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

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

Issue 17 Volume 3 Number 5 (December 2008)

Amongst our line-up in this issue we feature two new
biographical-related books, one about John Milne
and the other on Charles Holme. Both figures arefrom the early decades of Anglo-Japanese relations
when Japan was still a distant, mysterious land andbilateral ties were in their infancy. As usual, we alsooffer a selection of prominent new Japanese language
books including Fumiko Halloran’s examination of the
turbulent relationship between Japanese film legend
Kurosawa Akira and Hollywood. You will also find Sir
Hugh Cortazzi’s look at a superbly illustrated new
book on the artist Hiroshige, Mikihiro Maeda’s review
on a book about Japanese writer Haruki Murakami as
well as many more great reviews.
Sean Curtin

Contents(1) Hiroshige: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo(2) Nihon no Ichiban Nagai Natsu(3) John Milne: The Man Who Mapped the Shaking Earth(4) What I Talk About When I Talk About Running(5) The Diary of Charles Holme’s 1889 Visit to Japan(6) Kurosawa Akira vs. Hollywood(7) The Meiji Constitution
New reviewswww.japansociety.org.uk/reviews.html
Archive
http://www.japansociety.org.uk/reviews_archive.html

We are grateful to our regular reviewers:
Sir Hugh Cortazzi
Fumiko Halloran
Takahiro Miyao
Ben-Ami Shillony
Mikihiro Maeda

Ian NishAnna Davis
Susan Meehan
William Farr
Tomohiko Taniguchi......................................................................................................................................................................................................

Hiroshige. One Hundred
Famous Views of Edo
by Melanie Trede andLorenz Bichler
Taschen, 2008, 294 pages
Japanese binding &bookcase £80.00
ISBN: 978-3-8228-4827-2
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi
Hiroshige and Hokusai areprobably the two Japaneseartists most famous in thewest. They had a significant influence on the PostImpressionists including Van Gogh, Monet and Whistlerand on the Japonisme movement in European art in
the latter part of the nineteenth century.
The publication of this sumptuous publication is timely.
This year is the 150th anniversary of the first treaties
with the five leading western powers (the USA, theNetherlands, Russia, Britain and France [not Italy as theintroduction states]) which provided for the opening
in 1859 of diplomatic and trade relations. The process
had begun with the arrival of Commodore Perry’s “backships” in 1853, but 1858 saw the real break-through. The
British Treaty with Japan signed at Edo on 26 August1858 was called ‘The Treaty of Yedo’ (Yedo being aspelling of Edo used by some foreigners at that time).
Hiroshige’s hundred views of Edo were produced in theyears 1856-1858 and provided a panorama of the sights
in the capital. They are all upright or vertical prints inthe size termed o-ban in Japanese. The prints which

are kept by the Ota Museum in Tokyo are all from thefirst printing and as they have been very well preserved
the colours are authentic and have not faded as somany other sets have faded. As the introduction points
out the prints represent a cooperative effort between
the artist, the woodblock cutter and the printer who
applied the colours.
Although these prints are described as one hundredviews there were in fact a total of 120. All of thesehave been reproduced in this book in full colour andthe original size. Each plate is accompanied by a fulldescription and explanation. There is an informative
introduction in English, French and German. The bookis bound in traditional Japanese style and comes in a
handsome case illustrated in colour.
The prints were generally made to look like paintings.
They functioned like modern colour picture postcards
in the sense that they were intended as souvenirs forvisitors to particular beauty spots, shrines and temples.
With increasing affluence,
Japanese at the end of theEdo period had begun totravel whenever they could,
but before there was any
wheeled traffic, journeys evenof a short distance were time
consuming.
In a number of prints elementsof western style perspective
were used. Western art
techniques had been imported
into Japan during the Edo

