporality of Literature’ [文学の時間性], KSZ3:339-65.
 * ‘On the Japanese Character’ [日本的性格について], KSZ3:367-99.
 * ‘Characteristics of French Philosophy’ [フランス哲学の特徴], KSZ3:401-14
 * ‘General Characteristics of French Philosophy’ [Caractères généraux de la philosophie française], KSZ3:415-23.
 * French version of the one above.
 * Contributions to the Dictionary of Philosophy [哲学辞典], KSZ3:425-36.
 * Entries on ‘Duration’ [持続], ‘Vitalism’ [生の哲学], ‘Life’ [生命] and ‘Creative evolution’ [創造的進化].

Vol. 4
 * Literary Theory [文芸論], KSZ4:1-513.
 * ‘Metaphysics of Literature’ [文学の形而上学], KSZ4:7-59.
 * ‘An Enquiry into Elegance’ [風流に関する一考察], KSZ4:60-82.
 * ‘Fusion of Art and Life’ [芸術と生活の融合], KSZ4:83-169.
 * ‘Genealogy of Emotion’ [情緒の系図], KSZ4:170-222.
 * ‘Rhyme in Japanese Poetry’ [日本詩の押韻], KSZ4:223-513.

Vol. 5: Occasional Writings [をりにふれて] and Theory of Rhyme [押韻論]

Vol. 6: A Draft History of Modern Western Philosophy, Vol. 1 [西洋近世哲学史稿 (上)]

Vol. 7: A Draft History of Modern Western Philosophy, Vol. 2 [西洋近世哲学史稿 (下)]

Vol. 8: Lectures on Contemporary French Philosophy [現代フランス哲学講義]

Vol. 9: Lectures on Contemporary Philosophy [講義 現代哲学] and Seminars on Trends in Contemporary Philosophy [講演 現代哲学の動向]

Vol. 10: Lectures on Heidegger’s Phenomenological Ontology [講義 ハイデッガーの現象学的存在論]

Vol. 11: Introductory Lectures on Literature [講義 文学概論] and Lectures on Contingency [講義 偶然性]

 * The lectures entitled Outline of Literature were delivered by Kuki at the University of Tokyo in 1933. Among them is the lecture Guzen (Contingency) which is translated in Marra, 2011.

Vol. 12: Miscellaneous Documents [資料篇]

title: Shūzō Kuki


text:
Motojirō Kajii

Motojirō Kajii (梶井 基次郎) was a Japanese writer in the early Shōwa period known for his poetic short stories. Kajii's works included Remon (檸檬), "Shiro no aru machi nite" (城のある町にて). Fuyu no hi (冬の日) and Sakura no ki no shita ni wa (櫻の樹の下には). His poetic works were praised by fellow writers including Yasunari Kawabata and Yukio Mishima. Today his works are admired for their finely tuned self-observation and descriptive power.

Despite the limited body of work he created during his short lifetime, Kajii has managed to leave a lasting footprint on Japanese culture. "Lemon" is a staple of literature textbooks. According to a report in major daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun, many high school students have emulated the protagonist's defiant act of leaving a lemon in the book section of Maruzen, a department store chain. The opening line of "Under the Cherry Trees" (Dead bodies are buried under the cherry trees!) is popularly quoted in reference to hanami, the Japanese custom of cherry blossom viewing.

Childhood and education (1901–1924)
Kajii was born in Osaka in 1901. He attended primary school in Tokyo from 1910 to 1911, middle school in Toba from 1911 to 1913, and Osaka Prefectural Kitano High School from 1914 to 1919. In September 1919, Kajii entered Kyoto's Third Higher School (Kyoto-Sanko, a junior college), where his roommate was Tadashi Iijima. While a student there in 1920, he was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis.

Early literary career (1924–1928)
In 1924, Kajii entered Tokyo Imperial University, where he studied English literature. Shortly, he planned for publish a literary coterie magazine Aozora (青空), with his friends from high school.

In 1925, Remon (檸檬) was published in Aozora first issue.

After relinquished a graduation, Kajii had been stayed in Yugasima (湯ヶ島) on the Izu Peninsula between 1927 and 1928, hoping to recuperate. During that time, he visited the writer Yasunari Kawabata, whom he befriended. The two writers would play go together several times a week.

After Aozora ceased publication in 1927, Kajii's works appeared in Bungei Toshi (文藝都市), another literary coterie magazine.

Late career and death (1928–1932)
In September 1928, Kajii returned to Osaka, where he spent a period of convalescence at home.

Sensing his impending death, friends including the poet Tatsuji Miyoshi and Ryūzō Yodono decided to publish his first book, a collection of his short stories titled Lemon in 1931.

In 1932, he wrote his first novella, titled Nonki na kanja (のんきな患者). Its publication in Chūōkōron, which had commissioned the work, was Kajii's first in the commercial magazine.

On March 24, 1932, Kajii died of tuberculosis at age 31.

Works available in English translation
Monographs Anthologies Literary magazines Scholarly works Miscellaneous amateur translations on Internet (see external links below).
 * The Youth of Things: Life and Death in the Age of Kajii Motojiro (2014) - ed. Stephen Dodd (ISBN 978-0824838409)
 * Lemon (2009) - trans. Chinatsu Komori and Kenneth Traynor (ISBN 978-0982438411)
 * "Mating" in The Shōwa Anthology (1984) - eds. Van C. Gessel and Tomone Matsumoto (ISBN 978-4770017086)
 * "Lemon" in The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories (1997) - ed. Theodore W. Goossen (ISBN 978-0199583195)
 * "Mire" in Tokyo Stories: A Literary Stroll (2002) - ed. Lawrence Rogers (ISBN 978-0520217881)
 * "Lemon" in The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature, Vol. 1 (2005) - eds. J. Thomas Rimer and Van C. Gessel (ISBN 978-0231118613)
 * "The Lemon," "The Ascension of K, or His Death by Drowning," and "Feelings Atop a Cliff" in Modanizumu; Modernist Fiction from Japan, 1913-1938 - ed. William Jefferson Tyler (ISBN 978-0824832421)
 * "Scenes of the Mind" in Three-Dimensional Reading: Stories of Time and Space in Japanese Modernist Fiction, 1911-1932 - ed. Angela Yiu (ISBN 978-0824838010)
 * "Beneath the Cherry Trees" tr. John Bester in The Japan P.E.N. News (1964)
 * "A Musical Derangement" tr. Stephen Wechselblatt in New Orleans Review (1983)
 * "The Ascension/Drowning of K" and "Lemon" with introduction "Translating Kajii Motojiro" tr. Alfred Birnbaum in The Literary Review (1996)
 * "Under the Cherry Blossoms" tr. Bonnie Huie in The Brooklyn Rail (2014)
 * Kajii Motojiro: An Anthology of Short Stories Translated into English (1977)
 * Three Stories of Kajii Motojiro: A Study and Translation (1978)
 * The Private World of Kajii Motojiro (1982)
 * The Translator as Reader and Writer: English Versions of Japanese Short Fiction by Kajii Motojiro (1982)

