The Japan Society Review
Book, Stage, Movie, Arts and Events Review

Editor: Sean Curtin
Managing Editor: John Toppon...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Issue 24 Volume 4 Number 6 (December 2009)

Contents(1) Deciphering the Rising Sun: Navy and Marine Corps Codebreakers,
Translators and Interpreters in the Pacific War(2) The Great Power Struggle in East Asia, 1944-50(3) Toad’s Oil (ガマの油)(4) Nagata-cho vs. Kasumigaseki (永田町ＶＳ霞が関)(5) Yakuza Moon
(6) The Sixty-Nine Stations of the Kisokaido - Hiroshige/Eisen(7) Reading Japanese History in English (日本の歴史を英語で読む)(8) How I Caused the Credit Crunch: An Insider’s Story of
the Financial Meltdown

Professor Ian Nish kicks off our last issue of 2009 withan article on Roger Dingman’s fascinating new book on
how the US Navy & Marine Corps trained its interpreters
and translators during the Second World War. Professor
Dingman demonstrates how this highly significant andnormally overlooked part of the war effort had a long termand profound impact on post-war Japan, producing ahost of prominent Japan specialists such as Donald Keene,
Ted de Bary and John W. Hall to name but a few. Staying in
the immediate postwar years, Sir Hugh Cortazzi reviews a ....................................................................................................
book on British and American policy towards China, Korea
and Japan in the period up to the outbreak of the Korean
War. The author, Christopher Baxter, concentrates on
Deciphering the Rising
Britain’s attempt to reassert its lost regional interests andSun: Navy and Marine
its frustrations in dealing with America and Australia. Baxter
Corps Codebreakers,
provides some rich material on Anglo-American tensions
over Japan and sheds a clinical light on a murky chapter inTranslators andthe so called “special relationship.” Susan Meehan brings
Interpreters in the
us back to contemporary Japan with her final movie
Pacific War
review from this year’s “Premiere Japan at BAFTA” event(see last issue for three earlier reviews). Susan gives us her
by Roger Dingman
verdict on popular actor Yakusho Koji’s debut as a director
Naval Institute Press,
in a heartstring-tugging, feel-good tale of friendship andAnnapolis, 2009, 340
family love – “Toad’s Oil (ガマの油).” Keeping us in thepages, including notes,
present day, Fumiko Halloran gives us some surprisingbibliography and index
insights into the prominent politician Yoichi Masuzoe,
ISBN 10: 1591142113
who many tip as a potential future prime minister. Fumiko
Hardcover , £18.99
assesses his political beliefs through his thought-provoking
Review by Ian Nishand candid work “Nagata-cho vs. Kasumigaseki.” Sir HughCortazzi gives his opinion of “The Sixty-Nine Stations of the Professor Dingman has based this enlightening study on
Kisokaido” which presents a collection of prints by Utagawa extended interviews with former officers in the US Navy
Hiroshige and Keisai Eisen, two of the outstanding artists and Marine Corps who are now in their upper 80s. But heof the late Edo period. William Farr tells us why he thinks has also made much use of the unpublished memoirs to
Shizuka Tendo’s 2006 autobiographical “Yakuza Moon: be found in the Navy Language School Collection in the
Memoirs of a Gangster’s Daughter” is worthy of note. We Norlin Library, University of Colorado at Boulder where
also look at the bilingual history book “Nihon no Rekishi they were trained. It is a tribute to the US government –wo Eigode Yomu” and the revealing yarn of investment and the British for that matter – that they appreciated thebanking woe “How I Caused the Credit Crunch: An Insider’s importance of training linguists during the Asia-Pacific war
Story of the Financial Meltdown.”
and had the foresight to recruit and train personnel not ofJapanese ancestry to study the Japanese language with a
Sean Curtin.................................................................................................... view to serving as language officers. Dingman concludes
that it was a successful experiment and draws a painful
New reviewswww.japansociety.org.uk/resources/the-japan-society-review
parallel with the Bush administration’s decision to invade
Iraq: “In June 2002 America teetered on the cusp of a war
Archive
http://www.japansociety.org.uk/reviews_archive.html
in Iraq that has lasted longer than the titanic struggle
which the World War II language officers fought... It led to
We are grateful to our regular reviewers:
swift military victory, but true peace has proven elusive in
Susan Meehan
Sir Hugh Cortazzi
the disastrously mismanaged, occupation that followed...
Takahiro Miyao
Simon Cotterill
those in our armed forces charged with carrying out their
Ian NishWilliam Farr
orders lacked knowledge of Iraq’s history and culture and
Ben-Ami Shillony
Fumiko Halloranof the language of its people. (pp. 249-50)”
Tomohiko Taniguchi
Mikihiro Maeda