Period (1600-1868), despite Japan’s strict seclusion
policy. In some, the artist has adopted the traditional
Japanese birds-eye view. The most striking feature to
the western eye is, however, the way in which pictures
were composed to draw particular attention to certain
features or points in the picture. This element inJapanese prints had a particular resonance for PostImpressionist artists. The season plays an importantrole in some but not all the prints. Spring is depicted
in 42 prints, summer in 30, autumn in 26 and winterin 20 including some memorable snow scenes. Artists
were forbidden to depict Edo castle, the palace of the
shogun. As a result there is a hole in the middle of Edo!
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) sometimes known
as Ando Hiroshige was the son of a samurai official
in Edo in charge of fire-fighting. After his parents
died when he was only twelve years old he studied
art under Utagawa Toyohiro and became an ukiyoe artist. He adopted techniques from other schools
and developed his own style. At first he specialized in
depicting attractive courtesans but inspired by one ofJapan’s greatest artists Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849)
he specialized in landscapes and nature subjects. His
most famous series is the ‘Fifty-Three Stations on the
Tōkaidō’ (Tōkaidōō gojūsan tsugi), but the hundredviews of Edo deserves at least equal status.
Anyone interested in Japanese landscape prints and in
Hiroshige or who wants an artistic view of the sights of
Edo at the time the Treaties were signed 150 years ago
will want to possess this luxurious volume.

’Nihon no Ichiban Nagai
Natsu,’ (Japan’s Longest
Summer)edited by Kazutoshi
Hando
Bunshun Shinsho, Bungei
Shunju, October 2007, 181
pages, paperback ￥700
ISBN-13: 978-4166605941
Review by Fumiko Halloran
This thin book is a treasurefor historians who study thecircumstances in Japan that led to its surrender on
August 15, 1945, to end World War II. Kazutoshi Hando,
then a young editor at the monthly magazine Bungei
Shunju, came up with the idea in 1963 to assemble
30 men and women who had had vastly different war
experiences to talk about what they were doing andthinking at the time of the surrender. Hando does not
say why he decided to publish the 1963 record forty
four years later, but over years he has been writing and2

publishing detailed accounts on the war and the postwar period in Japan.
Those who took part in the discussion included
Hisatsune Sakomizu, then the Chief Cabinet Secretary;
Naotake Sato, ambassador to Moscow; Hitoshi
Imamura, commander of the Japanese Imperial Army‘s
8th Division in New Guinea; Hajime Suzuki, son andassistant to Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki; Sukemasa
Iriye, chamberlain to the emperor, who is posthumously
known as the Showa Emperor; Kingo Machimura, Chiefof the Metropolitan Police; and Okikatsu Arao, an army
officer and confidant of General Korechika Anami, theminister of war.
Their personal accounts reveal how Japan barely
escaped a coup d’etat by Imperial Army officers who
were opposed to the surrender and advocated a fullscale battle with the Allied landing force that they
expected.
Contrary to the widely held view that Gen. Anami was
opposed to the surrender, those who knew him andhis thinking praised him as having been instrumental
in preventing the army’s resistance to the surrender.
They agreed that Anami’s top priority was to protect
the emperor and the imperial system. When theemperor said in the Imperial Council that he wanted tosurrender, Anami accepted it. At the time, 3.7 million
troops were stationed in mainland Japan. Had Gen.
Anami not exercised his authority and leadership, a
breakdown in military discipline could have caused
a refusal to disarm and even guerrilla warfare against
the Allied forces, the participants contended. A former
officer of the Palace Guard admitted at the 1963
meeting that he had contemplated doing just that.
The emperor finished recording the surrender decree
in an office building inside the palace grounds during
the early hours of August 15. After he returned to his
residence, at around 2 am, a group of renegade army
officers shot to death the commander of the Palace
Guard, drafted a fake order by the commander tostorm the palace, and occupied some guard posts.
Their intention was to confiscate the recorded decree,
prevent the broadcast, and force the emperor tochange his mind about the surrender.
Although the soldiers looked for the record, a chamberlain
to the emperor refused to disclose its location. There
were actually two copies of the record, the other being
in the NHK headquarters. Morio Tateno, who attended
the 1963 meeting, described how soldiers threatened
him at gun point in his office at NHK to force him to
broadcast their appeal to soldiers all over Japan to fightto the end. But their superior officer finally persuaded
them over the telephone not to resist the imperial
decision. At 4 am, General Anami committed suicide,taking responsibility for not controlling the rebel
Issue 17 Volume 3 Number 5 (December 2008)

