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Kan Kikuchi

Hiroshi Kikuchi (菊池 寛), also known as Kan Kikuchi (which uses the same kanji as his real name), was a Japanese author and publisher. He established the publishing company Bungeishunjū, the monthly magazine of the same name, the Japan Writer's Association and both the Akutagawa and Naoki Prize for popular literature. He came to prominence for the plays "Madame Pearl" and "Father Returns", but his ample support for the Imperial Japanese war effort led to his marginalization in the postwar period. He was also the head of Daiei Motion Picture Company (currently Kadokawa Pictures). He was known to have been an avid player of mahjong.

Early life and career
Kikuchi was born on December 26, 1888, in Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture, Japan. In 1904–1905 after the Russo-Japanese War, literature in Japan grew more modern. French Realism was one of the first influences that immersed into Japan's literature. Building from the famous and classic works from the West, which include diaries and autobiographies, Japanese writers formulated a style of fictional writing that is eventually called shinkyo-shosetsu. Other major influences from Western countries in Europe in addition to works from India and China contributed to the creation of modern literature in Japan. In comparison to literature in European countries, new Japanese literature did not achieve as much popularity; few works of Japanese playwrights were translated into European languages. Kikuchi Kan saw the language barrier and inaccuracy of translation as part of the central cause for this.

Irish Influences
In 1924, shortly after Kaoru Osanai opened Tsukiji Little Theatre, Kikuchi Kan was the most celebrated playwright in Japan. Kan was widely claimed as "a playwright who transformed Irish plays into a Japanese context," including John Millington Synge's Deirdre of the Sorrows. When studying at the University of Kyoto, Kikuchi Kan had a great interest in modern drama, particularly Irish modern drama. Dramatists Kan studied included J.M. Synge and Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany. After graduating from the University of Kyoto, Kan wrote detailed articles on Synge and Irish plays for Imperial Literature (帝国文学) and New Current of Thought. In 1925, Kan also published a book with Shuji Yamamoto, Eikoku Airan Kindaigeki Seizui (Quintessence of Modern Plays in England and Ireland). Kan's interests in Irish drama and J.S. Synge were also inspirations to his future works. In his Semi-Autobiography (半自叙伝), Kan writes about his great interest in Irish drama.

Writing Style
Though Kikuchi Kan recognized distinct characteristics between Western and Japanese cultures, he used his Japanese roots as the foundation of many of his works. This, in turn, resulted in Kikuchi Kan creating his style of writing in Japanese drama. One of his early works, Thatched Cottage (茅の屋根), represents one of Kikuchi Kan's portrayal of societal issues during his time, which increased his popularity in modern Japanese literature. Other themes of his dramas include issues of morality, money, class, and gender. Kikuchi Kan believes the nature of modern theatre is to shed light upon the wrongs of modern society and liberate Japan from those customs. The heavy influence of common issues in Kikuchi Kan's works gained accolades from critics and dramatists.

Elements of drama Kikuchi Kan considered to be the most effective are the one-act play and the use of a minimal number of characters. "The one-act play" he wrote, "is different from long plays – three-acts or five-acts. It should extract the most dramatic elements from all and has to effectively treat it within a limited time." With this short amount of time, Kikuchi Kan's portrays his message in a core event with meticulous use of exposition. One important element in his perspective is knowing the difference between writing stories as opposed to writing plays. In that limited time, the play must have the power to "physically bind the audience to the theatre seat," as opposed to stories that "the reader can put into his pocket." From 1914 to 1924, Kan wrote one-act plays for the leading coterie magazine at that time, New Tides of Thought (Shinshichō). New Tides of Thought magazine also contributed to the popularity of Taishō drama. In Kan's one-act plays, he focused on a single dramatic event and had the characters' actions revolve around that event to produce the most tension and most "dramatic force," for one-act plays "should extract the most dramatic elements...within a limited time."

Father Returns
One of his most famous works, Chichi Kaeru (Father Returns), is a one-act play that mainly portrays the struggles of a father-son relationship. Father Returns opened in 1920, after being published in the journal New Tides of Thought in 1917. The story revolves around a conflict between a father and son. The eldest son, Ken'ichirō, despises his father, Sōtarō, for his cruel treatment of the family and for deserting them. As the play progresses, the audience learns that Ken'ichirō's hatred towards his father fueled his determination of surpassing his father by providing better support for his family in his absence. After Sōtarō returns one night, the family welcomes him but Ken'ichirō's confrontation with him ultimately drives Sōtarō to leave. The play concludes with Ken'ichirō's sudden change of heart towards Sōtarō and accepting him into the family. After Shinjirō, a younger brother, goes to bring Sōtarō back, the curtain closes before Sōtarō is found. The ending drove Takeda and Ennosuke to alter it to avoid ambiguity, but was changed back to the original to preserve the main message of the play.

Madame Pearl
Madame Pearl (真珠夫人) brought Kikuchi Kan to fame. This drama takes place in Japan and focuses on the theme of gender in society. The main character, a woman named Karasawa Ruriko 唐沢瑠璃子 is a baron's daughter who is forced into an arranged marriage with the rich Shōda Katsuhei 荘田勝平 to save the family from bankruptcy. Before and after Ruriko's arranged marriage to Katsuhei, she remained faithful to her feelings for Sugino Naoya 杉野直也, her first love, and decided to preserve her virginity. Due to Ruriko's choosing to be sexually pure, Katsuhei attempted to rape Ruriko but died from a sudden heart attack. From then on, she wanted to overcome the male dominance in the society she lived in. For a period of time Ruriko tricked men and played with their emotions, which lead many of them to violent deaths. However, Ruriko eventually was killed by one of her suitors. The name Shinju fujin symbolizes Ruriko's purity and preservation of chastity throughout her encounters with different men. She remained pure in body, mind, and soul like a pearl while she gradually rose in power over men. As the story unravels, it encourages the audience to think about Ruriko's motivation to carry out her actions and find the "truth" behind her thinking. According to Michiko Suzuki, this play became popular among female audiences because it gave them strength and the opportunity fulfill "the fantasy of female liberation".

Suzuki further argues that many audience members believed that Ruriko was inspired by Yanagihara Byakuren 柳原白蓮, who was widely known for her beauty, her talent in poetry, her relation to the emperor, and her marriage to coalmine magnate Itō Den'emon 伊藤傳右衞門. According to Suzuki, Byakuren herself asked Kikuchi Kan whether she played a role in creating Ruriko in Shinju fujin and Kikuchi confirmed that there was a connection. Suzuki also connects Ruriko to Nemesis, the goddess of revenge. Suzuki argues that, like the goddess of revenge, Ruriko wanted to avenge the women who have fallen victim to the "violence and self-centered desires of men."