In 1942 the US government recognized the need to set up
a school where its servicemen could be instructed in theJapanese language. After brief sojourns at Harvard andBerkeley, it was decided to locate it at the University ofColorado in Boulder. On 23 June 1942, barely two weeks
after the Battle of Midway, the school opened with 152
officer candidates, recruited mainly by Albert Hindmarsh,
who had as a young academic visited Japan in 1937 to
study the language intensively. The students were trainedby both American and Japanese instructors, using theNaganuma texts. In their teaching they maintained abalance between the spoken and written aspects of “thismost difficult language.”
When the first class graduated in July 1943, they became
marine second lieutenants. In the first stage some wereintroduced in Washington to work as code-breakers
and specialized in radio interception and cryptographic
work for the Navy. But code-breaking and translation
were demoralizing; and it was not until 1944 that they
became involved in combat. As the war progressed,
they played their part as Marine combat interpreters in
the island-hopping campaign. Meanwhile their naval
colleagues were trained to function as Japanese-speaking
intelligence officers. In the last months of the war they
were generally attached to combat units and saw grisly
service in Okinawa.
Two items of relevance to Britain and the Commonwealth
may be made at this point. Britain could not rely on
niseis [a native of the US or Canada born of immigrant
Japanese parents and educated in America or Canada),
except for those who were seconded from Canada. Nor
had missionary families in Japan been as numerous aswere the Americans before the war. So the British services
had no pool of recruits on which they could draw inorder to build up their linguistic resources. Apart fromthose trained at SOAS, Bill Beasley was sent by the Royal
Navy to Boulder for training with the Americans. Some
Commonwealth linguists also joined Allied Translator
and Interpreter Service (ATIS), primarily an army facility,
attached to General MacArthur’s HQ in Brisbane, which
made a large contribution to Japanese language studies
during the war.
After the official Japanese surrender in 1945, many
language officers played a critical role in facilitating the
local surrender of garrisons in islands like Wake and Trukwhich made up what Dingman calls Japan’s maritime
empire. Later they became involved in war crimes
investigations and the prosecutions in outlying stations
like Manila. The same job had to be done for parts ofJapan’s continental empire in China and Korea. Theirlinguistic knowledge was invaluable in achieving the
successful dismantling of the Japanese Empire. From theevidence Dingman has amassed, it seems that interpreters
were able to empathize with the commanders whose
surrender they took and smoothed the transition topeace.
When they landed in Japan herself, language officers had
2

to act as agents of occupation, enforcing the instrumentsof surrender. Dingman claims (pp. 194-5) that “language
officers stood at the forefront of those who helped bringabout that change (in unfriendly US attitudes to Japan).”Given the American perception that the Japanese had
been transformed, what was the role of these wartime
combatants in the post-war occupation of Japan’s homeislands? They performed their roles as investigators,
reporters but also as bridge-builders promoting AmericanJapanese understanding. This brings us to the question offraternization. Evidently dance halls sprouted in Tokyo’s
Ginza soon after the war’s end; and GIs enjoyed dancing
with young Japanese girls there. Language officers visited
Japanese homes. This was one area in which US andBritish perspectives differed. British troops when theycame on the scene early in 1946 were subject to a nonfraternization order; and, however much that order was inpractice violated, it remained in force.
Dingman concludes by looking at the later careers of
the Boulder graduates. One year after Japan’s surrender,
Boulder language school closed and the staff weredispersed. So far as the former graduates were concerned,
Dingman divides them into two categories: those who
were “touched by Japan” and joined professions where
Japanese knowledge was peripheral but where theyretained Japanese sympathies. And those who were
“beguiled by Japan” – that is, those whose experience inthe war persuaded them to devote their lives to furthering
Japanese studies. Thus “By 1946 Ted de Bary, Donald Keeneand John W. Hall were already uniquely positioned by their
wartime naval experiences to become the intellectual
leaders of Japanese studies in post-war America (page245).”In the years that followed these and so many more
(Beardsley, Robert Ward, Tom Smith, James Morley, Ardath
Burks, Scalapino and Shiveley) pursued cross-culturalprojects with Japan and produced seminal publications.
These are mainly historians; but one could duplicate thislist in the field of journalism, Japanese art and translation.
In their way they all operated as “unofficial ambassadors”
between Tokyo and Washington. Eventually in 1975 the“academic veterans” succeeded in inducing Congress
to fund a Japan-US Friendship Commission that would
enable later generations to study Japan’s culture as they
had earlier done in the extraordinary circumstances ofwar.
We owe a debt to Roger Dingman for his painstaking
and comprehensive research. At one level it depicts
part of the life story of individual language officers who
had a special experience of the Asia-Pacific war and of
the peace-making that followed. At another, the book is
of wider political significance about one of the politicalphenomena of the twentieth century: the swift transition
within Japan from extreme wartime hostility towards the
US to relative acceptance of allied occupation within a
few weeks of the war’s end. In this transition language
officers played a role disproportionate to their numbers.
Issue 24 Volume 4 Number 6 (December 2009)