officers who threatened the emperor. A few minutes
before noon, an army officer tried to storm into NHK’s
newsroom with his sword drawn to stop the broadcast.
The officer’s attempt was unsuccessful. The broadcast
began at noon, August 15.
Another striking revelation was how the Japanese
government wasted precious time in seeking
Soviet mediation to end the war. Naotake Sato, theambassador in Moscow, said he kept sending cables
to Tokyo saying it was useless to rely on the Soviets forpeace but his messages were ignored.
Okikatsu Arao said the army didn’t trust the Soviets,
either. He told Gen. Anami the Soviets would start
attacking Japanese forces just before an American
landing on mainland Japan. Sadatoshi Tomioka, thehead of operations in the Imperial Navy, also said thenavy believed the Soviets were likely to attack Japan
during the battle in Okinawa. Sumihisa Ikeda, Deputy
Chief of Staff at Guangdong Army, was called back toTokyo in July of 1945 to work for Prime Minister Suzuki.
He was stunned to learn about the peace negotiations
with the Soviets because, according to him, theGuangdong army was getting ready for war against
the Soviets. Shun’ichi Matsumoto, vice minister for
Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, also stated that theforeign minister never believed that Soviets would
work with Japanese. Togo was a former ambassador
to Moscow.
The question remains, then, who believed there wasa chance the Soviets would persuade the Americans
and British to end the war? In June 1945, Koichi Kido,
Minister at Large and close aide to the Showa Emperor,
proposed the idea to the emperor who approved
it. Kido then persuaded members of the Supreme
War Leaders Conference to go along and ordered
the foreign ministry to open negotiations. Prince
Fumimaro Konoe was selected as a special envoy to
Moscow before the Potsdam Conference, but Moscow
rejected the idea.
In the section following the transcript of the Bungei
Shunju meeting, Hando and Prof. Ken’ichi Matsumotoof Tokyo University discussed the implication of thetestimonials in 1963. Hando raised the possibility of
influence of Ryuzo Sejima, an officer in the operations
division of the Imperial Army’s General Staff Office inTokyo, on senior army officers and political leaders
including Sakomizu and Prime Minister Suzuki.
When Hando interviewed Sejima in 1990, Hando
asked whether Sejima knew about negotiations with
the Soviets on ending war. Sejima denied he had any
knowledge of it. Hando did not believe him, as Sejima
was in Moscow between December 1944 and February
1945, which Sejima described merely as a courier.
Since Sejima was involved in every decision madeIssue 17 Volume 3 Number 5 (December 2008)by the army at the time, Hando was not convincedthat Sejima was telling the truth. Hando speculates
that Sejima went to Moscow with a special mission
to open negotiations with Soviets and persuaded theJapanese leaders to proceed. There is no way, however,to verify Hando’s suspicion since Sejima passed awayin September 2007.
This book includes the transcript of the conversationthat appeared in the August 1963 issue of the magazine.
The book also contains the verbatim remarks of the
Showa Emperor at the last Imperial Council that
accepted the conditions for surrender in the Potsdam
Declaration.
A different version of this review first appeared on the
National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) Japan-U.S.
Discussion Forum and is reproduced with permission.

John Milne: the man
who mapped theshaking earth
by Paul Kabrna
Craven and Pendle
Geological Society, 2007
120 pages, paperback £6.50(Special offer price to Japan
Society members, just £5.00
including p & p. E-mailpaul_kabrna@msn.com)
ISBN 978-0-9555289-0-3
Review by Paul Wignall
The name of John Milne (1850-1913) is today
remembered by only a few, and yet he was one of thepioneering giants of late 19th and early 20th century
geology and geophysics, who conducted much of
his research in Japan. He was dubbed the “father ofseismology” shortly after his death and was widely
regarded in his lifetime for his work on both volcanoes
and earthquakes. Biographies of Milne have not beenin print for many years and this new book fills thisimportant gap.
John Milne made his name and reputation in Japan
where he is better remembered than in his homecountry. He was appointed as Professor of Geology
and Mining at the newly formed Imperial College
of Engineering in Tokyo in 1875 when still only 25,
whereupon he began an epic overland journey
described in fascinating detail by Kabrna. Once inJapan he was ideally placed to initiate study of suchgeological phenomena as volcanoes and earthquakes
and it was his development of an effective instrument
for seismographs that allowed him to make substantial
contributions to our understanding of earthquakes.
3Not least of these was the realization that major
earthquakes are not related to volcanic activity. Using
his seismographs, which he continued to develop andimprove throughout his life, he measured thousandsof Japanese earthquakes, and on his return to Englandand retirement in the Isle of Wight, he carried on
this work. He was one of the first to realize that large
earthquakes can be measured anywhere in the world.
In his later life he was clearly something of a scientificcelebrity and his visitors to the Isle of Wight included
Queen Victoria and Captain Robert Scott. He has notbeen entirely forgotten today, he has a pub named
after him in his home town of Rochdale, although notmany locals are likely to know of his significance.
Kabrna’s book is clearly written, in an accessiblestyle, and provides an effective blend of geology andtravelogue. Milne was as well travelled as any modern
geologist and even before his appointment in Japanhe had participated in expeditions in Newfoundland
and the Middle East (Sinai) before undertaking his
audacious crossing of Europe and Asia (including
crossing Mongolia in winter!). The prolific illustrations,most in colour, add further to the value of thisfascinating book.