Naoki and Akutagawa Prizes
Kikuchi Kan dedicated the Akutagawa Prize to Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (芥川 龍之介) after his death in 1927. The Akutagawa Prize Committee was composed of the close friends of Bungei Shunjusha. The Akutagawa Prize was given every six months to rising authors of original literature (Sōsaku) that were published in any newspaper or magazine. The Akutagawa Prizes were published in Bungeishunjū issues. The prize included both a watch and a cash award of five hundred Japanese yen (¥). The Naoki Prize was created by Kikuchi Kan as tribute to literary author Sanjugo Naoki (直木 三十五) after his death in February 1934. The Naoki Prize was given to rising authors of popular literature. The Naoki prizes were published in Oru Yomimono (オール讀物) issues.

The process of choosing recipients of the two prizes is for the committees to select already published manuscripts in Coterie and commercial magazines and newspapers. After producing the two prizes, Kikuchi Kan initially decided on having the prizes reflect the Kenshō shōsetsu type of award, in which submitted and unpublished manuscripts were selected by a committee. In brief, the Kenshō shōsetsu, the "prize-winning novels" are selected pieces of fiction novels published in newspapers and magazines that received considerable amounts of praise. The Akutagawa Prize committee in 1934 consisted of the members: Bungei Shunjusha, Yamamoto Yuzu, Haruo Satō, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Murō Saisei, Kōsaku Takii, Riichi Yokomitsu and Yasunari Kawabata. Kikuchi Kan, Masao Kume and Masajirō Kojima were in both Akutagawa and Naoki Prize Committees.

Kikuchi Kan Prize
In 1938, the Kikuchi Kan Prize (菊池寛賞 Kikuchi Kan Shō) was created by Kikuchi Kan himself that recognizes authors' achievements. However, unlike the Naoki and Akutagawa Prizes, the Kikuchi Kan Prize is given to senior authors over age 45. The prize includes an award of one million yen and a table clock. This award was sponsored by the Association for the Promotion of Japanese Literature for six years before the cancellation of the prize. After Kikuchi Kan's death, the prize was brought back and is currently open to art, literature, film, and other genres. Recipients of this prize include Hakuchō Masamune and Yasushi Inoue.

Later years
In 1938, Kikuchi joined the Pen butai (lit. "Pen corps"), a government organisation which consisted of authors who travelled the front during the Second Sino-Japanese War to write favourably of Japan's war efforts in China, and became head of the group's navy branch. He was later affiliated with the Nihon bungaku hōkokukai ("Patriotic Association for Japanese Literature"), a subordinate of the Cabinet Intelligence Bureau. After the war, he was purged from public service positions as a wartime collaborator.

Selected work
Kan Kikuchi's published writings encompass 512 works in 683 publications in 7 languages and 2,341 library holdings.

 * Okujō no Kyōjin (屋上の狂人) – The Housetop Madman
 * Chichi Kaeru (父帰る) – The Father returns
 * Mumei Sakka no Nikki (無名作家の日記) -Anonymous Writer’s Diary
 * Onshū no Kanata ni (恩讐の彼方に) or Beyond the Pale of Vengeance
 * Tadanaokyō Gyōjōki (忠直卿行状記)
 * Rangaku Kotohajime (蘭学事始)
 * Tōjūrō no Koi (藤十郎の恋) – Tōjūrō's love
 * film adaptations: Tōjūrō no Koi (1938 film) and Tōjūrō no Koi (1955 film)
 * Shinju Fujin (真珠夫人)

title: Kan Kikuchi


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Tsunashima Ryōsen

Tsunashima Ryōsen (綱島 梁川) was a Japanese author and philosopher. He was a graduate of Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō. He was originally a rationalist and then became a Christian. He is buried in Tokyo's Zōshigaya cemetery.

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

title: Tsunashima Ryōsen


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Ikki Kita

Ikki Kita (北 一輝) was a Japanese author, intellectual and political philosopher who was active in early Shōwa period Japan. Drawing from an eclectic range of influences, Kita was a self-described socialist who has also been described as the "ideological father of Japanese fascism", although his writings touched equally upon pan-Asianism, Nichiren Buddhism, fundamental human rights and egalitarianism and he was involved with Chinese revolutionary circles. While his publications were invariably censored and he ceased writing after 1923, Kita was an inspiration for elements on the far-right of Japanese politics into the 1930s, particularly his advocacy for territorial expansion and a military coup. The government saw Kita's ideas as disruptive and dangerous; in 1936 he was arrested for allegedly joining the failed coup attempt of 26 February 1936 and executed in 1937.

Background
Kita was born on Sado Island, Niigata Prefecture, where his father was a sake merchant and the first mayor of the local town. Sado island, which used to be used for penal transportation, had a reputation for being rebellious, and Kita took some pride in this. He studied Chinese classics in his youth and became interested in socialism at the age of 14. In 1900 he began publishing articles in a local newspaper criticizing the Kokutai ("Structure of State") theory. This led to a police investigation which was later dropped. In 1904 he moved to Tokyo, where he audited lectures at Waseda University, but never earned a university degree. He met many influential figures in the early socialist movement in Japan but quickly became disillusioned; the movement was, according to him, full of "opportunists".

Ideology
At age 23, Kita published his first book in 1906 after one year of research – a massive 1,000-page political treatise titled The Theory of Japan's National Polity and Pure Socialism (国体論及び純正社会主義). In it, he criticized the government ideology of Kokutai and warned that socialism in Japan was in danger of degenerating into a watered down, simplified form of itself because socialists were too keen on compromising.

Theories of Japanese Politics
Kita first outlined his philosophy of nationalistic socialism in his book The Theory of Japan's National Polity and Pure Socialism (国体論及び純正社会主義), published in 1906, where he criticized Marxism and class conflict-oriented socialism as outdated. He instead emphasized an exposition of the evolutionary theory in understanding the basic guidelines of societies and nations. In this book Kita explicitly promotes the platonic state of authoritarianism, emphasizing the close relationship between Confucianism and the "from above" concept of national socialism stating that Mencius is the Plato of the East and that Plato's concept of organizing a society is far preferable to Marx's.

Engagement with the Chinese Revolution
Kita's second book is titled An Informal History of the Chinese Revolution (支那革命外史 Shina Kakumei Gaishi) and is a critical analysis of the Chinese Revolution of 1911.

Attracted to the cause of the Chinese Revolution of 1911, Kita became a member of the Tongmenghui (United League) led by Song Jiaoren. He traveled to China to assist in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty.

However, Kita was also interested in the far-right. The right-wing, ultranationalist Kokuryūkai (Amur River Association/Black Dragon Society), founded in 1901. Kita—who held views on Russia and Korea remarkably similar to those espoused by the Kokuryukai—was sent by that organization as a special member, who would write for them from China and send reports on the ongoing situation at the time of the 1911 Xinhai revolution.