The Great Power
Struggle in East Asia,
1944-50, Britain,
America and PostWar Rivalryby Christopher
Baxter in the series
Global Conflict andSecurity Since 1945			Palgrave Macmillan,
2009, 250 pages
including endnotes,
bibliography and index
ISBN: 978-0-230-20297-9,£55
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi

In 1945 when Lend-Lease ended, Britain was bankrupt.
In the Far East the United States was dominant andthe British were dependent on American good will but
this was in short supply. The Americans were generally
contemptuous of British fighting ability after theSingapore debacle of early 1942 and were unwilling tohelp the British to retrieve their commercial interests
in China. They would not help Britain to recover any of
its colonies even Hong Kong. The ‘special relationship’was notable by its absence in the Far East in the years
covered by this book.
This book, which deals with policy towards China,
Korea and Japan up to the outbreak of the Korean
War, concentrates on British attempts to reassert theirinterests and their frustrations in dealing with theAmericans and the Australians who were frequently
tiresome. It also demonstrates a lack of British realism
about what could be achieved. As Baxter notes (page26) “there was a general tendency in the Foreign Office
to urge that we [the British] should undertake militarycommitments far beyond our manpower or our futurefinancial and material resources.”
The Americans agreed reluctantly that a British force
might be useful if an invasion of Japan became
necessary and allowed a British naval force to join in the
final stages of the fighting in the Pacific. “Preparations[page 39] for the occupation of Japan were marked
by confusion whereby both the British and Americans
did not understand each other’s position but assumed
they did.” The Americans eventually accepted a British
Commonwealth contingent in the occupation ofJapan, but it could not arrive until early 1946. It wasbarred from any role in military government and friction
between the British and the Australians detracted fromits limited and doubtful political value. The Americans
were so determined to ensure that the occupation wasan all American affair that the members of The United
Kingdom Liaison Mission in Tokyo were, at least at first,
Issue 24 Volume 4 Number 6 (December 2009)

only allowed to travel outside Tokyo if they received
American permission first (page 118).
British and American views differed on how to treat
Japan after the war. There is a fairly widely held belief
that the British wanted Japan to be treated toughly
but Sir George Sansom, who had served so many years
in Japan before the war and on whose “unrivalledknowledge and prestige” the Foreign Office relied
greatly, produced in 1945, with Esler (later Sir Esler)
Dening, a paper on policy towards Japan (page 43)
which did not at that time accord with American
views. Sansom argued against a long occupation andagainst the dismantling of industries. After the war
much of Japan’s population would be unemployed
and possibly starving. “Such conditions were not
likely to favour the evolution of a democratic type ofgovernment in Japan. Sansom favoured instead theinstitution of economic controls and the necessityof working through the constitutional powers of theEmperor. Japan could not survive without the ability
to trade and economic controls could therefore
induce the Japanese to introduce their own reforms,
ensuring good behaviour.” In this context Baxter
notes page 44: “The British including Churchill who
raised the matter at Yalta, had begun to question thedesirability of demanding the unconditional surrenderof Japan. They felt the suspension of the Emperor’s
powers – ‘the most abject humiliation’ – implicit in theterm unconditional surrender, would delay the war
unnecessarily.” Later the British were advocates of anearly peace treaty with Japan and at the official level
were less anti-Japanese than the Australians. In thisthey were ahead of or at variance with British popular
opinion which took much longer than Australian
opinion to become reconciled to Japan.
In this brief review I have concentrated on a few of
the interesting points which Christopher Baxter makes
in relation to Anglo-American exchanges on policy
towards Japan, but this book is equally revealing about
policy discussions on China and Korea. Historians
interested in Anglo-American relations in theimmediate post-war years will find this trawl throughthe official archives fascinating and instructive.
As an official who served from 1951-54 under Sir Esler
Dening as Britain’s first post-war Ambassador to JapanI do not think he was, quote, the “imperialist” Baxter
describes. He was a realist. He was also crusty, toughand opinionated. He was tall and broad shouldered
not stocky as Baxter describes him. He certainly had
his doubts about post-war Japanese democracy, but
having served in pre-war Japan he had good reason for
this. He was also suspicious of American motives andgood faith based on his experience as political adviser
to Mountbatten as supreme commander in South East
Asia and the behaviour of John Foster Dulles over theAmerican enforced Japanese recognition of China.
3Premiere Japan 2009 at BAFTA 9th to 11th The story unfolds with the occasional surreal turn. Whileit eventually succeeds in conveying a message of theOctober 2009
Toad’s Oil(ガマの油)
directed by Yakusho Koji (役所 広司)