What I Talk About WhenI Talk About Runningby Haruki Murakami
Translation by Philip Gabriel,Harvill Secker 2008,
192 pages, hardback £9.99,
paperback £7.99
ISBN-10: 1846552206
Review by Mikihiro Maeda
This book is a fascinating account of Murakami’s roadto becoming a writer, tied up with his reasons fortaking up running. In 1979, Murakami, young and outof university after having studied Greek drama, wasat a baseball game. During one inning, a base hit wasmade which connected off of the sweet spot on the
baseball bat. In that moment, the ‘crack’ of the baseballbat caused Murakami to have a flash of insight. The
simple thought: ‘I want to write a novel’ popped into
Murakami’s head.
At that time, Murakami owned and ran a coffee
house cum late-night jazz bar. Not shy when it cameto working hard from morning to early morning,
Murakami decided to write a novel. He settled into thehabit of writing for an hour a night over a period of fourmonths and wrote his first novel “Hear the Wind Sing”(1979), which went on to win the Gunzo magazine
literature prize.
4

Shortly after, and believing that he could make a careerout of writing, Murakami sold his jazz bar, and took a
two year sabbatical to focus solely on writing. Having
run a bar, Murakami was acutely aware of the amountof smoke that he had been inhaling and so decided
to become fit. As Murakami had not had a particularly
bad experience of running at school, he decided totake up the sport. Murakami was also of the opinion
that to become a good writer for the long term would
require a high level of fitness which would enable
him to concentrate and give him the ability to write
on a daily basis for up to three hours. So it was that
Murakami took up running, and without fail has since
run on average six miles a day six days a week, only
ever generally stopping if the weather is inclement.
Since taking up running Murakami has run an averageof one marathon a year. One of the most memorable
runs Murakami speaks of is his experience of an ultramarathon. Running sixty miles over eleven hours proved
to be mentally exhausting for Murakami and madequite a dent in his enjoyment of running in the shortterm. Another of Murakami’s enviable runs was in 1982
when he decided to run the original Marathon route in
Greece but from Athens. This was photographed at thetime and was part of a magazine article. However themagazine was surprised when Murakami told them heactually intended to run the whole of the course andnot simply run a short section for photographs only.
In the blazing summer sun Murakami ran, but after
peeling off his top to run shirtless – a habit he still loves
today I am informed –was badly burnt.
More than anything the impression Murakami gives isthat he runs so that his mind can rest. Mantras appear
to be a strong element in Murakami’s running, as hetalks of repetitive self-talk to encourage himself onward
to the running task at hand. He runs for nobody except
himself. The competitive element of running is simply
not there for Murakami. He runs to be part of a wider
community of runners. Murakami only competes
against himself and his own personal best times.
Today however, Murakami has changed his focus
from running marathons to taking part in Triathlons
as well. Ever thoughtful and rigorous in his approach
to running, throughout the book Murakami discusses
reasons for writing in the way that he does, coupledwith comments on his own running regime. An
extremely superstitious writer, Murakami never gives
live interviews, as he believes that his ideas are a
precious commodity. Giving interviews and appearing
on television according to Murakami would let loose
his ideas for novels which he needs for his writing.
It would be interesting to one day read this book in
Japanese, as I have heard much of the Murakami styleof writing and how he plays with traditional Japanese.
Murakami’s favourite music is jazz and so he has a
Issue 17 Volume 3 Number 5 (December 2008)

tendency to write in a jazz style with stops, alternating
rhythms and melodies. While this jazz style is not
immediately apparent in “What I Talk About WhenI Talk About Running” as it is in books such as “Hard
Boiled Wonderland at the End of the World” where thenarrative jumps, the book still carries you along on ajourney in a way similar to other Murakami books.
The whole book clearly shows that Murakami is anextremely hard working writer and tackles writing
not only as a job, but also as a marathon that requires
clarity of mind derived from a healthy body. Murakami’s
mindset is focused wherever he tends to be living in theworld from Massachusetts, to Hawaii, to Tokyo and thisbook is nothing short of inspirational to runners, writers,
and anyone thinking of taking up writing and running.
This review was produced in collaboration with Global
Communications Platform: http://www.glocom.org