By the time Kita returned to Japan in January 1920, he had become very disillusioned with the Chinese Revolution, and the strategies offered by it for the changes he envisioned. He joined Ōkawa Shūmei and others to form the Yuzonsha (Society of Those Who Yet Remain), an ultranationalist and Pan-Asianist organization, and devoted his time to writing and political activism. He gradually became a leading theorist and philosopher of the right-wing movement in pre-World War II Japan.

Toward the Reorganization of Japan
His last major book on politics was An Outline Plan for the Reorganization of Japan (日本改造法案大綱). First written in Shanghai but banned in 1919, the book was published by Kaizōsha, which was the publisher of the magazine Kaizō, in 1923, which was censored by the Government. The common theme to his first and last political works is the notion of a national policy (Kokutai), through which Japan would overcome a coming national crisis of economics or international relations, lead a united and free Asia and unify culture of the world through Japanized and universalized Asian thoughts in order to be prepared for the appearance of the sole superpower which would be inevitable for the future world peace. It thus contained aspects associated with the doctrine of pan-Asianism.

According to his political program, a coup d'état would be necessary as to impose a more-or-less state of emergency regime based on a direct rule by a powerful leader. Due to the respect that the Emperor enjoyed in the Japanese society, Kita identified the sovereign as the ideal person to suspend the Constitution, organize a council created by the Emperor and radically reorganize the Cabinet and the Diet, whose members would be elected by the people, to be free of any "malign influence", which would make the true meaning of the Meiji Restoration clear. The new "National Reorganization Diet" would amend the Constitution according to the draft proposed by the Emperor, impose limits on individual wealth, private property, and assets of companies, and establish national entities directly and unitedly operated by the Government like the Japanese Government Railways. Land reform would be enacted; all urban land would be changed to municipal property. The new state would abolish the kazoku peerage system, the House of Peers and all but fundamental taxes, guaranteeing male suffrage, freedom, the right to property, the right to education, labor rights and human rights. While maintaining the Emperor as the representative of the people, privileged elites would be displaced and the military further empowered so as to strengthen Japan and enable it to liberate Asia from Western imperialism.

Kita asserted Japan's right as an "international Proletariat" to conquer Siberia of Far East and Australia, whose peoples would be granted the same rights as Japanese would, because social issues in Japan would never be solved if problems of international distribution were not decided. This was termed the Shōwa Restoration.

In its historical prospect Kita's political program was for creating a state socialism in a fascistic oriented "socialism from above", as a tool to unite and strengthen Japanese society. Japan's overseas actions were meant to focus on achieving the independence of India and the maintenance of the Republic of China to stop the partition of China like Africa, in the name of Asian unity. Another goal of his program was to build the great Empire which included Korea, Taiwan, Sakhalin, Manchuria, the Russian Far East and Australia.

On foreign policy
He wrote a “petition” on foreign policy after the Mukden Incident. He strongly opposed a war against America, which was a popular opinion at that time, because the British Empire would join the war and the Japanese navy would not defeat them. He also thought China and the Soviet Union would join the war on the side of America. His proposal was that Japan should form an alliance with France and combat the Soviet Union. He thought that an alliance with France would contain the British Empire, and that Japan and France shared Anti-Russian sentiment because the Russian Empire had not paid massive debt to France.

Critical reception
Walter Skya notes that in On the Kokutai and Pure Socialism, Kita rejected the Shintoist view of far-right nationalists such as Hozumi Yatsuka that Japan was an ethnically homogeneous "family state" descended through the Imperial line from the goddess Amaterasu Omikami, emphasizing the presence of non-Japanese in Japan since ancient times. He argued that along with the incorporation of Chinese, Koreans, and Russians as Japanese citizens during the Meiji period, any person should be able to naturalize as a citizen of the empire irrespective of race, with the same rights and obligations as ethnic Japanese. According to Kita, the Japanese empire couldn't otherwise expand into areas populated by non-Japanese people without having to "exempt them from their obligations or ... expel them from the empire." One of his religious inspirations was the Japanized Lotus Sutra.

His younger brother Reikichi Kita, political philosopher who studied for five years in the US and Europe and was a member of the House of Representatives, later wrote that Kita had been familiar with Kiichiro Hiranuma, then Chief of the Supreme Court of Justice, and in his paper in 1922 he had fiercely condemned Adolph Joffe, then Soviet Russian diplomat to Japan.

This eclectic blend of imperialism, socialism and spiritual principles is one of the reasons why Kita's ideas have been difficult to understand in the specific historical circumstances of Japan between the two world wars. Some have argued that this is also one of the reasons why it is hard for the historians to agree on Kita’s political stance, though Nik Howard takes the view that Kita's ideas were actually highly consistent ideologically throughout his career, with relatively small shifts in response to the changing reality he faced at any given time.

Esperanto proposal
In 1919 Kita advocated that the Empire of Japan should adopt Esperanto. He foresaw that 100 years after its adoption the language would be the only tongue spoken in Japan proper and the vast territory conquered by it according to the natural selection theory, making Japanese the Sanskrit or Latin equivalent of the Empire. He thought that the writing system of Japanese is too complicated to impose on other peoples, that romanization would not work and that English, which was taught in the Japanese education system at that time, was not mastered by Japanese at all. He also asserted that English is poison to Japanese minds as opium destroyed Chinese people, that the only reason it did not destroy Japanese yet was that German had more influence than English and that English should be excluded from the country. Kita was inspired by several Chinese anarchists he befriended who had called for the substitution of Chinese for Esperanto at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Arrest and execution
Kita's Outline Plan, his last book, exerted a major influence on a part of the Japanese military—especially in the Imperial Japanese Army factions who participated in the failed coup of 1936. After the coup attempt, Kita was arrested by the Kempeitai for complicity, tried by a closed military court, and executed.