importance of friends and family and love, it seemed rather
disoriented and the allusion to the legendary ‘gama no
abura’ forced. The stars of the film are, undoubtedly, Takuya
and Akiba, played by K-1 fighter Junichi Sawayashiki (澤屋敷純一).

2008, 131 minutes
Review by Susan Meehan
Yakusho Koji, well-known for his roles in Shall We Dance?,
The Eel and Babel makes his directorial debut with Gamano Abura (ガマの油 – Toad’s Oil), which was the opening
film at this year’s “Premiere Japan 2009” event (see lastissue for more details).
‘Gama no abura’ is an old wives’ tale, a legendary curative
ointment made from toad’s oil, extracted by incarceratinga toad in a small box lined with mirrors. The toad’s frightat seeing such a foul reflection causes it to break out ingreasy sweat which is then collected and used to prepare
the panacea.
Yakusho Koji’s frenetic character, nicknamed “easymoney gambler” by his son, owes his millionaire status
to successfully playing the stock market. In the mannerof the trapped toad, surrounded by computers rather
than mirrors which alert him to the state of his shares, hefrenziedly trades alternating between howls and hystericallaughs at each loss and manically punching for joy andshooting toy pistols on recouping and surpassing his
losses.
Once the scene is set, Takuya, his delightfully likable andtelegenic son, played by Eita (瑛太), sets off from his lavishmansion to meet his ebullient, bordering on the irritating,girlfriend Hikari (二階堂ふみ). The date is cut short when
Takuya mentions having to meet his best friend, Akiba,
due to be released later that day from a reform school.
Leaving a petulantly jealous Hikari, Takuya is hit by a van
and falls into a coma.
Desperate for Takuya to regain consciousness, his parents
and Akiba keep a constant bedside vigil and “easy money
gambler” strikes up a telephone relationship with Takuya’s
girlfriend, Hikari who is kept blissfully unaware of Takuya’s
condition.
4

Nagata-cho vs.
Kasumigaseki[永田町ＶＳ霞が関]
by Yoichi Masuzoe [舛添要一]
Kodansha, 2007, 253
pages, ISBN：978-4-06214042-3, 1500 yen
Review by Fumiko Halloran
This book is about thecomplicatedrelations
between politicians in
Nagata-cho, where theDiet building is located,andbureaucratsinKasumiga-seki, where most government ministries
are situated. It is work that is interesting more becauseof who wrote it rather than for the subject itself.
Yoichi Masuzoe was the Minister of Welfare and Labor[August 2007 to August 2009] and served in Prime
Minister Taro Aso’s last cabinet, before it lost power tothe administration of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.
Masuzoe held the same position under two previous
prime ministers, Shinzo Abe and Yasuo Fukuda.
Despite his junior rank in the Liberal Democratic
Party’s (LDP) delegation in the House of Councillors,
or Upper House, having only been elected in 2001,
he was appointed in 2006 as chairman of the LDP’s
Upper House Policy Council (Seisaku Shingikai). Thiswas unusual since the chairmanship usually goes toa veteran skilled in negotiating not only within the
LDP but with the opposition parties. Masuzoe andthe Lower House chair of the counterpart council,
Seimu Chosakai, controlled drafting and revisions oflegislations by all parties and ministries, every one ofwhich has a vested interest in expanding their power.
Yoichi Masuzoe belongs to no faction but is backed
by several senior LDP leaders, some of whom
contemplated selecting him as a successor to theenormously popular Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi(2001 to 2006). Born in 1948 in Fukuoka Prefecture, he
graduated from Tokyo University Faculty of Law witha major in political science. He was a research fellow at
the University of Paris International Relations Instituteand the University of Geneva Graduate Institute ofInternational Studies.
Issue 24 Volume 4 Number 6 (December 2009)