Translations into other languages

 * French: Le citron (1987, 1996) – partial translation of Remon (stories #1,8,9,10,11,13,16,18)
 * Russian: Limon (2004) – full translation of Remon (stories #1–18)
 * German: Bildrolle der Finsternis (2023) – partial translation of Remon (stories #1,2,10,11,15,18,20)

List of works in original Japanese
Stories in magazines
 * 1) "Keikichi" (奎吉) - May 1923
 * 2) "Mujun no yōna shinjitsu" (矛盾の様な真実) - July 1923
 * 3) Remon (檸檬) – January 1925
 * 4) "Shiro no aru machi nite" (城のある町にて) - February 1925
 * 5) "Deinei" (泥濘) - July 1925
 * 6) "Rojō" (路上)  - October 1925
 * 7) "Tochi no hana" (橡の花) - November 1925
 * 8) "Kako" (過古) - January 1926
 * 9) "Setsugo" (雪後) - June 1926
 * 10) "Kawabata Yasunari Dai-yon tanpen-shū Shinjū wo shudai to seru variation" (川端康成第四短篇集「心中」を主題とせるヴァリエイシヨン) - July 1926
 * 11) "Aru kokoro no fūkei" (ある心の風景) - August 1926
 * 12) "K no shōten – aruiwa K no dekishi" (Kの昇天 – 或はKの溺死) - October 1926
 * 13) Fuyu no hi (冬の日) - February, April 1927
 * 14) "Sōkyū" (蒼穹) - March 1928
 * 15) "Kakei no hanashi" (筧の話) – April 1928
 * 16) "Kigakuteki-genkaku" (器樂的幻覺) – May 1928
 * 17) "Fuyu no hae" (冬の蠅) – May 1928
 * 18) "Aru gake-ue no kanjō" (ある崖上の感情) – July 1928
 * 19) Sakura no ki no shita ni wa (櫻の樹の下には) – December 1928
 * 20) "Aibu" (愛撫) – June 1930
 * 21) "Yami no emaki" (闇の繪巻) – September 1930
 * 22) "Kōbi" (交尾) – January 1931
 * 23) Nonnki na kanja (のんきな患者) – January 1932, novella

(Unpublished or unfinished works included in Complete Works are not listed above.)

Books
 * Remon (檸檬) – May 1931, collection (stories #1–18)
 * -- posthumously --
 * Kajii Motojirō zenshū (Jōge-kan) (梶井基次郎全集 (上・下巻)) – 1934 (ed. Takao Nakatani, Ryūzō Yodono) Rokuhō Shoin
 * Kajii Motojirō zenshū (Dai 1-kan) (梶井基次郎全集 (第1卷)) – 1947 (ed. Ryūzō Yodono) Kyoto: Kōtō Shoin
 * Kajii Motojirō zenshū (Dai 2-kan) (梶井基次郎全集 (第2卷)) – 1948 (ed. Ryūzō Yodono) Kyoto: Kōtō Shoin
 * "Wakaki shijin no tegami" (若き詩人の手紙) – 1955, selected correspondence. 1955 (ed. Ryūzō Yodono) Kadokawa Shoten
 * Kettei-ban Kajii Motojirō zenshū (Zen 3-kan) (決定版 梶井基次郎全集 (全3卷)) – 1959 (ed. Ryūzō Yodono, Takao Nakatani) Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. Reprinted in 1966.
 * Kajii Motojirō zenshū (Zen 3-kan＋Bekkan) (梶井基次郎全集 (全3卷＋別巻)) – 1999-2000 (ed. Sadami Suzuki) Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō

title: Motojirō Kajii


text:
Kanoko Okamoto

Kanoko Okamoto (岡本 かの子), born Kano Ōnuki (大貫 カノ), was the pen-name of a Japanese author, tanka poet, and Buddhist scholar active during the Taishō and early Shōwa periods of Japan.

Early life
Kanoko's maiden name was Ōnuki Kano. She was born in Aoyama, Akasaka-ku (present day Minato, Tokyo), to an extremely wealthy family. Her father suffered from lung disease, and Kanoko was sent to the Ōnuki family estate in Futako Tamagawa, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, where she was raised by a governess. Her tutor encouraged her affinity for music, calligraphy and traditional dance, and introduced her to Japanese classical literature, especially the Tale of Genji and Kokin Wakashū.

Literary career
Okamoto was influenced greatly by her older brother, Shosen, and his classmate Jun'ichirō Tanizaki who studied at the First Higher School and Tokyo Imperial University. While still a student at the Atami Gakuen girls' high school, Kanoko called on the poet, Yosano Akiko, and this encounter prompted her to start contributing tanka to the poetry magazine Myōjō ("Bright Star"). Along with Yosano, she joined Hiratsuka Raichō, Tamura Toshiko, and others, to be one of the initial contributors to the influential Bluestocking (Seitō) journal, helping to set the course for women writers and feminist ideas, in 1911. Later, she played an active part as a key contributor to another journal, Subaru ("Pleiades"). She published Karoki-netami, the first of her five tanka anthologies, in 1912.

Okamoto Kanoko is an authority on Buddhism, after she plunged into Buddhist practice and research during her marriage to the famous cartoonist Okamoto Ippei.

In 1908, she met cartoonist Okamoto Ippei while on a holiday in Karuizawa, Nagano, together with her father. However, her family was extremely opposed to the relationship, and she created a scandal by moving in together with him in 1910 without marrying. Their eldest son, the avant-garde painter Tarō Okamoto, was born the next year. However, Kanoko's family life was filled with tragedy. Soon after she moved in with Ippei, her brother and then her mother died. Her eldest daughter was born with mental health problems, and soon died. Her common-law husband was opposed to her independence, jealous of her artistic successes and was unfaithful. Her younger son was also born with weak health, and died in infancy.

These problems led Okamoto to turn to religion. She was first interested in Protestant Christianity, but did not find it to her liking. She then turned to the Jodo Shinshu sect of Buddhism, as expounded by Shinran, which was the start of her work as a researcher of Buddhism, about which she wrote numerous essays.

After releasing her fourth tanka anthology Waga saishū kashū ("My Last Anthology") in 1929, she decided to become a novelist. She took her whole family to Europe to complete her literary studies. They traveled to Paris, London, Berlin, and (leaving their son behind) toured around the United States, returning to Japan in 1932.