In fiction

 * Ikki Kita is a major character in the historical fantasy novel Teito Monogatari by Hiroshi Aramata. In the novel, he is also a Buddhist shaman who is deeply devoted to the Kegon Sutras.
 * Kita appears in manga artist Motoka Murakami's Shōwa-era epic Ron.
 * Kita is a secondary character in Osamu Tezuka's Ikki Mandara.
 * Kita (portrayed by Hiroshi Midorigawa) figures in the plot of Seijun Suzuki's 1966 film Fighting Elegy.
 * Yoshida Yoshishige's film Coup d'État (1973) of Japanese New Wave cinema depicts Kita's life during the 1920s up to his death.
 * In Yukio Mishima’s novel Spring Snow, Kita’s writings figure in the reading of the most intellectual of the main characters, Honda.
 * As for Honda, he could never be quite at ease unless there were books within easy reach. Among those now at hand was a book he had been lent in secret by one of the student houseboys, a book proscribed by the government. titled Nationalism and Authentic Socialism, it had been written by a young man named Terujiro Kita, who at twenty-three was looked upon as the Japanese Otto Weininger. However, it was rather too colorful in its presentation of an extremist position, and this aroused caution in Honda’s calm and reasonable mind. It was not that he had any particular dislike of radical political thought. But never having been really angry himself, he tended to view violent anger in others as some terrible, infectious disease. To encounter it in their books was intellectually stimulating, but this kind of pleasure gave him a guilty conscience.

title: Ikki Kita


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Ozaki Kōyō

Ozaki Kōyō (尾崎 紅葉) was a Japanese author and poet. His real name was Ozaki Tokutarō (尾崎 徳太郎), and he was also known by various noms de plume including Enzan (縁山) and Tochimandō (十千万堂).

Biography
Ozaki was the only son of Kokusai (尾崎 谷斎), a well-known netsuke carver in the Meiji period. Ozaki is known as a classic Japanese author writing works in essays, haiku poems, and novels. He grew up in his hometown of Shibachumonmae, located in what is now part of Tokyo, until the age of four, when his mother died. The death of his mother lead him to live with his grandparents in Shibashinmei-cho. His childhood there influenced him in his choice of the penname Koyo, from Mount Koyo of Zojo Temple.

Ozaki was educated at Baisen Primary School before entering the Highschool of Tokyofu Daini Junior High School, later dropping out after two years. After he entered the Mita English School. Eventually, he enrolled at the Tokyo Imperial University. There he started publishing a literary magazine called Ken'yūsha ("Friend of the Ink Stone") in 1885 with some friends. Well-known writers Yamada Bimyō and Kawakami Bizan also had material published in the magazine.

Ozaki's most renowned works are Tajō Takon (多情多恨), serialized in 1896, and Konjiki Yasha (金色夜叉), serialized in 1897 in the Hakubunkan magazine Nihon Taika Ronshū (日本大家論集). His works mostly appeared in the Yomiuri Shimbun, the most popular newspaper in Japan. His most notable pupils were Izumi Kyōka, a romance author who specialized in short stories and who continued to write in Ozaki's style, the author Tokuda Shūsei, and Kitada Usurai, his first female student.

Konjiki Yasha (金色夜叉) was adapted for film numerous times, including a 1937 version by director Hiroshi Shimizu.

title: Ozaki Kōyō


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Minakata Kumagusu

Minakata Kumagusu (南方 熊楠) was a Japanese author, biologist, naturalist and ethnologist.

Biography
Minakata was born in Wakayama, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. In 1883, he moved to Tokyo, where he entered the preparatory school Kyōryū Gakkō. The headmaster of Kyōritsu, Takahashi Korekiyo, encouraged Minakata in his botanical studies, and stimulated his interest in the English language. The following year, Minakata passed the entrance exam to Tokyo University Preparatory School (Tokyo Daigaku Yobimon), counting among his classmates the novelist Natsume Sōseki.

At the end of 1886, Minakata set off to study in the United States. He arrived in San Francisco in January of the next year, and he studied there for about six months. He next went to Michigan State Agricultural College, where he was accepted, becoming the first Japanese to pass the entrance exam there. These were just the first steps, however, in Minakata's unusually adventurous studies in various parts of the world, which would eventually include Cuba, Haiti, what is now Panama, Venezuela, and England, before returning to Japan.

In addition to his studies in slime moulds, Minakata was intensely interested in folklore, religion and natural history. He wrote several papers, including 51 monographs in Nature. He is famous for discovering many varieties of mycetozoa.

Minakata had epilepsy, experiencing grand mal seizures. He was able to predict when he was about to have a seizure (as is common in epilepsy) due to a sense of déjà vu.

Life
Minakata Kumagusu came back to Japan in 1900 after 14 years of unique study experience abroad mainly in the U.S. and England. He settled in Wakayama Prefecture, his birthplace, until his death in 1941. He lived in Tanabe City from 1904 to 1941. Minakata devoted his entire life to studies of natural history and folklore, and contributed a number of articles to the British science magazine Nature and the British folklore magazine Notes and Queries. He was also involved in anti-shrine-consolidation protests and the nature conservation movement in Japan. He was worshipped as "a great scholar with no degree" and loved by the locals who called him Minakata Sensei (the teacher) or Minakata-san (Mr. Minakata), while branded by some as an oddball. More than 60 years after his death, Minakata's achievements and life history has been made clear by a number of books and papers including The Complete Works of Minakata Kumagusu and The Diary of Minakata Kumagusu, and the research is still ongoing.

Childhood and years in Tokyo
Minakata Kumagusu was born in the castle city of Wakayama on April 15, 1867, the second son to a hardware dealer Yahei Minakata, 39, and wife Sumi, 30, and was raised with three brothers and two sisters. Since childhood, he had had extraordinary interests in the natural world and demonstrated a marvelous memory. As early as at the age of seven he transcribed an encyclopedia.

To develop his talent, Yahei, a self-made man, sent Minakata to the newly opened Wakayama Middle School (now Toin High), which was unconventional for a merchant family those days. Minakata's thirst for knowledge was growing bigger as he at home recited the Chinese classics and transcribed the books that he had learned by heart at a collector's place. That he transcribed Wakan Sansai Zue, an encyclopedia of 105 volumes, and Honzo Komoku, illustrated books of flora, in over five years is a famous episode from this period. At school, however, he remained a low achiever. He would finish lunch early and observe a frog or a crab in the empty lunch box.

After finishing middle school, he went to Tokyo in March 1883. The following year he entered the Preparatory School of Tokyo University. Among his colleagues were Masaoka Shiki, Natsume Sōseki, and Bimyo Yamada, who later became eminent figures of Japanese literature. Again Minakata was not interested in school and spent more time outside the university transcribing books in libraries, visiting zoos and botanic gardens, and collecting artifacts, animals, plants and minerals. At the news that Miles J. Berkeley, a world-famous British cryptogamist, and American botanist Moses A. Curtis had collected 6,000 species of fungi including slime molds, Minakata decided to produce an illustrated book that would cover more. In February 1886, following a failure at the end-of-year exam, he came home and told father that he would go to America. Initially opposed, Yahei finally gave in to his son's enthusiasm and let him go.

Years in the U.S.
Minakata boarded the City of Beijing in Yokohama in December 1886. The next month the ship arrived in San Francisco, and he soon started to study at Pacific Business College just to experience American life (business was not his favorite subject).