Returning to Japan, he taught French politics anddiplomacy at Tokyo University. In the 1980s, he left
Tokyo University after criticizing its bureaucratic
attitude toward education, and became a televisioncommentator. In 1999, he ran against novelist/
politician Shintaro Ishihara in the Tokyo gubernatorial
election and lost but garnered 840,000 votes. In 2001,
he got elected to the Upper House with 1.58 million
votes. In 2007 he was re-elected to the Upper House.
Masuzoe became prominent through his bestselling book on caring for his ailing mother who had
developed Alzheimer’s disease before she passed
away. His association with this led to his appointment
as the Minister of Welfare and Labor in the Abe cabinet.
The ministry he presided over had serious difficulties
in tracking the records of pension recipients as well asother administrative problems. Masuzoe was often on
television defending or criticizing his own ministry andexplaining the issues as he saw them. He is a colourful
character with a big ego to match and once owned
prize-winning race horses. He is the author of many
books, was divorced twice and married three times,
and has a tendency to use strong words in public,
often stirring controversy.
This book, however, shows still another side of him:
He is a policy wonk. He attends numerous policy
study group meetings, prepares for questioning in
the Diet hearings by intense discussion with researchstaff and plays tough games with bureaucrats. He tells
readers about the ins and outs of how legislation isdrafted, goes through the revisions process, looks at
who wants the revisions, how compromise is reached,and other factors that shape the end result.
Masuzoe argues that the LDP has gone throughprofound changes after the Koizumi reforms. Earlier,
the Japanese political system ran like this; at the topof the LDP policy formation sat the Policy ResearchCouncil chairman in the Lower House. Under thecouncil were many “bukai” or committees. Committee
members were backed by bureaucrats and businessexecutives, each pushing his or her own agenda. The
business community donated campaign funds andorganized votes; the bureaucracy provided knowledge
and information on issues. In return, the Diet members
who specialized in various industries, called “ZokuGiin” (tribe legislators), protected the interest of thebusiness and the bureaucracy by winning beneficial
budgets.
Masuzoe points out that the prevailing assumption
was that Japan’s economy would continue to expand.
After the ”Lost Decade” in the 1990’s, the political map
suddenly changed as economic growth plunged.
Unable to accept drastic budget cuts and streamlining
the system, Japan’s deficit kept growing.

establishing a group free of business and bureaucratic
influence, which was the Economic and Finance
Policy Advisory Council headed by Dr. Heizo Takenaka.
Masuzoe gives high marks to Koizumi’s policy, although
he admits that Koizumi tended to ignore the Diet--notan orthodox way to run a parliamentary system.
The era of high economic growth, the role of theDiet members merely winning battles on budget
for interest groups, and reliance on the bureaucracy
to shape policy is over, Masuzoe asserts. He criticizes
Diet members who do not spend enough time on
legislative activity and declares that those not steepedin policy debate will become obsolete and forced off
the political map soon.
However, he is a realist as well. He does not promote
the idea of legislative initiative in drafting bills as
the benchmark of a successful record, arguingthat bills not going through vigorous scrutiny and“nemawashi” negotiations among all interest groups
fail to get passed in the Diet. He contends, instead,that Diet members take the initiative in forming policy
by utilizing the bureaucracy’s resources without
succumbing to their own agenda. Similarly he does
not dismiss the role of “Zoku Giin.” He argues that thesemembers are knowledgeable on issues and skilled in
the legislative process. Therefore they should be avaluable asset if their attachments to special interest
groups can be reined in.
Masuzoe proposes that each party have its own
think tank, modelled after the Council on Foreign
Relations, American Enterprise Institute, and Heritage
Foundation. He says the LDP Policy and ResearchCouncil’s committees each have research staff who
are well informed. In the Upper House, the LDP has its
own think tank that assists the members in drafting
legislation.
Masuzoe believes that to improve as policy
organizations, the LDP and opposition parties needto take turns in running the country, a surprising
view from someone who when he wrote the book
was a member of the governing LDP rather thana vanquished opposition party. He asserts that by2007 the long reign by the LDP had led to incestuous
relations between Nagata-cho and Kasumiga-seki.
A principle of competition by policies, not special
interests, should prevail in an ideal political world.
Now the LDP are the opposition, it will be intriguing
to follow Masuzoe’s political path to see if he is serious
in this argument.