After returning home, Okamoto continued her researches into Buddhism, but also found time to a novelette called Tsuru wa yamiki ("The Dying Crane"), describing the last days of writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, while staying at an inn near Kamakura Station in the summer of 1923. Published in the magazine Bungakukai in 1936, it marked the start of her activity with prose fiction.

After that, she published many more works in quick succession, including Boshi jojō ("The Relationship between Mother and Child"), Kingyo ryōran ("A Riot of Goldfish"), and Rōgishō ("Portrait of an Old Geisha"). A recurring theme in her work is the effect of a person's familial ancestral karma on their present-day lives. While praising the richness of her use of language, some critics have felt that she tended towards excessive passion and unnecessary literary flourishes.

She died of a brain hemorrhage in 1939. She was 49 years old. Her grave is at the Tama Cemetery in Fuchu, Tokyo.

Because she did not begin writing actively until her later years, most of her works were published posthumously.

Kanoko Okamoto has always wanted to become a novelist, but only began publishing ‘secular’ fiction until the end of her life. Her reputation as a fiction writer was assured with the publication of her novella Boshi Jojo (A Mother’s Love.) Boshi Jojo is published in 1937, and is a daring look at the erotic side of maternal feeling.

Okamoto Kanoko dedicated herself to presenting straightforward images of strong, mysterious, even shamanic female characters. The combination of power and female beauty is represented in many of her works including ‘A Mother’s Love,’ ‘A Riot of Goldfish,’ and ‘The Record of Old Geisha.’ Her works like ‘Kakoze’ also explore themes like homoerotic aestheticism and the female gaze.

Selected works

 * Tsuru wa yamiki (The Dying Crane) (1936)
 * Manatsu no yoru no yume (A Midsummer Night's Dream) (1937)
 * Boshi jojō (The Relationship between Mother and Child) (1937)
 * Kingyo ryōran (A Riot of Goldfish) (1937)
 * Rōgishō (Portrait of an Old Geisha) (1938)
 * Kawa akari (Stream of Light) (1938)
 * Marunouchi sōwa (Story of Inside the Grass Circle) (1939)
 * Seisei ruten (Lively Ebb and Flow) (1940)
 * Nyotai kaiken (The Opening of the Female Body) (1943)

English translations

 * A Riot of Goldfish (Kingyo ryōran). Translated by J. Keith Vincent. London, Hesperus Press (2010). (Also includes "The Food Demon" [Shokuma])

title: Kanoko Okamoto


text:
Shunrō Oshikawa

Shunrō Oshikawa (押川 春浪) was a Japanese author, journalist and editor, best known as a pioneer of science fiction.

Education and early career
While studying law at Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō (present day Waseda University) at the turn of the century, Oshikawa published Kaitō Bōken Kidan: Kaitei Gunkan (海島冒険奇譚 海底軍艦 lit. "Undersea Warship: A Fantastic Tale of Island Adventure"), the story of an armoured, ram-armed submarine in a future history of war between Japan and Russia.

The novel reflects the imperialist ambitions of Japan at the time, and foreshadowed the Russo-Japanese War that followed in 1904, driven by much the same motivation.

Oshikawa's father was Masayoshi Oshikawa, evangelist, political activist and founder and first president of Tohoku Gakuin University and his brother was Kiyoshi Oshikawa, founder of the first professional baseball team in Japan. While at Waseda, Oshikawa played on the baseball team under Abe Isoo, along with his brother. He wrote a prologue for a baseball technique book that came from this trip, discussing how baseball should be considered the same as bushidō in spirit. He was a member of the Waseda team that in 1905 traveled to the U.S. to play American teams, the first time for Japanese baseball.

Influences and later works
Like other early science fiction writers of the period, he was influenced by the stories of Jules Verne, whose technological adventure novels had become popular in translation in the rapidly modernising Meiji era Japan. Specifically, the above-mentioned speculative conception of submarine warfare, based on ramming and making no mention of torpedoes, is shared with Verne (see "Facing the Flag", "HMS Sword").

Later, Kaitei gunkan became the first in a wildly successful, six-volume series set in the Pacific and Indian Oceans: Bukyō no Nippon (武侠の日本 lit. Heroic Japan, 1902), Shinzō Gunkan (新造軍艦 lit. The Newly Built Battleship, 1904), Bukyō Kantai (武侠艦隊 lit. Heroic Armada, 1904), Shin Nippontō (新日本島 lit. New Japan Isle, 1906), and Tōyō Bukyō Dan (東洋武侠団 lit. East Asian Heroic Troupe, 1907). The books remained in print for many years and later got much additional attention through a successful film adaptation.

Oshikawa was enthusiastic about sports, especially baseball, and famously clashed with Inazō Nitobe (one of the main proponents of the "baseball considered harmful" or "野球害毒論" argument).

He has also contributed to the development of the Japanese detective fiction. Some of his stories incorporated elements of ratiocination, sleuthing, mystery and crime within stories of adventure, intrigue, the bizarre and the grotesque – though in his time this did not yet become a distinct genre on its own.

In the detailed list compiled by "The Victorian Bookshelf" project of "Confluence 2000," tracing the early development of "The Scientific Romance and other Related Works", Oshikawa Shunrō is the only non-Western author mentioned for the pre-1900 period.

However, all the above is inextricably mixed with Oshikawa's share in and responsibility for helping to perpetuate in Japanese popular culture – especially through works greatly influencing children and youths which remained in print for many decades after his own time – themes of Japanese nationalism and patriotism, some which can be considered to promote militarism and imperialism as well.

As noted by Jeffrey M. Angles in his 2003 Ohio State University dissertation on Japanese popular authors in the early Twentieth Century, Shunro is best remembered in Japan for his important role in developing adventure tales into an independent genre of children's fiction.

Oshikawa entered the publishing company Hakubunkan at the introduction of the author Iwaya Sazanami (1870–1933) and served as a lead reporter for Shaijitsu Gahō (写実画報 lit. Graphic Pictorial), a magazine that featured stories and photos about the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. This magazine ceased publication in 1907, but Oshikawa became co-editor of another Hakubunkan magazine, Bōken sekai (冒険世界 lit. World of Adventure).

During and following the war with Russia there was a strong patriotic wave in Japan, and – though their country had won a decisive victory over the Russians and capitalized upon it to annex Korea – some Japanese were left feeling dissatisfied with the war's achievements. An earlier magazine – Tanken Sekai (探検世界 lit. World of Exploration), published by Hakubunkan's competitor Seikōzasshisha (成功雑誌社) – catered to those wishing to read tales of Japanese adventure and exploration abroad and fantasies of imperialistic superiority and Japanese valor, in which fiction was mixed with more or less factual accounts of exploration, record-breaking achievements and "unusual customs" from around the world.