In August 1887, he moved to Lansing, Michigan, and enrolled at the Michigan State School of Agriculture. One night in November 1888, however, he was in trouble for a drinking binge with a couple of Japanese and American friends in the dorm. He took the responsibility alone to save others from expulsion and early next morning left for Ann Arbor.

Minakata met bright Japanese students in Ann Arbor, the location of another state university. While keeping company with them, he stayed away from university and studied on his own by reading books and collecting plants in the mountains, particularly cryptogams including fungi and lichens. In October 1889, he read a biography of Conrad Gessner, a Swiss naturalist and a leading figure of modern biology, and swore he would become Japan's Gessner, which was when his quest for the wonders of cryptogams began.

When he heard from William W. Calkins, a retired American colonel and a collector of lichens, that in Florida there were still many undiscovered plants, Minakata was ready to go. With two microscopes, books, a pistol, insect catchers as well as a medicine box and a plant press that he had just bought in Ann Arbor, Minakata went to Jacksonville in April 1891. He collected plants and animals while staying with Jiang, a supportive Chinese vegetable storekeeper. After three months enthusiastically collecting plants and animals, he moved to Key West, Florida, then to Havana, Cuba in mid-September.

After a month in Havana, a Japanese circus rider suddenly visited him. That encounter brought him to a new adventure of traveling in Port-au-Prince, Caracas, Valencia, and Jamaica with the circus working as a mahout's hand. This enabled him to collect precious fungi and lichens in the West Indies. In January 1892 he returned to Jacksonville and worked on the plants he had collected in Florida and Cuba at Jiang's. When Jiang wound up the business in August, Minakata moved to New York. In September he put an end to six years in America and got aboard the City of New York bound for the UK.

Years in London
After crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the ship arrived at Liverpool. In London, Minakata visited Yoshikusu Nakai, branch manager of the Yokohama Shokin Bank, an old friend of the Minakata family from Wakayama. The man handed him a letter from Tsunegusu, one of his younger brothers, about their beloved father's death. Minakata was totally devastated.

He lived in downtown London where rents were cheap. While working on herbaria and exchanging specimens and letters with William W. Calkins and Allen, he visited the British Museum, the South Kensington Museum and other galleries. He then was introduced to Japanese Asian antique dealer Kataoka Prince. In August 1893, Minakata read in Nature magazine, his favorite since his time in U.S., a thesis titled "Five articles about the composition of constellations." Its questions inspired him to write a reply.

Kataoka Prince, who had noticed the erudition of the shabby-looking man, introduced him to Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks, of the British Museum. Thereafter, Minakata visited the museum often to ask advice from Franks. Using a fragmented dictionary borrowed from his landlady, he completed an article titled "The Constellations in the Far East" in 30 days. The article was published in Nature, and he suddenly became known among the intelligentsia. He contributed regularly to the magazine after that and also started writing for Notes and Queries. He continued to contribute a number of articles and letters to the magazines after returning to Japan and won a reputation worldwide as an authority on Oriental studies.

His rising reputation opened the door to friendships with notable figures including Frederick. V. Dickins, registrar of the University of London, as well as people from the British Museum including Sir Robert K. Douglas, director of the Oriental Printed Books section and Charles H. Read, the successor to Franks. He visited the British Museum almost every day. While immersing himself in rare books of all ages from East and West, particularly in the fields of archeology, anthropology, folklore and religion, he copied them into notebooks. A collection of 52 thick notebooks from this period called London Extracts is kept in the Minakata residence and the Minakata Kumagusu Museum. The pages are densely covered with tiny letters he put in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek and Latin.

Douglas, who was impressed with his extensive knowledge, offered Minakata a job at the British Museum, but he declined the offer in light of freedom. Instead, he helped make a catalog of the books and manuscripts of the library and conducted historical research on the Buddhist statues of the museum using his expertise accumulated through reading and transcribing of a large number of books including classics and encyclopedia since childhood.

One of the highlights in London was getting to know Sun Yat-sen, father of the Chinese Revolution. Minakata put it in his diary how they hit it off straight away on first acquaintance at the Douglas's office in the British Museum in March 1897 and quickly developed a friendship through visiting each other and talking until late almost every day. The descriptions, though very brief, reveal the closeness between two friends. Their company lasted only four months until Sun had to leave London for Asia in early July.

In October 1893 he met Toki Horyu, later the chief abbot of Kōyasan temple complex, a relationship that deserves special mention. Minakata and Toki, much senior to him, opened up to each other and exchanged frank opinions about religion. They wrote to each other until later years.

Many famous figures from Japan visited Minakata in London. They all were astonished at his erudition and shocked at his total lack of interest in daily life. Although highly regarded by some scholars, Minakata sometimes experienced discrimination because of his ethnicity, the cause for his frequent reckless behaviors leading up to the departure from the British Museum in December 1898. Frequent delay of money expected from the family in Japan forced him to take a job translating the titles for the calligraphy collection at the South Kensington Museum and sell ukiyoe with his friends. High hopes of becoming an assistant professor at the soon-to-be opened Japanology program in Cambridge or Oxford were gone when the plan was turned down. Forced into straitened circumstances, he made a decision in despair to leave the UK, where he had spent eight years. In September 1900, Minakata got on board the Awa Maru at the Thames and went home.

The first year back home
In October 1900, the Awa Maru arrived at Kobe after a 45-day voyage. Tsunegusu was shocked to see his elder brother appear in a shabby suit made of flimsy fabric like mosquito netting. He also was astounded Minakata had come back with tons of books and specimens but no degree. Minakata found temporary shelter at his brother's in Wakayama.

After a while, Minakata heard that Sun Yat-sen was in the Yokohama settlement as a political refugee and wrote him. In February 1901 Sun came to Wakayama. Although the first reunion in four years was disturbed by a police detail, Sun was happy to take risks to see his old friend. As a gift, Sun left his favorite Panama hat. He later sent Minakata a reference letter addressed to Inukai Tsuyoshi, his guardian in Japan and later the prime minister. The letter, never used, is kept in the Minakata residence and the hat is on display in the Minakata Kumagusu Museum. Their friendship survived for a while; Sun sent specimens of lichen from Hawaii and Minakata wrote back, but ultimately they drifted apart and never met again. After Sun's death, Minakata expressed his sorrow in the reminiscence and wrote: "Friendship changes like seasons."

Years in Nachi
In October 1901 Minakata left Wakayama by boat for Katsu’ura, where he lived at the branch of Minakata Sake Distillery, run by brother Tsunegusu, until October 1904. In Nachi he spent all his time collecting fungi and algae around the region. One day, while collecting lichen at the Ichino-taki Falls, he met a young man, Shiro Koaze, a shipping company worker. Koaze, as a disciple, was going to help Minakata with research on slime molds all his life. Koaze sent specimens from every port he called as well as offered financial support. Koaze, with his close friend Shigeru Uematsu, backed Minakata materially and spiritually.