The Diary of Charles Holme’s 1889 Visit toJapan and North America with Mrs Lasenby
Liberty’s Japan: A Pictorial Recordedited by Toni Huberman, Sonia Ashmore,
Yuko Suga
Global Oriental, 2008, 240 pages (including 8 plates
and 50 photographs by Lasenby Liberty), hardback£65.00ISBN-13: 978-1905246397
Review by Dr Jill Raggett
This gem of a publication allows the reader access topreviously unpublished archival material consisting ofa diary made during a journey through Japan and North
America by Charles Holme in 1889. It is a book of value
to the scholar of Japonisme, to those who have or wish
to visit Japan with a better awareness of the history ofcultural exchange, and to those who are interested in
the lives of the various historical figures involved. The
publication features three distinct sections each ofwhich informs and supports the others.
The excellent initial section by the three editors
introduces the writer of the diary, Charles Holme,
his family origins and his successful trading careerwith the East. As a result of his business activities
other major figures enter the account including thedesigner Christopher Dresser, the entrepreneur andretailer Arthur Lasenby Liberty, his wife Emma, andthe artist Alfred East. This introductory section gives
the reader an excellent overview of the meeting of
the Eastern and Western cultures, especially withreference to the arts and design, including the workof Dresser, and the Westernisation of Japan. The latteris particularly well summarised by the authors in thesentence “Japan embraced modernity, while theWest became entranced by the traditional cultures
Issue 17 Volume 3 Number 5 (December 2008)of Japan.” Though, as canbe seen in the diary section,
Holme was well aware of thechanges occurring in Japanand their implications. This
introductory text explains
how, in 1891, Holme, Liberty
and East were inspired bytheir journey to become
the founder members of
the London Japan Society.
In addition Holme wasto start The Studio, a wellrespected arts magazine, inwhich discussions took placeabout the Japanese arts. The introduction forms acomprehensive background against which the Holmediary becomes all the more meaningful; it also informs
the reader that the surviving manuscript is now in the
keeping of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The portion of Holme’s diary that survives and has
been edited for this publication gives an intriguing
insight into the “world tour” undertaken by Holme,
Lasenby Liberty and his wife Emma, and Alfred East,
covering time spent in both Japan and North America.
It commences on Thursday 28 March 1889 with a tourin Kyoto and ends on Wednesday 10 July in Winnipeg
at a lacrosse match! Holme’s observations in Japan are
fascinating from his reactions to eating local delicacies(he was not impressed by soup made of fresh watersnails) to the experience of sailing into Kamakura. He
comments on the poor behaviour of tourists, of the
curiosity of the Japanese to Westerner visitors and on
his joy of clear weather conditions allowing him to see
Mount Fuji. For those who have travelled to Japan, andespecially to the places visited by Holme, they will easily
be able to imagine these Victorian visitors touring thesites and may find that they have had similar reactions.
Holme describes how Japanese painted landscapesthat had once appeared “somewhat fanciful” to him
now appeared intelligible on seeing the naturallandscape. On visiting Nikko, Holme was to see thered bridge against the verdant greenery which hedescribed as “very fine and decorative,” and which was
to become in the eyes of the Victorian garden builder
part of the “Japanese garden” in Britain. As the friends
go on independent trips to various locations in Japan
there are some amusing and interesting accounts of
their meetings with others such as the British architect
Josiah Conder who was living and teaching in Japan. At
one point the Libertys are able to detect the presenceof East and Holme by their boots being placed outside
their guest house at Hakone. While in Japan Holme
undertook a number of sketches some of which are
reproduced in the book, these give an insight into
the appearance of the original text of the diary. At thesame time East was painting, and the publication of
his diary (A British Artist in Japan, [Sir Hugh Cortazzi,
5