Hakubunkan's "Bōken sekai" (冒険世界), which Oshikawa co-edited, was – as clearly shown by researcher Kawataro Nakajima – designed to appeal to the same kind of public, which had shown itself attracted to tales of military adventure and heroism. "Bōken Sekai" often contained allegedly true stories of adventure, exploration, military prowess and accounts of "primitive" lands, all of which reflected Japanese nationalism and imperial ambitions. At the same time, however, it also published mysteries, including translations of Western Detective Stories, as well as ghost stories. Virtually every issue of the magazine included a story or article by Oshikawa himself.

After a dispute with his publisher, Oshikawa left Hakubunkan. In October 1911 he founded the magazine "Buykō Sekai" (武侠世界 lit. World of Heroism) with the capital of an entrepreneur named Yanaginuma Kensuke, whose publishing house (Bukyō Sekaisha, later Bukyōsha) concentrated at the time on books of adventure, sports and physical activity for young people. Oshikawa's new monthly magazine, which he edited until his death, strongly resembled his earlier one, and it too carried tales of exploration, non-fictional adventure stories, editorials, sports-related tales, and translations of mysteries.

On August 6, 1914, Oshikawa was accompanied by several of the magazine's editors, contributors, illustrators and fans on an outing to a lakeshore in the northern part of the Kantō region. Possibly because of his death shortly afterwards, that outing seemed to be long remembered by and influence the later work of participants such as the artist Kosugi Misei who had illustrated many of Oshikawa's stories and followed him from his earlier magazine to the later one.

Oshikawa's works were never translated in any significant way to Western languages, leaving his literary influence limited mainly to Japan itself. However, the many loose film adaptations of his books, starting in the 1960s, did gain a considerable audience in America and Europe, such as Kaitei Gunkan (1963, released in the US as Atragon) – an adaptation which came to be considered "a Classic of Science Fiction Films" – and Shin Kaitei Gunkan (1996 and 1998, released in the US as Super Atragon).

The film versions were considerably different from the original, both due to the addition of Science Fiction and Fantasy elements such as a kaiju and because the handling of Oshikawa's nationalist themes was influenced by Japan's American-enforced transformation into a secular and pacifistic culture after the Surrender of Japan.

The "Bukyō Sekai" magazine survived its founder and continued publication after Oshikawa's death, until 1923.

The book Kaidanji: Oshikawa Shunrō, by Jun'ya Yokota and Shingo Aizu, won the Nihon SF Taisho Award for 1988.

title: Shunrō Oshikawa


text:
Hiraide Shū

Hiraide Shū (平出 修) was a novelist, poet, and lawyer in late Meiji period Japan. As a lawyer, he was noted for his involvement in the defense of the accused in the High Treason Incident.

Biography
Born the eighth son of a relatively prosperous farming family in rural Niigata prefecture, Hiraide graduated from the Meiji Hōritsu Gakkō (the predecessor to the legal school of Meiji University) in 1903. He opened his own legal office in the Jimbocho area of Kanda, Tokyo in 1904. This district was (and still is) noted for the large number of publishers and book dealers based in the area.

Hiraide was one of the founding members of the literary journal Subaru. As a lawyer, Hiraide received widespread fame (or notoriety, depending on political viewpoint) for his defense of anarchist author Ōsugi Sakae, the defendants in the High Treason Incident, and for his defense of feminist poet Yosano Akiko over government criticism of her anti-war poetry.

title: Hiraide Shū


text:
Kenji Miyazawa

Kenji Miyazawa (宮沢 賢治 or 宮澤 賢治) was a Japanese novelist, poet, and writer of children's literature from Hanamaki, Iwate, in the late Taishō and early Shōwa periods. He was also known as an agricultural science teacher, a vegetarian, cellist, devout Buddhist, and utopian social activist.

Some of his major works include Night on the Galactic Railroad, Kaze no Matasaburō, Gauche the Cellist, and The Night of Taneyamagahara. Miyazawa converted to Nichiren Buddhism after reading the Lotus Sutra, and joined the Kokuchūkai, a Nichiren Buddhist organization. His religious and social beliefs created a rift between him and his wealthy family, especially his father, though after his death his family eventually followed him in converting to Nichiren Buddhism. Miyazawa founded the Rasu Farmers Association to improve the lives of peasants in Iwate Prefecture. He was also interested in Esperanto and translated some of his poems into that language.

He died of pneumonia in 1933. Almost totally unknown as a poet in his lifetime, Miyazawa's work gained its reputation posthumously, and enjoyed a boom by the mid-1990s on his centenary. A museum dedicated to his life and works was opened in 1982 in his hometown. Many of his children's stories have been adapted as anime, most notably Night on the Galactic Railroad. Many of his tanka and free verse poetry, translated into many languages, are still popular today.

Biography

Miyazawa was born in the town of Hanamaki, Iwate, the eldest son of a wealthy pawnbroking couple, Masajirō and his wife Ichi. The family were also pious followers of the Pure Land Sect, as were generally the farmers in that district. His father, from 1898 onwards, organized regular meetings in the district where monks and Buddhist thinkers gave lectures and Miyazawa, together with his younger sister, took part in these meetings from an early age. The area was an impoverished rice-growing region, and he grew to be troubled by his family's interest in money-making and social status. Miyazawa was a keen student of natural history from an early age, and also developed an interest as a teenager in poetry, coming under the influence of a local poet, Takuboku Ishikawa. After graduating from middle school, he helped out in his father's pawnshop. By 1918, he was writing in the tanka genre, and had already composed two tales for children. In high school he converted to the Hokke sect after reading the Lotus Sutra, a move which was to bring him into conflict with his father. In 1918, he graduated from Morioka Agriculture and Forestry College (盛岡高等農林学校). He embraced vegetarianism in the same year. A bright student, he was then given a position as a special research student in geology, developing an interest in soil science and in fertilizers. Later in 1918, he and his mother went to Tokyo to look after his younger sister Toshi (宮澤トシ), who had fallen ill while studying in Japan Women's University He returned home after his sister had recovered early the following year.

As a result of differences with his father over religion, his repugnance for commerce, and the family pawnshop business in particular (he yielded his inheritance to his younger brother Seiroku), he left Hanamaki for Tokyo in January 1921. There, he joined Tanaka Chigaku's Kokuchūkai, and spent several months in dire poverty preaching Nichiren Buddhism in the streets. After eight months in Tokyo, he took once more to writing children's stories, this time prolifically, under the influence of another Nichiren priest, Takachiyo Chiyō, who dissuaded him from the priesthood by convincing him that Nichiren believers best served their faith by striving to embody it in their profession. He returned to Hanamaki due to the renewed illness of his beloved younger sister. At this time he became a teacher at the Agricultural School in Hanamaki. On November 27, 1922, Toshi finally succumbed to her illness and died at age 24. This was a traumatic shock for Miyazawa, from which he never recovered. He composed three poems on the day of her death, collectively entitled "Voiceless Lament" (無声慟哭).