A different version of this review first appeared on the
National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) Japan-US
Discussion Forum and is reproduced with permission.

At this critical time, Koizumi appeared as a ruthlessbudget cutter. He streamlined the bureaucracy byIssue 24 Volume 4 Number 6 (December 2009)5

Yakuza Moon:
Memoirs of aGangster’s Daughterby Shizuka Tendo
Routledge, 2006,
234 pages including
photographs,
ISBN: 9784770030429,
Hardcover, £13.99
Review by William Farr
At once a horrifying andpowerful
exposé
onthe limits of personal
endurance,
YakuzaMoon is the true story of one woman’s struggle
against the odds. Born into a family where the headof the household also happens to be a local yakuza
boss, Tendo has the cards stacked against her. Localneighbours and children who verbally attack her assome sort of representative of the yakuza make Tendo
brutally aware of the power of her father’s position.
Tendo’s father, at once kind and traditionally Japanese– almost Bushido in his philosophical outlook – comesover however as a Mr. Hyde figure in his youth. He sits
as an overarching figure throughout most of the book,either by virtue of sporadic violent outbursts or in weak
dotage, yet he remains an important figure for Tendo.
The family garage in Tendo’s youth is littered withexpensive cars and motorbikes, but as time passes thefamily hits hard times and loan sharks come calling.
Tendo’s house and home is destroyed as the worm
turns on the once powerful yakuza boss. Financial“feast or famine” become the watchwords of Tendo’s
youth.
Yet in this midst of all this confusion Tendo issurprisingly doing well at school, in spite of the criminal
underworld she inhabits. But one crazy night with herolder sister tips the balance. Tendo slips into a worldof drugs and abuse at the hands of yakuza lovers, only
swinging back every so often to normal relationships.
The yakuza lovers treat her appallingly, beat her
relentlessly, yet the abuse cycle is difficult for Tendo
to break free from. The normal lovers seek either toturn Tendo into a concubine, or save her from herself.
Both viewpoints and attitudes towards her ultimately
fail as Tendo has too much of her own self to uncoverand come to terms with. Her older sister is in a similarly
abusive pattern of behaviour and struggles to stand on
her own feet whilst supporting a gambling addictedboyfriend. Members of Tendo’s family often have to
move away to other cities to escape impending trouble
in the form of loan sharks or ex-lovers.

explains that Tendo hates the yakuza, this does notappear to be the case, so perhaps a degree of hostility
is lost in translation. Rather, Tendo accepts the yakuza
as a reality of her past; she cannot avoid who she was,and so she turns to yakuza symbols as a way of coming
to terms with her cultural heritage. This begins witha trip to the tattooist. Tattoos in Japan whilst being aclear badge of the yakuza, are portrayed by Tendo as away for her to extract herself from a difficult upbringing
by placing herself clearly within it. The tattoos that she
has emblazoned upon her body grow and become amajor living work of art. This is coupled with a growing
self-awareness as the young woman reinvents herself
aesthetically.
The gangster’s daughter falls pregnant at a significant
point in this self-development, at which point reality
jolts her into understanding the importance of her
own life, and how others rely upon her for strength.
Ultimately Tendo makes peace with her past,
concluding that her reality is defined by the people
that make it, without whom her life is lessened in its
meaning. So as her mother, followed by her father,
die the clarity of who she is and who she wants to be,
becomes clearer. At this point in Tendo’s journey - asshe comes up for air - she realizes that her life is a vital
message to the world because of the path that she has
walked. Our heroine at this point decides to live out
her childhood dream and write for a living.
This journey is critically empowering for women. Thelong suffering girl’s inner strength is astonishing, as isher ability to rise like a phoenix from the flames manytimes after being so close to the edge. A number oftimes Tendo throws in the towel and gives up on life;
but whether through fortunate circumstance or an
inner will which encourages her to stay alive for thesake of life - she endures. Whilst some books such as
Joe Simpson’s Touching the Void take the reader to theinner depths of personal hell and back again throughthe journey of an individual in a natural environment,
this book is surely the lifetime urban equivalent of
having climbed Mount Everest a least twelve times
over. Some of what happens to this unfortunate woman
is arguably self-inflicted, but Tendo is the result of adifficult upbringing and is fiercely strong in spite of it.
Sadly many in society go through a Tendo-like journeyand do not come positively out of it on the other side.
Many individuals live forever in the hell of a maturity
that has been tarnished by a childhood of abuse. This
is not the case for the author of Yakuza Moon.