Minakata was very active in Nachi. He collected insects and plants, made microscope slides and colored illustrated manuals, read hundreds of books, completed a draft for the English translation of Hojoki: The Ten Square Feet Hut co-authored with Frederick Victor Dickins, and proofread Primal Text of Japan also by Dickins. He resumed writing for Nature and Notes and Queries. Embraced by the wildlife in the Kumano Mountains, Minakata, based on his extensive knowledge of the world, studied interaction between the spiritual with the material world, and participated in heated debates on nature and life, including religious one with Horyu Toki. He also completed The Origin of the Swallow-Stone Myth (Ensekiko), a study he had planned at the end of the time in UK, that is considered the pinnacle of his research presented in English.

Settled in Tanabe
After three years and 21 months research on plants in the Kumano region, Kumagusu left Katsu'ura in October 1904 and walked to Tanabe, collecting specimens on his way. On arrival he immediately fell in love with Tanabe he thought was “a quiet place with nice people, cheap commodities and beautiful weather and the scenery.” He decided to settle, rented a house and started an easy life. He often invited friends and had parties at nearby luxury restaurants and teahouses; hired geishas, drank, sang Dodoitsu and Otsue, his favorite party pieces, and played strange performances.

In the fall of 1905 Minakata donated 46 specimens of slime molds to the British Museum. Arthur Lister, president of the British Mycological Society, had them introduced in the Journal of Botany, vol. 49, as "The Second Report of Japanese Fungi," following the first report on the specimens sent by Prof. Miyoshi of Tokyo Imperial University. This article, which led Minakata to a new world of friendship with Lister and his daughter Gulielma, was a milestone in his career toward a world-class slime mold researcher.

In July 1906 at 40 Minakata married Matsue, 28, the fourth daughter of Munezo Tamura, chief priest of the Tokei Shrine. Tamura, a former samurai of the Kishu-Tokugawa clan, was also a Sinologist whose knowledge of Chinese wisdom had influenced Matsue's upbringing. Her late marriage (for a woman in those days) was due to her devotion to father and the destitute family she had supported by teaching sewing and flower arrangement.

In July 1907 the couple had their first child, Kumaya. At first sight of his baby boy Minakata wrote: “Stayed awake till dawn watching my baby” and expressed the joy of becoming father. After the birth of Kumaya the marriage was rocky. After Matsue turned to her parents a few times, he gradually reduced alcohol. He kept in his diary every detail of Kumaya, how he moved and talked, which shows his deep love and expectations for his son. Minakata usually woke at 11 am and worked at home from sometime in the afternoon until 5 o’clock next morning sorting specimens, drawing pictures, conducting research, reading and writing. While weaving, Matsue, together with a housemaid, was very nervous about the care of weepy Kumaya. Their daughter Fumie was born in October 1911.

Minakata resumed copying books around in 1909. The extract of Daizokyo, scriptures owned by the Hōrin-ji Temple, which took full three years, was a particularly demanding job. “To read is to copy. You’ll forget when you just read it, but you’ll never forget when you copy it.” He propagated this belief and put it into practice by himself. The Tanabe Extracts from this period consist of 61 volumes. On top of the contributions he had made to British journals and magazines since coming home, Minakata started writing for journals and newspapers in Japan. Using a lot of citations was his signature style of research papers, but first-hand folklore evidence and antiquities were also included. He used his extraordinary memory and archives accumulated through interviews.

Protests against shrine consolidation
In 1906 the government imposed shrine consolidation regulations under which all shrines in a village or a town should be merged. The Wakayama prefectural government pushed hard for the enforcement of the regulations. In Japan there used to be a shrine in each community, however small, which was the centripetal force to unite the people, the provider of recreations and the object of worship, and with very few exceptions, they all stood in deep forests.

Minakata was worried that the consolidations would not only ruin historical buildings and antiquities but, by cutting trees, also damage the scenery and the natural life around them. He contributed an opinion to every edition of a local paper, Muro Shinpo. He also sent objection letters to major papers in Tokyo and Osaka and appealed to leading researchers for support, including Jinzo Matsumura, a notable botanist and professor of Tokyo University, to whom Minakata wrote long letters criticizing the deeds done by the central and prefectural governments. Yanagita Kunio, then a counselor of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau and later father of Japanese folklore, supported the campaign by disseminating copies of two letters as Minakata Nisho to those who concerned. He was also supported locally by a young Morihei Ueshiba.

In August 1910 Minakata was arrested for trespassing when he threw a bag of specimens into a meeting held in Tanabe Junior High School (now Tanabe High). Although drunk, he did it out of rage when not allowed to talk with one of the attendees, a government officer who was in charge of the promotion of the regulations. During 18 days in jail pending trial he read books and hunted slime molds in the building. When released, he refused to leave saying: “This place is quiet with no visitors and cool. I want to stay longer.”

As his enthusiasm moved public opinion, the regulations gradually lost momentum. In 1920, 10 years from his arrest, the regulations were confirmed useless by the House of Peers and abolished. Ultimately, Minakata's efforts saved a couple of forests, but a number of shrines and forests had become extinct during the decade. He then approached various social movements and public bodies in charge of the national heritage list in order to promote protection of the precious environment including the Kashima Island in Tanabe Bay. His battle continued until his last years, which is why he is called a pioneer in ecology today. In February 1911, when The Mountain God Loves Stonefish was published in the Journal of the Anthropological Society of Tokyo, Minakata received a letter from Yanagita. This was when their correspondence between two (which was going to make a significant contribution to the study of Japanese folklore) began.

In July 1914 Kumagusu's reputation was spread nationwide, following a newspaper report on the announcement by Walter T. Swingle, head of the Office of Crop Physiology and Breeding investigation of US Department of Agriculture, that they would invite Minakata to the US. Dr. Swingle came to Tanabe in May 1915 to announce the appointment in person. Although having intended to accept the offer, he declined it because of a family matter.

Fundraising for the Minakata Botanical Institute
In April 1916, Minakata obtained a property, now the Minakata residence, under the ownership of Tsunegusu. The large garden became an open-air laboratory to observe plants, frogs, and turtles. The study was a place for writing and microscopic research on plants. The godown was organized into the stacks containing a number of books and materials.

He published numerous research papers about folklore based on previous research papers of natural science already published and articles about shrine consolidation. The more scholars and celebrities he received and the busier he became with his writing, the more often he had to stay home and conduct his botanical research in the backyard. This change enabled him to discover the famous Minakatella longifila Lister — a new genus of slime mold named by Gulielma Lister, president of the British Mycological Society — from a persimmon tree in his garden in 1917.