He found employment as a teacher in agricultural science at Hanamaki Agricultural High School (花巻農学校). He managed to put out a collection of poetry, Haru to Shura (春と修羅) in April 1924, thanks to some borrowings and a major subvention from a producer of nattō. His collection of children's stories and fairy tales, Chūmon no Ōi Ryōriten (注文の多い料理店, "The Restaurant of Many Orders"), also self-published, came out in December of the same year. Although neither were commercial successes — they were largely ignored — his work did come to the attention of the poets Kōtarō Takamura and Shinpei Kusano, who admired his writing greatly and introduced it to the literary world.

Kenji resigned his post as a teacher in 1926 to become a farmer and help improve the lot of the other farmers in the impoverished north-eastern region of Japan by sharing his theoretical knowledge of agricultural science, by imparting to them improved, modern techniques of cultivation. He also taught his fellow farmers more general topics of cultural value, such as music, poetry, and whatever else he thought might improve their lives. He introduced them to classical music by playing to audiences compositions from Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner and Debussy on his gramophone. In August 1926 he established the Rasuchijin Society (羅須地人協会). When asked what "Rasuchijin" meant, he said it meant nothing in particular, but he was probably thinking of chi (地) and jin (人). He introduced new agricultural techniques and more resistant strains of rice. At the detached house of his family, where he was staying at the time, he gathered a group of youths from nearby farming families and lectured on agronomy. The Rasuchijin Society also engaged in literary readings, plays, music and other cultural activities. It was disbanded after two years as Japan was being swept up by a militarist turn, in 1928, when the authorities closed it down.

Not all of the local farmers were grateful for his efforts, with some sneering at the idea of a city-slicker playing farmer, and others expressing disappointment that the fertilizers Kenji introduced were not having the desired effects. He advocated natural fertilizers, while many preferred a Western chemical 'fix', which, when it failed, did not stop many from blaming Kenji. Their reservations may have also persisted as he had not wholly broken from economic dependence on his father, to whom farmers were often indebted when their crops failed, in addition to his defection to the Lotus Sect soured their view, as farmers in his area were, like his own father, adherents of the Pure Land Sect. Kenji in turn did not hold an ideal view of the farmers; in one of his poems he describes how a farmer bluntly tells him that all his efforts have done no good for anyone.

According to Sibayama Zyun'iti, he started learning Esperanto in 1926, but never reached a high level in the language. He also studied English and German. At some point he translated some of his poems into Esperanto; the translated pieces were published in 1953, long after his death. According to Jouko Lindstedt, Kenji was made interested in Esperanto by the Finnish scientist and Esperantist Gustaf John Ramstedt, who was working as a diplomat for Finland in Japan.

Kenjis writings from this period show sensitivity for the land and for the people who work in it. A prolific writer of children's stories, many that appear superficially to be light or humorous, all contain stories intended for moral education of the reader. He wrote some works in prose and some stage plays for his students and left behind a large amount of tanka and free verse, most of which was discovered and published posthumously. His poetry, which has been translated into numerous languages, has a considerable following to this day. A number of his children's works have been made into animated movies, anime, in Japan.

He showed little interest in romantic love or sex, both in his private life and in his literary work. Kenji's close friend Tokuya Seki (関登久也) wrote that he died a virgin.

Illness and death
Kenji fell ill in summer 1928, and by the end of that year this had developed into acute pneumonia. He once wept on learning that he had been tricked into eating carp liver. He struggled with pleurisy for many years and was often incapacitated for months at a time. His health improved nonetheless sufficiently for him to take on consultancy work with a rock-crushing company in 1931. The respite was brief; by September of that year, on a visit to Tokyo, he caught pneumonia and had to return to his hometown. In the autumn of 1933, his health seemed to have improved enough for him to watch a local Shinto procession from his doorway; a group of local farmers approached him and engaged him in conversation about fertilizer for about an hour. He died the following day, having been exhausted by the length of his discussion with the farmers. On his deathbed he asked his father to print 1,000 copies of the Lotus Sutra for distribution. His family initially had him buried in the family temple Anjōji (安浄寺), but when they converted to Nichiren Buddhism in 1951, he was moved to the Nichiren temple Shinshōji (身照寺). After his death, he became known in his district as Kenji-bosatsu (賢治菩薩).

Miyazawa left his manuscripts to his younger brother Seiroku, who kept them through the Pacific War and eventually had them published.

Early writings
Kenji started writing poetry as a schoolboy, and composed over a thousand tanka beginning at roughly age 15, in January 1911, a few weeks after the publication of Takuboku's "A Handful of Sand". He favoured this form until the age of 24. Keene said of these early poems that they "were crude in execution, [but] they already prefigure the fantasy and intensity of emotion that would later be revealed in his mature work".

Kenji was removed physically from the poetry circles of his day. He was an avid reader of modern Japanese poets such as Hakushū Kitahara and Sakutarō Hagiwara, and their influence can be traced on his poetry, but his life among farmers has been said to have influenced his poetry more than these literary interests. When he first started writing modern poetry, he was influenced by Kitahara, as well as his fellow Iwatean Takuboku Ishikawa

Kenji's works were influenced by contemporary trends of romanticism and the proletarian literature movement. His readings in Buddhist literature, particularly the Lotus Sutra, to which he became devoted, also came to have a strong influence on his writings.

In 1919, his sister prepared a collection of 662 of his tanka for publication. Kenji edited a volume of extracts from Nichiren’s writings, the year before he join the Kokuchūkai (see below).

He largely abandoned tanka by 1921, and turned his hand instead to the composition of free verse, involving an extension of the conventions governing tanka verse forms. He is said also to have written three thousand pages a month worth of children's stories during this period, thanks to the advice of a priest in the Nichiren order, Takachiyo Chiyō. At the end of the year he managed to sell one of these stories for five yen, which was the only payment he received for his writings during his own lifetime.

Later poetry
The "charms of Kenji's poetry", critic Makota Ueda writes, include "his high idealism, his intensely ethical life, his unique cosmic vision, his agrarianism, his religious faith, and his rich and colorful vocabulary." Ultimately, Ueda writes, "they are all based in a dedicated effort to unify the heterogeneous elements of modern life into a single, coherent whole."