But the book is an exercise in catharsis, and whilst theepilogue at the end of the book by Manabu Miyazaki
6

Issue 24 Volume 4 Number 6 (December 2009)

road and observe the actual scenery for themselves.

The Sixty-Nine Stations of the Kisokaido:
Hiroshige and Eisen
by Sebastian Izzard
George Braziller Publisher (New York), 2008, 159
pages, Introduction, map, select bibliography, 70 fullcolour prints.
ISBN978-0-8076-1593-5
Hardcover, £34.50
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi
This book makes a valuable companion volume to therecent publication by Taschen of Hiroshige’s One Hundred
Views of Edo which I reviewed in Issue 17 Volume 3 Number
5 (December 2008). The Taschen volume of upright prints
was produced as in full size reproductions of an outstanding
set. This volume of oblong prints is based on a carefulselection of fine early impressions. Anyone interested in
the prints of Hiroshige or in Japanese landscape printsof the late Edo period will want to add this book to theircollection.
The Kisokaidō, often referred to as the Naksendō (roadthrough the mountains) as it traversed the mountains ofcentral Japan, was an alternative to the better known andmore travelled Tōkaidō (eastern sea road). It was longer
and more difficult but passed through much fine scenery.
It became popular with foreign travellers in the Meiji period
who wanted to “get off the beaten track” but who haddifficulty in getting permission to travel in the ‘interior’ ofJapan away from the Treaty ports (see transcript of mylecture to The Japan Society on 16 June 1987 in Proceedings
number 108 for 1987-8 pages 71-87) .
As Sebastian Izzard in his introduction explains thiscollection of prints by two outstanding artists of thelate Edo period is “a tour de force of artistic vision andprintmaking craftsmanship” and “comprises the artists’most extraordinary and best loved landscapes, urban
scenes and visual anecdotes.” Yet most of these prints
were not based on sketches made on the spot but rather
on local guides. Neither Eisen, nor Hiroshige, seems to havethought it necessary or even desirable to journey along theIssue 24 Volume 4 Number 6 (December 2009)This series was started by Eisen in 1835. He worked
chronologically producing a print for each station up to
Honjo, the eleventh, and then arbitrarily selected stations
further along the route which attracted him, producing
a total of 24 prints. Eisen who had an element of artistic
genius, also seems to have been both eccentric andan alcoholic. Perhaps because he was so unreliable he
was replaced by Hiroshige who did a further 46 prints tocomplete the series. Izzard notes that Eisen was generally
more interested in the human element than in the view
itself. “Hiroshige, on the other hand, sheds his earlier relianceon guidebooks and local customs to create sweeping
compositions with stunning bodies of colour designed toreflect the atmosphere of each locale in the moment heportrayed it.”Among the most striking of the prints in this volume areprints depicting people and places in the dark or in the rain.
The use of dark blue in many of the prints is noteworthy.
Izzard notes that “the boom in landscape prints in 1830s
had been fuelled by the sudden and widespread availabilityof the imported synthetic blue pigment known as beroai, named after Berlin, the capital of Prussia… A fad forblue prints (aizuri-e) developed, and fostered a demand
for landscapes printed in shades of blue.” Perhaps themost noteworthy general features of these prints are theimaginative manner in which each scene is composed andthe way in which vibrant colours are artistically blended.
These were the elements which so impressed and inspired
the Post-Impressionists.