It was around this time that the governor of Wakayama Prefecture and his friends finished the planning of the Minakata Botanical Institute. The prospectus was drafted by Tanaka Chōzaburō and promoted by 30 big names including those from the political and literary worlds, including Hara Takashi, Ōkuma Shigenobu, Yorimichi Tokugawa, and Rohan Koda.

Minakata came to Tokyo for the first time in 36 years and spent five months raising money. Day after day he visited notable figures in politics and academia including Prime Minister Takahashi Korekiyo asking for support. He finally collected a considerable sum, but it was less than the prospect amount. He continued his fundraising campaign at home.

The famous ‘Resume’ was written then responding to a request from Yoshio Yabuki, deputy branch manager of Nippon Yusen in Osaka, whom he had asked for donation. The resume, written on 7.7m long paper using fine strokes, is an autograph of extreme importance to understand the real Minakata and perhaps the longest resume in Japan and the first resume ever known in light of the volume and quality of information it contains.

In March 1925, Kumaya became ill and went into a hospital in Wakayama City. After going home to recuperate, Minakata shut the gate against all visitors. This lasted for three years until Kumaya was moved to a hospital in Kyoto in May 1928. Fair success of the fundraising in Tokyo was offset in a way by an unfulfilled promise of Tsunegusu, one of the major promoters of the project. He didn't provide 20,000 yen, his part of donation, which caused a rift between the two brothers. Minakata also had trouble making a living because of expensive medical bills. To lessen the financial burden, Minakata published three books in 1926. The books, compilations of theses previously published in various journals, gave the reader an insight into his arguments consistent throughout the years and revealed again his erudition, which aroused the admiration of the public.

Emperor Hirohito and Kumagusu
Emperor Hirohito, also a biologist, had shown a strong interest in slime molds since he was the Prince Regent. As the Prince, he had read A Monograph of the Slime Molds by Gulielma Lister and told Dr. Hirotaro Hattori of the National Biological Research Institute of his wish to see the specimens. Having learned this interest, Shiro Koaze approached Minakata and his friends from Tokyo University. In November 1926 the team prepared and presented Prince Hirohito with a collection of 90 specimens of 37 genera of Japanese slime molds. It bore the signatures of Koaze as the presenter and Minakata as the selector.

In March 1929, Dr. Hattori secretly visited and requested Minakata to give a lecturer on slime molds to Hirohito, then Emperor, in his future royal visit to the Wakayama region. Minakata telegraphed his acceptance. With no precedent for a commoner giving an imperial lecture, he soon became the center of the public attention and extremely busy preparing specimens. On June 1, 1929, it had been raining since morning. Minakata headed for Kashima Island in a frock coat he had bought in America and kept for years. After taking the Emperor for a walk in the woods on the island, Minakata, while showing specimens, gave him a 25-minute lecture, on board the royal ship Nagato, on slime molds and marine life. He also presented the Emperor with gifts including 110 specimens of slime molds kept in empty taffy boxes.

A chamberlain recalled: "Rumors of his eccentricity had made me doubt his capability, but my worry turned out to be utterly groundless when I met this well-mannered and polite man. He was a gentleman who had experience of living abroad as well as a traditional Japanese who showed a respect for the Imperial Family." It was the most glorious day in Minakata's life. In the afternoon, he took pictures of him and Matsue in their finest attire at a studio and shared the moment with his relatives and close friends by giving sweets he had received from the Imperial Household. Next year, in commemoration of the Emperor's visit to Kashima, a monument was erected on the edge of a dense wood near the point where the emperor had landed. Inscribed on the monument is a poem Minakata wrote hoping that the island would be protected forever by the benevolence and the power of the Emperor. In May 1962, more than 30 years later, the Emperor and Empress visited southern Wakayama again. Inspired by a view of Kashima from a hotel room on the Shirahama Beach the Emperor composed a waka poem, which was inscribed on the monument erected in front of the Minakata Kumagusu Museum overlooking the Kashima island.:

Through the rain I see the dim figure of Kashima in the distance Which reminds me of Kumagusu who was born in Wakayama

Last years
The Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, as the war escalated, the people's life was impoverished. Minakata was not an exception. The loss of his old friends gave him an additional blow. He gradually ruined his health and stayed in bed. Although collapsing many times, he continued to work towards the completion of Nihon (the illustrated manual of Japanese fungi; drawing pictures), writing notes and giving advice to his colleagues.

In December 1941, soon after the Pacific War had erupted, Minakata was in a critical condition. On the 29 December he murmured, “I can see purple flowers blooming on the ceiling” and closed 75 years of a life filled with ups and downs. He was buried at the Kouzanji Temple in Tanabe City overlooking Kashima island.

Achievements
Young Minakata leaped out into the wider world when Japan was going through a metamorphosis from a feudal state into a westernized modern country. He went to America then to UK searching for a place where anybody, regardless of class, could study freely. He found it in the British Museum, where he put his heart and soul into research while buried in hundreds of books, arts and crafts and antiquities from the East and the West.

With "The Constellations in the Far East" as a start, he contributed a total of 50 theses to Nature and hundreds of articles and essays to the folklore magazine Notes and Queries. This large number of articles shows he won an important place in the British academia.

He was blessed with an extraordinary memory and manipulated more than 10 languages. In addition, plenty of experience of copying books enabled him to master how to scrutinize empirical documents and the methods of comparative cultural studies, which was the basis of his unbounded capacity in writing. Junishiko (A Study of Twelve Animals of Chinese Zodiac), one of his most important works, is an example.

After coming back to Japan he wrote a number of articles in quick succession for Japanese journals and magazines. Discussions of historical evidence from the East and the West with Kunio Yanagita, as shown in their abundant correspondence, had a great influence to the birth and the development of Japanese folklore studies.

The Illustrated Book of Bionomics of Japanese Fungi, one of his greatest achievements and the embodiment of his admiration mixed with rivalry to Curtis and Berkeley, made a huge contribution to the development of the study of fungi and thus deserves international recognition. It covers 4,500 species with 15,000 pictures. Although the entries were 500 less than planned, the book also introduced his extensive research on fungi, slime molds and algae including Minakatella longifila Lister, enigmatic behavior of slime molds and parasitic algae on fish.

His advocacy of anti-shrine-consolidation protests had its roots in his deepest anger towards the loss of inhabitants’ spiritual hubs and the extinction of the landscape with which people felt an affinity. The ecological relation between nature and human beings, which Minakata looked at through the studies of biology, folklore, ethnology and religion, is something to keep in mind.

Shinzo Koizumi, late chancellor of Keio University and an admirer of Minakata, paid his tribute: "We should write it in the academic history in Japan that a maverick scholar acquired such extensive knowledge and accomplished such great achievements."