It was in 1922 that Kenji began composing the poetry that would make up his first collection, Haru to Shura. The day his sister died, November 27, 1922, he composed three long poems commemorating her, which Keene states to be among the best of his work. Keene also remarks that the speed at which Kenji composed these poems was characteristic of the poet, as a few months prior he had composed three long poems, one more than 900 lines long, in three days. The first of these poems on the death of his sister was Eiketsu no Asa (永訣の朝), which was the longest. Keene calls it the most affecting of the three. It is written in the form of a "dialogue" between Kenji and Toshi (or Toshiko, as he often calls her ). Several lines uttered by his sister are written in a regional dialect so unlike Standard Japanese that Kenji provided translations at the end of the poem. The poem lacks any kind of regular meter, but draws its appeal from the raw emotion it expresses; Keene suggests that Kenji learned this poetic technique from Sakutarō Hagiwara.

Kenji could write a huge volume of poetry in a short time, based mostly on impulse, seemingly with no preconceived plan of how long the poem would be and without considering future revisions.

Donald Keene has speculated that his love of music affected the poetry he was writing in 1922, as this was when he started collecting records of western music, particularly Bach and Beethoven. Much of his poetic tone derives from synesthesia involving music becoming color, especially after the period 1921 and 1926 when he started listening to music of Debussy, Wagner and Strauss.

He was associated with the poetry magazine Rekitei (歴程).

Only the first part in four of Haru to Shura was published during Kenji's lifetime. It appeared in an edition of one thousand copies, but only one hundred sold. For most of his literary career his poems saw publication only in local papers and magazines, but by the time of his death major literary publications had been made aware of him; he died just as his fame was beginning to spread.

With the exception of a few poems in classical Japanese written near the end of his life, virtually all Myazawa'a modern poetry was in colloquial Japanese, occasionally even in dialect. The poems included in Haru to Shura include a liberal sprinkling of scientific vocabulary, Sanskrit phrases, Sino-Japanese compounds and even some Esperanto words. After starting out with traditional tanka, he developed a preference for long, free verse, but continued to occasionally compose tanka even as late as 1921.

Kenji wrote his most famous poem, "Ame ni mo makezu", in his notebook on November 3, 1931. Keene was dismissive of the poetic value of the poem, stating that it is "by no means one of Miyazawa's best poems" and that it is "ironic that [it] should be the one poem for which he is universally known", but that the image of a sickly and dying Kenji writing such a poem of resolute self-encouragement is striking.

Later fiction
Kenji wrote rapidly and tirelessly. He wrote a great number of children's stories, many of them intended to assist in moral education.

His best-known stories include Night on the Galactic Railroad (銀河鉄道の夜), The Life of Guskō Budori (グスコーブドリの伝記), Kaze no Matasaburō (風の又三郎), Gauche the Cellist (セロ弾きのゴーシュ), The Night of Taneyamagahara (種山ヶ原の夜), Vegetarian Great Festival (ビジテリアン大祭), and The Dragon and the Poet (龍と詩人)

Other writings
In 1919, Kenji edited a volume of extracts from the writings of Nichiren, and in December 1925 a solicitation to build a Nichiren temple (法華堂建立勧進文) in the Iwate Nippo under a pseudonym.

Religious beliefs
Kenji was born into a family of Pure Land Buddhists, but in 1915 converted to Nichiren Buddhism upon reading the Lotus Sutra and being captivated by it. His conversion created a rift with his relatives, but he nevertheless became active in trying to spread the faith of the Lotus Sutra, walking the streets crying Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō. In January 1921 he made several unsuccessful attempts to convert his family to Nichiren Buddhism.

From January to September 1921, he lived in Tokyo working as a street proselytizer for the Kokuchūkai, a Buddhist-nationalist organization that had initially turned down his service. The general consensus among modern Kenji scholars is that he became estranged from the group and rejected their nationalist agenda, but a few scholars such as Akira Ueda, Gerald Iguchi and Jon Holt argue otherwise. The Kokuchūkai's official website continues to claim him as a member, also claiming that the influence of Nichirenism (the group's religio-political philosophy) can be seen in Kenji's later works such as Ame ni mo Makezu, while acknowledging that others have expressed the view that Kenji became estranged from the group after returning to Hanamaki.

Kenji remained a devotee of the Lotus Sutra until his death, and continued attempting to convert those around him. He made a deathbed request to his father to print one thousand copies of the sutra in Japanese translation and distribute them to friends and associates.

Kenji incorporated a relatively large amount of Buddhist vocabulary in his poems and children's stories. He drew inspiration from mystic visions in which he saw the bodhisattva Kannon, the Buddha himself and fierce demons.

In 1925 Kenji pseudonymously published a solicitation to build a Nichiren temple (法華堂建立勧進文) in Hanamaki, which led to the construction of the present Shinshōji, but on his death his family, who were followers of Pure Land Buddhism, had him interred at a Pure Land temple. His family converted to Nichiren Buddhism in 1951 and moved his grave to Shinshōji, where it is located today.

Donald Keene suggests that while explicitly Buddhist themes are rare in his writings, he incorporated a relatively large amount of Buddhist vocabulary in his poems and children's stories, and has been noted as taking a far greater interest in Buddhism than other Japanese poets of the twentieth century. Keene also contrasted Kenji's piety to the "relative indifference to Buddhism" on the part of most modern Japanese poets.

Themes
He loved his native province, and the mythical landscape of his fiction, known by the generic neologism, coined in a poem in 1923, as Īhatōbu (Ihatov) is often thought to allude to Iwate (Ihate in the older spelling). Several theories exist as to the possible derivations of this fantastic toponym: one theory breaks it down into a composite of I for 'Iwate'; hāto (English 'heart') and obu (English 'of'), yielding 'the heart or core of Iwate'. Others cite Esperanto and German forms as keys to the word's structure, and derive meanings varying from 'I don't know where' to 'Paradise'. Among the variation of names, there is Ihatovo, and the addition of final o is supposed to be the noun ending of Esperanto, whose idea of common international language interested him.

Reception
Kenji's poetry managed to attract some attention during his lifetime. According to Hiroaki Sato, Haru to Shura, which appeared in April 1924, "electrified several of the poets who read it." These included the first reviewer, Dadaist Tsuji Jun, who wrote that he chose the book for his summer reading in the Japan Alps, and anarchist Shinpei Kusano (草野心平), who called the book shocking and inspirational, and Satō Sōnosuke, who wrote in a review for a poetry magazine that it "astonished [him] the most" out of all the books of poems he had received. However, such occasional murmurs of interest were a far cry from the chorus of praise later directed toward his poetry.