Each print is accompanied by a detailed note about
the content of the picture and information about the
impression. It is interesting to note the way in which signs
are used in some of the prints to advertise the publisher orvarious products.
A few of the prints in this series are well known because they
have featured in books about Japanese prints and Japaneseartists, but many will be known only to specialists. In going
through this work I noted many that were unfamiliar to me
and a number which I thought particularly attractive andimpressive. I must leave it to readers to make their own
choice as there is no space in a brief to review reproduce
even a small selection of the prints.
7

Reading Japanese
History in English[日本の歴史を英語で読む]

How I Caused theCredit Crunch: An
Insider’s Story of the
Financial Meltdown

by Akinori Endo
[遠藤 昭則] andHenry Buckley

by Tetsuya Ishikawa

Besutoshinsho, 2009, 192
pages
ISBN: 978-4-12225
9,740 yen
Review by Sean CurtinThis handy bilingual work is definitely for anyone whowants to enhance or brush up their Japanese history
vocab while improving their overview of Japanese
history. In 86 compact chapters the authors take us from
Palaeolithic [旧石器時代] Japan to the signing of the San
Francisco Peace Treaty [サンフランシスコ講和条約] in
1951 and the subsequent Japan-US Security Treaty [日米安全保障条約].
On each page the English and Japanese sentences
are numbered which makes it easy to match up thecorresponding sections, while key words and phrases
are underlined with the Japanese equivalent below. The
work provides a concise overview of prewar Japanese
history. It is packed full of useful historical vocabulary andsentence structures which are incorporated in an easyto-follow historical framework. The reader seamlessly
glides through the Jomon [縄文時代] and Yayoi [弥生時代] periods before cantering into the first recorded
mentions of Japan in Chinese manuscripts. Almost
everything can be found in this comprehensive work
including all the historical milestones such as the Yamato
Regime [大和政権], Prince Shotoku [聖徳太子], theTaiho Code [大宝律令], the Nara Period [奈良時代], theKamakura Shogunate [鎌倉幕府] and Tokugawa Ieyasu’s[徳川 家康] establishment of the Edo Shogunate [江戸幕府]. Some periods and events will be familiar to readers
others more obscure. The authors also briefly look at daily
life and customs in some of the periods covered.
This is an extremely useful reference book for anyone who
deals with Japan on a regular basis but is not a history
expert. It is also a fine example of how far Japan-English
reference books have come in the last 30 years. When I
started studying Japanese at university in the eighties
there were not many useful bilingual reference books
or works on the market, now there are many excellent
quality books on a diverse range of subjects. Today’s
students of Japanese do not know how lucky they are,while yesterday’s students (and even the more mature
amongst us) can greatly benefit from reference works
such as this which can fill minor gaps in our knowledge.
8

Icon Books Ltd, 2009ISBN 978-1848310674£8.99
Review by Natasha Hamilton

While this book is not directly
about Japan and Tokyo is notat the centre of the narrative,
the insights the Japanese
author, Tetsuya Ishikawa,provides on the investment banking world are gripping.
You wouldn’t ordinarily pick up a book about the financial
crisis on your summer holiday, but I made an exception
for this book after reading the first page or two. Its factualand slightly fictional accounts of the underbelly of theinvestment banking world are entertaining and informative.
While keeping the reader gripped with tales of sex, money
and greed, the book also deftly explains the intricacies of
the arcane financial instruments which are now grimly
associated with the credit crunch, all of which the author
has had direct experience. It explains the crisis from a Joe
Public’s view while not coming over too sympathetic for
unemployed investment bankers.
In August 2008, Tetsuya Ishikawa was made redundantfrom his job at a global top-tier investment bank. [He wasan investment banker at ABN AMRO, Goldman Sachs andMorgan Stanley.] The story is a fictionalized account ofIshikawa’s seven years at the forefront of the credit markets
and an exposé of the human failings behind the credit crisis.
The main character and narrator, Andrew Dover, arriveson the scene fresh out of Oxford University. He soon finds
himself in command of vast, unimaginable sums of otherpeople’s money. A novice to the mysteries of hedge funds,
subprime mortgages and CDOs, he nonetheless throws
himself into the mad, decadent world of banking - awash
with money, sex and greed. Soon he finds himself reaping
the benefits in his colossal annual bonus and an international
luxury lifestyle, fixing complex deals for billions of dollars in
the exclusive bars, brothels, poker clubs and trading floors of
London, New York, Frankfurt and Tokyo.
While some details and names have been changed, whatmakes the book exciting to read is the fact that the book is
actually inspired by first-hand accounts of working at the
cutting edge of the global economy from an individual withreal insight into the financial world. [Tetsuya Ishikawa worked
at the forefront of the credit markets, structuring, syndicating
and selling credit derivative, CDO and securitization products
to investors.]

Natasha sent a different and much shorter version of thisreview to Money Market who published it in October 2009
Issue 24 Volume 4 Number 6 (December 2009)