The Minakata Kumagusu Museum in Shirahama introduces the life and achievements of Minakata through the exhibitions of his memorabilia, related materials, and books.

title: Minakata Kumagusu


text:
Yumeno Kyūsaku

Yumeno Kyūsaku (夢野 久作) was the pen name of Sugiyama Yasumichi (杉山 泰道), an early Shōwa period Japanese author, Zen priest, post office director and sub-lieutenant. The pen name roughly means "a person who always dreams". His Dharma name was Goshin-in Gin'en Taidō-koji (悟真院吟園泰道居士). He wrote detective novels and is known for his avant-gardism and his surrealistic, wildly imaginative and fantastic, even bizarre narratives. His eldest son, Sugiyama Tatsumaru, was known as the Green Father of India for spending billions of yen on reforestation.

Early life
Yumeno was born in Fukuoka city, Fukuoka prefecture as Sugiyama Naoki. His father, Sugiyama Shigemaru, was a major figure in the pre-war ultranationalist organization, the Genyōsha. After graduating from Shuyukan he attended the Literature Department at Keio University, but dropped out on orders from his father, and returned home to take care of the family farm. In 1926 he decided to become a Buddhist priest, but after a couple of years in the monastery, he returned home again as Sugiyama Yasumichi. By this time, he had developed a strong interest in the traditional Japanese drama form of Noh, with its genre of ghost stories and supernatural events. He found employment as a freelance reporter for the Kyushu Nippō newspaper (which later became the Nishinippon Shimbun), while writing works of fiction on the side.

Literary career
Kyūsaku's first success was a nursery tale Shiraga Kozō (White Hair Boy, 1922), which was largely ignored by the public. It was not until his first novella, Ayakashi no Tsuzumi (The Spirit Drum, 1924) in the literary magazine Shin-Seinen, that his name became known.

His subsequent works include Binzume jigoku (Hell in the Bottles, 1928), Kori no hate (End of the Ice, 1933), and his most significant novel Dogura Magura (Dogra Magra, 1935), which is considered a precursor of modern Japanese science fiction and was adapted for a 1988 movie directed by Toshio Matsumoto and starring Shijaku Katsura II, Hideo Murota, and Yōji Matsuda.

Dogra Magra exemplifies modern Japanese avant-garde gothic literature. In the story, the protagonist/narrator wakes up in a hospital with amnesia. He finds out that he was the subject of an experiment by a now-dead psychiatrist, and the doctors are working to bring back his memories. It is not clear whether he was a psychotic killer or the victim of a strange psychological experiment, but it is told that he killed his mother and wife and that he inherited his psychotic tendencies from an insane ancestor. The novel is strongly influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis and, through Yumeno's contacts there, provides considerable historical insight into the development of the study of psychoanalysis at Kyushu Imperial University.

Kyūsaku died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1936 while talking with a visitor at home.

English translation
Short stories
 * "Love After Death" (original title: Shigo no Koi) (Modanizumu: Modernist Fiction from Japan, 1913-1938, University of Hawaii Press, 2008)
 * "Hell in a Bottle" (original title: Binzume Jigoku) (Three-Dimensional Reading: Stories of Time and Space in Japanese Modernist Fiction, 1911-1932, University of Hawaii Press, 2013)
 * "Hell in Bottles" (original title: Binzume Jigoku) (''The Nashville Review, Volume 25, Vanderbilt University, 2018)
 * "Building" (original title: Birudingu) (The Literary Review, Volume 60 No 2: Physics, Farleigh Dickinson University, 2017)

Novel
 * "The Spirit Drum" (original title: Ayakashi no Tsuzumi) (Arigatai Books, 2019, translated by J.D. Wisgo)
 * "Kaimu: A Collection of Disturbing Dreams" (original title: Kaimu) (Arigatai Books, 2021, translated by J.D. Wisgo)

Essay
 * "Terrifying Tokyo" (included in Tokyo Stories: A Literary Stroll, University of California Press, 2002, translated by Lawrence Rogers)

French translation
Novel
 * "Dogra Magra" Philippe Picquier (2003). ISBN 2-87730-645-3

Spanish translation
Short stories

Polish translation
Short stories

 * "Piekło w butelkach" (original title: Binzume Jigoku) (Tajfuny, 2021, translated by Andrzej Świrkowski)

Novel

 * "Przeklęty bębenek" (original title: Ayakashi no tsuzumi) (Kirin, 2021, translated by Anna Grajny)

Russian translation
Novel
 * Догра Магра (original title: Dogura Magura) (Издательство книжного магазина «Желтый двор», 2021, translated by Anna Slashcheva) ISBN 9785604534380

title: Yumeno Kyūsaku


text:
Talk:Sextus Varius Marcellus

Untitled
I tried to put this into complete sentences, and failed miserably. Who is this guy? Why is he important? Who cares about him? Tuf-Kat

 * @Tuf-Kat this guy is the father of the Roman Emperor Elagabalus, how is he not important? WeWuzPhoenicians (talk) 01:05, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

NEW POST:

The writer of this article was sloppy. It says that SVM, its subject, dedicated of an inscription to Bel in Vasio, Galia, and cites a reference to a book on Bel:

But when one actually looks up the reference, one finds (p 307) that it has cited the wrong page (306), although the right paragraph, and that its text ROUNDLY contradicts the assertion, now no longer accepted, that this refers to SVM.

< Finally Bel of Apamea is also found in Vasio (Vaison), located in the south of Gallia, in a bilingual Greek-Latin inscription on an altar. The text says that the altar was dedicated by someone called Sextus in honour of Bel to remember the oracles given to him in Apamea. Originally this Sextus was identified with Sextus Varius Marcellus from Apamea, the father of the later Emperor Elagabal. This explanation is not accepted any more because a first name is not sufficient for this identification (BAL TY, 1981: 8-10). >

This is yet another example of the RANK carelessness attending most of what is written on any subject relating to "Elagabalus".

More useful would have been to cite under relevant epigraphy the fistula naming SVM as procurator of the aqueducts:

CIL XV 7326 fistula concordat cum CIL X 6569 SVM procuatorem aquaeductibus nominans. CIL XV 7326 anno AVC 951 = AD 198 a Halfmann H. ‘Zwei syrische Verwandte des severischen Kaiserhauses’ Chiron 12, 1982: 212-235 habetur. Hic annus plane ante Sexti Varii Marcelli filii ‘Elagabali’ ortum est.

And the Acta of the Secular Games naming Julia Soaemias Bassiana (ISB) as his wife.

CIL VI 32329. ISB prima inter matronas adstantes ‘uxor SVM’ nominata est.

Saxolatus Pratensis Saxolatus Pratensis (talk) 11:29, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Sextus Varius Marcellus