1991]) makes an excellent companion to this book.
The Holme diary also gives an indication of the vast
amount of luggage that accompanied these visitorson their sea and railway travel around the world.
Holme was able to produce as needed: a butterfly net,
plant presses and space for his constantly increasingcollection of curios. He shared with Liberty a passion
for purchasing items, and for both men buying was intheir blood.
The publication has very thorough reference notes
which place in context the terms, events, places,
individuals or social concerns of the time. These notes
do much to enhance the value of the text, as does thelast section which is the photographic record madeby Emma Lasenby Liberty of their tour. This privately
published “pictorial record” is supplemented with text
written by her husband, and so gives further insights
to what the group found worthy to document. The
photographs are a wonderful record of people,
architecture, gardens, shrines and scenery in Japan,
and considerable effort must have been taken by
Emma to achieve them, especially considering how
bulky the photographic equipment would have been
to transport. There are images of many of the places
mentioned by Holme in his diary, and the editors havemade the relevant links to these in their reference
notes, the only problematic point is in trying to findthem as the plates in the last section have no page
numbers. This is only a small criticism and there may
well be a technical reason why this was not possible.
This is an excellent and comprehensive publication,and the authors and publisher should be congratulated
for adding something to our understanding of cultural
exchange that is not only informative but a joy to readand experience.
Dr Jill Raggett is Reader in Gardens and Designed
Landscapes, Writtle College, Essex. Her specialist area of
research for the last 12 years has been the introductionof the Japanese-style garden to the British Isles.

Kurosawa Akira vs.
Hollywoodby Hiroshi Tasogawa
Bungei Shunju, 2006, 486
pages, hardback ￥ 2476
ISBN-13: 978-4163677903
Review by Fumiko Halloran
The world-famous movie
director,
Akira
Kurosawa,
stood before 150 guests in thebanquet hall of Tokyo Prince
Hotel in April of 1967 and declared: “This movie on
6Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, in collaboration with
Twentieth Century Fox, will be the most importantwork in my career.” On that day, both the American
team headed by the veteran producer, Elmo Williams,
and the Kurosawa team had no doubt that the movie“Tora! Tora! Tora!” would be a masterpiece of humandrama from the perspective of both Americans
and Japanese. The prominent Hollywood mogul,
Darryl Zanuck, having produced “The Longest Day“,a spectacular film about the allied landing on D-day
in Normandy that was done with a multi-national castand crew, was drawn to the idea of a similar movie on
Pearl Harbor. As the CEO of Twentieth Century Fox, heturned to his old friend and Oscar winning editor andproducer, Elmo Williams, to supervise the project.
Williams recommended enlisting Kurosawa as
director and script editor for the Japanese team, eventhough he had never met Kurosawa. Williams loved
Kurosawa movies such as “Rashomon”, “Ikiru”, and“Seven Samurai”. Kurosawa accepted the offer andpreparations began at full speed. One year and eightmonths later, Twentieth Century Fox asked Kurosawa
to resign, citing his deteriorating health. Kurosawa was
replaced by two Japanese directors, Toshio Masuda
and Kinji Fukasaku, with whom Williams completed the
project. The movie was released in 1970. The authorof this well researched book, Hiroshi Tasogawa, tellsa fascinating story of what went wrong in this crosscultural encounter that began with good intentions
and shared dreams but ended in destroying Kurosawa’s
reputation and causing substantial financial damage
to Twentieth Century Fox.
From the beginning, the language barrier between
Americans and Japanese played a major role in thefiasco. It was personified in the controversial figure of
Tetsuro Aoyagi, Kurosawa’s producer. A former New Yorkrepresentative of Toho Movies, Aoyagi was recruited
by Kurosawa to look for joint projects that would be
financed with foreign funding. Kurosawa, who was a
genius in movie making but who had little businesssense, became frustrated artistically and professionallyas his production company plunged deep into debt.
Without knowledge of English, Kurosawa relied on
Aoyagi in negotiations with Twentieth Century Fox.
Aoyagi had total control of communications between
Kurosawa and the Americans. He briefed Kurosawa
about progress in negotiating with the Americans but
only orally; Kurosawa never saw the contract or signed
it, although lengthy negotiations and agreements on
production details, which Kurosawa signed, made thecontract legally binding. The contract itself was only inEnglish. Had Kurosawa read it, he would have discovered
that, contrary to his belief, he did not have supervisingauthority over the entire movie, including the American
battle scenes. Rather, he was relegated to being a hired
gun for the Japanese portion of the film. The authority
for final decisions rested with the CEO and Executive
Issue 17 Volume 3 Number 5 (December 2008)