In February 1934, some time after his memorial service, his literary friends held an event where they organized his unpublished manuscripts. These were slowly published over the following decade, and his fame increased rapidly in the postwar period.

The poet Gary Snyder is credited as introducing Kenji's poetry to English readers. "In the 1960s, Snyder, then living in Kyoto and pursuing Buddhism, was offered a grant to translate Japanese literature. He sought Burton Watson’s opinion, and Watson, a scholar of Chinese classics trained at the University of Kyoto, recommended Kenji." Some years earlier Jane Imamura at the Buddhist Study Center in Berkeley had shown him a Kenji translation which had impressed him. Snyder's translations of eighteen poems by Kenji appeared in his collection, The Back Country (1967).

The Miyazawa Kenji Museum was opened in 1982 in his native Hanamaki, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of his death. It displays the few manuscripts and artifacts from Kenji's life that escaped the destruction of Hanamaki by American bombers in World War II.

In 1982, Oh! Production finished an animated feature film adaptation of Miyazawa's Gauche the Cellist, with Studio Ghibli and Buena Vista Home Entertainment re-releasing the film as a double-disc commemoration of Miyazawa's 110th birthday along with an English-subtitle version.

Manga artist Hiroshi Masumura has adapted many of Miyazawa's stories as manga since the 1980s, often using anthropomorphic cats as protagonists. The 1985 anime adaptation of Ginga tetsudō no yoru (Night on the Galactic Railroad), in which all signs in Giovanni and Campanella's world are written in Esperanto, is based on Masumura's manga. In 1996, to mark the 100th anniversary of Kenji's birth, the anime  Īhatōbu Gensō: Kenji no Haru (Ihatov Fantasy: Kenji's Spring; North American title: Spring and Chaos) was released as a depiction of Kenji's life. As in the Night on the Galactic Railroad anime, the main characters are depicted as cats.

The Japanese culture and lifestyle television show Begin Japanology aired on NHK World featured a full episode on Miyazawa Kenji in 2008.

The JR train SL Ginga (SL銀河) was restored with inspiration from and named in honor of his work in 2013.

The 2015 anime Punch Line and its video game adaptation features a self-styled hero who calls himself Kenji Miyazawa and has a habit of quoting his poetry when arriving on scene. When other characters wonder who he is after his sudden initial appearance, they point out that he cannot be the "poet who wrote books for kids" because he died in 1933.

Works in English translation

 * Miyazawa, Kenji. The Milky Way Railroad. Translated by Joseph Sigrist and D. M. Stroud. Stone Bridge Press (1996). ISBN 1-880656-26-4
 * Miyazawa Kenji. Night of the Milky Way Railroad. M.E. Sharpe (1991). ISBN 0-87332-820-5
 * Miyazawa Kenji. The Restaurant of Many Orders. RIC Publications (2006). ISBN 1-74126-019-1
 * Miyazawa Kenji. Miyazawa Kenji Selections. University of California Press (2007). ISBN 0-520-24779-5
 * Miyazawa Kenji. Winds from Afar. Kodansha (1992).ISBN 087011171X
 * Miyazawa Kenji. The Dragon and the Poet. translated by Massimo Cimarelli, Volume Edizioni (2013), ebook. ISBN 9788897747161
 * Miyazawa Kenji. The Dragon and the Poet – illustrated version. Translated by Massimo Cimarelli. Illustrated by Francesca Eleuteri. Volume Edizioni (2013), ebook. ISBN 9788897747185
 * Miyazawa Kenji. Once and Forever: The Tales of Kenji Miyazawa. Translated by John Bester. Kodansha International (1994). ISBN 4-7700-1780-4
 * Miyazawa Kenji. Night Train to the Stars and other stories. Translated by John Bester, introduction by Kaori Nagai. Vintage Classics (2022). ISBN 9781784877767
 * Snyder, Gary. The Back Country. New York: New Directions, 1967.

Adaptations

 * Night on the Galactic Railroad (銀河鉄道の夜)
 * The Life of Guskō Budori (グスコーブドリの伝記)
 * Matasaburo of the Wind (風の又三郎)
 * Gauche the Cellist (セロ弾きのゴーシュ)
 * The Night of Taneyamagahara (種山ヶ原の夜)

Critical studies

 * Cimarelli, Massimo. Miyazawa Kenji: A Short Biography, Volume Edizioni (2013), ebook. ASIN B00E0TE83W.
 * Colligan-Taylor, Karen. The Emergence of Environmental Literature in Japan Environment, Garland 1990 pp. 34ff.
 * Curley, Melissa Anne-Marie. "Fruit, Fossils, Footprints: Cathecting Utopia in the Work of Miyazawa Kenji", in Daniel Boscaljon (ed.), Hope and the Longing for Utopia: Futures and Illusions in Theology and Narrative, James Clarke & Co./ /Lutterworth Press, 2015. 96–118.
 * Hara Shirō. Miyazawa Kenji Goi Jiten = Glossarial Dictionary of Miyazawa Kenji. Tokyo: Tokyo Shoseki, 1989.
 * Holt, Jon. 2014. "Ticket to Salvation: Nichiren Buddhism in Miyazawa Kenji's Ginga tetsudō no yoru", Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 41/2: 305–345.
 * (First Edition 1984; 1999 Columbia University Press paperback reprint cited in text)
 * Kikuchi, Yūko (菊地有子), Japanese Modernisation and Mingei Theory: Cultural Nationalism and Oriental Orientalism, RoutledgeCurzon 2004 pp. 36ff.
 * Kilpatrick, Helen Miyazawa Kenji and His Illustrators: Images of Nature and Buddhism in Japanese Children's Literature, BRILL, 2014.
 * Inoue, Kota "Wolf Forest, Basket Forest and Thief Forest", in Mason, Michele and Lee, Helen (eds.), Reading Colonial Japan: Text, Context, and Critique, Stanford University Press, 2012 pp. 181–207,
 * Long, Hoyt On Uneven Ground: Miyazawa Kenji and the Making of Place in Modern Japan, Stanford University Press, 2011
 * Mitsutani, Margaret, "The Regional as the Center: The Poetry of Miyazawa Kenji", in Klaus Martens, Paul Duncan Morris, Arlette Warken (eds.) A World of Local Voices: Poetry in English Today, Königshausen & Neumann, 2003 pp. 66–72.
 * Miyazawa Kenji 1968. Nihon no Shiika series. Chūō Kōron Sha.
 * Napier, Susan, The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature: The Subversion of Modernity, Routledge 1996 pp. 141–178
 * Sato, Hiroaki. "Introduction". In Miyazawa Kenji. Miyazawa Kenji Selections. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. pp. 1–58. ISBN 0-520-24779-5.
 * Stone, Jacqueline. 2003. "By Imperial Edict and Shogunal Decree: politics and the issue of the ordination platform in modern lay Nichiren Buddhism". IN: Steven Heine; Charles S. Prebish (ed.) Buddhism in the Modern World. New York: Oxford University Press. 2003. ISBN 0195146972. pp 193–219.
 * Strong, Sarah. "The Reader's Guide" In Miyazawa Kenji, The Night of the Milky Way Railway. Translated by Sarah Strong.  New York: 1991.
 * Strong, Sarah. "The Poetry of Miyazawa Kenji". Thesis (Ph.D.), The University of Chicago, 1984.
 * Ueda, Makoto, Modern Japanese Poets and the Nature of Literature. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983.
 * Stone, Jacqueline. 2003. "By Imperial Edict and Shogunal Decree: politics and the issue of the ordination platform in modern lay Nichiren Buddhism". IN: Steven Heine; Charles S. Prebish (ed.) Buddhism in the Modern World. New York: Oxford University Press. 2003. ISBN 0195146972. pp 193–219.
 * Strong, Sarah. "The Reader's Guide" In Miyazawa Kenji, The Night of the Milky Way Railway. Translated by Sarah Strong.  New York: 1991.
 * Strong, Sarah. "The Poetry of Miyazawa Kenji". Thesis (Ph.D.), The University of Chicago, 1984.
 * Ueda, Makoto, Modern Japanese Poets and the Nature of Literature. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983.
 * Ueda, Makoto, Modern Japanese Poets and the Nature of Literature. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983.

title: Kenji Miyazawa


text:
Kido Okamoto

Kido Okamoto (岡本 綺堂) was a Japanese author and playwright. His real name was 岡本 敬二 (Keiji Okamoto). His best known work is the Shin Kabuki play Bancho Sarayashiki.

Kido was born in the district of Shiba Takanawa, a neighbourhood in Minato Ward, Tokyo.

Family
Kido's father, Okamoto Keinosuke (岡本佳之助), later Kiyoshi (清), was a samurai who, after the Meiji Restoration, left the service of the Tokugawa Shōgunate and went to work for the British Legation as an interpreter. He was good friends with Ichikawa Danjūrō IX (九代目市川團十), (小中村清矩), Kawanobe Mitate (川辺御楯) and Kurokawa Mayori (黒川真頼), who together formed the Antiquarian Society (求古会) to promote the modernisation of Kabuki based on the doctrine of the Theatre Reform Movement (演劇改良運動). He was also friends with Morita Kan'ya XII (十二代目守田勘弥)), the owner-manager of the Shintomiza Theatre, and an employee of the British Legation; avid Kabuki fan Thomas Russell Hillier McClatchie; and Austro-Hungarian diplomat Heinrich von Siebold.

Life
With the relocation of the British Legation to Kōjimachi District in 1873, Kido's father moved there with his wife and daughter. Kido was born at Nigō Hanzaka (二合半坂), Iitachō (飯田町), Kōjimachi. Later they moved Motozono-chō (元園町), also in Kōjimachi. Kido learnt tokiwazu (常磐津) from the daughter of a local hairdresser and nagauta (長唄) by listening to his older sister's lessons. Early on, when he was too young to go the Kabuki, he was left at home in the care of two maids and would listen to the gossip of his mother and older sister about the performances when they returned home. As he got older, he went to the Kabuki with his family when the family would socialise at the Kikuoka (菊岡) tea house in the Shintomiza Theatre's enclosure. During his early attendances at the Kabuki, he took a dislike to Danjūrō IX after witnessing what he described as childish behaviour during an incident backstage. Later, however, Kido became an ardent fan.

He would listen to foreign ghost stories told to him by his uncle who brought them back from his overseas travels. He was especially enamoured by Windsor Castle by William Harrison Ainsworth, which he mistook for Hamlet. At the age of 16 he knew William George Aston, the Secretary of the British Legation, whose children he babysat and from whom he was taught about Shakespeare, a process which Kido said taught him some of the techniques of playwriting. Much to Kido's delight Aston later helped him find the scripts for Kawatake Mokuami's plays Nakamitsu, Shisenryō Koban Umenoha, and Kagatobi, which had been published by the Ginza-based Kabuki Shinpō (Kabuki News) Company. He learnt Chinese poetry from his father, and English from his uncle and students at the British Legation. He attended and graduated from Tokyo First Junior High School afterwards attempting to become a playwright but when that failed from 1890 he wrote stage reviews for the newspaper, now the Mainichi Shimbun, when he used the pseudonym Kyokido, which he later changed to Kido. He went to work for Chūō Shimbun, spending 24 years as a newspaper reporter, including a period in Manchuria. He bought the contract of and married a Yoshiwara Geisha from the Uwajima feudal domain called Kojima Sakae (小島栄).

Success eluded him until in 1911, his popular play The Mask maker's Story (修善寺物語) premiered at the Meijiza. In 1916 his Shin (new) Kabuki play Story of a Broken Dish at Bancho (番町皿屋敷) was staged at the Hongōza Theatre (本郷座). Between 1917 and 1937 The Curious Casebook of Inspector Hanshichi (半七捕物帳) was serialised. His series on the theatre of the Meiji period, a valuable resource, the first half of which was serialised in the Monthly Kabuki Review Magazine in the late 1920s, early 1930s as Stories of the Past (過ぎにし物語), then again as a series in 1935 and finally in full as On the Theatre of the Meiji Period – Under the Lamp (明治劇談ランプの下にて) by Iwanami Shoten in 1993.

In 1918 he visited the US and Europe. His home and library in Kōjimachi were destroyed in the Great Earthquake of 1923. He was taken in by his disciple Nukata Roppuku (額田六福), from where he moved to Azabu, Minato. The following year he moved to Hyakuni chō (百人町), a street in north Shinjuku. From 1935 his articles were occasionally published in (サンデー毎日). His last novel was the controversial Tiger (虎), published in 1937, about two brothers running a freak show which is in trouble who hit the jackpot when they get a Tiger cub. He continued to publish plays in the magazine "Stage" (舞台) from 1930 until 1938. In 1939 he died of pneumonia and is buried with his wife in Aoyama cemetery in Minami-Aoyama, Tokyo.

After his death one of his students and adoptive heir, his son Okamoto Kyōichi (岡本経一), founded the Okamoto Kido Journal which printed much of Kido's work. Kido's grandson Okamoto Shuichi (岡本修一) is the current president. The Okamoto Kido Literary Prize, The Okamoto Kido Award (岡本綺堂授与) was established but was only awarded twice between 1943 and 1944 during the period leading up to the end of the Second World War.

title: Kido Okamoto