Producer of Twentieth Century Fox, although Kurosawa
thought he had been authorized not only to supervise
the movie making but to approve the final editing of
the film. The contract included no such clause.
Even before shooting started, the American andJapanese teams clashed over the script. Kurosawa
rejected the American team’s rewrite on the opening
scene of Admiral Yamamoto’s command ceremony two
years before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Kurosawa
also rejected the ending scene in which, after the attack,Meiji Emperor’s poem lamenting warring human beings
was narrated. The script earlier had to be approved not
only by Twentieth Century Fox executives but also by
the U.S. State Department and the Defence Department,
as their cooperation in war scenes was vital. Numerous
rewrites and scrapping scenes irritated Kurosawa, who
was not accustomed to criticism or requests for rewrites.
Final decisions were always made by Twentieth Century
Fox, not by Kurosawa.
Then Kurosawa, engrossed in the pursuit of his own
ideas of the movie, ignored costs, scheduling, andlogistical problems, which he could get away with athome because of his fame. In contrast, the Americans
believed that the contract should be strictly honoured,particularly the production schedule as the release
date was already set. This was another cross-cultural
misunderstanding not only about the latitude a director
could have but about the director’s legal obligation tofinish the project.
When shooting started in a studio in Kyoto, Kurosawa’s
behaviour became eccentric because of his frustrations
and exhaustion with seemingly endless arguments
and what he saw as unacceptable compromises. His
explosive hot temper was triggered for the slightest
reason, his binge drinking went on throughout thenight and led to late arrivals or no shows at the studio,
and he was paranoid that his life was in danger. The
Japanese staff refused to work for him, and the studio
was in chaos. Delays in shooting cost TwentiethCentury Fox $20,000 a day. Three Japanese doctors
examined Kurosawa and two advised that he undergo
several weeks of treatment for emotional stress andrest afterwards. Attempts to resolve the situation failed
and Williams finally told Kurosawa on Christmas Eve of1968 that he was relieved from his assignment.
In 2002, Tasogawa visited the 89-year-old Elmo Williams
in Oregon. Williams, then retired, acknowledged that hehad made a mistake in choosing Kurosawa, although the
choice seemed excellent at the time because the senior
American executives and Williams respected Kurosawa
as a fellow movie maker. Williams liked Kurosawa as asensitive man but felt that Kurosawa never opened hisheart to him. He understood that Kurosawa’s explosive
temper, which poisoned the working environment,
reflected his acute anxiety and the pressure he felt toIssue 17 Volume 3 Number 5 (December 2008)

produce a great movie. Kurosawa once said “Tora!
Tora! Tora!” would be a record of neither victory nor
defeat but a record of mutual misunderstanding andmiscalculation and the waste of excellent humancapabilities and energy. Tasogawa’s account of the
production of this movie is exactly that.
“Tora! Tora! Tora!” owes its origin to two books; “Broken
Seal” by Ladislas Farago, a U.S. Naval intelligence
operative during World War II and author of books
on espionage; and a manuscript on Japan’s attack on
Pearl Harbor by Gordon Prange, professor of Japanese
history at the University of Maryland, which was
published later under the title “At Dawn We Slept”.
Twentieth Century Fox bought the movie rights forPrange’s typewritten manuscript that was titled “ToraTora Tora.” Both Farago and Prange received screen
writing credits in the movie.
In addition to interviews with both Americans andJapanese involved in the project, Tasogawa searchedarchives scattered in libraries in the United States,
including those at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
& Sciences, the University of California at Los Angeles,
and the University of Southern California. Without
access to those archives from Twentieth Century Fox
and people such as Williams, this book would havebeen incomplete because the author discovered that
there was almost no surviving archive in Japan.
Hiroshi Tasogawa was a reporter for NHK and the
Associated Press and later was a professor at Tokai
University. He has published several books on Edward
R. Murrow, the famous radio broadcaster during WorldWar II and later a TV anchor. Tasogawa’s book on
Kurosawa received several awards including the Oya
Soichi Award for Best Nonfiction in 2007.
A different version of this review first appeared on the
National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) Japan-U.S.
Discussion Forum and is reproduced with permission.

The Meiji Constitution: The JapaneseExperience of the West and the Shaping of
the Modern Stateby Kazuhiro Takii, translated by David Noble
I-House Press, Tokyo, 2007, 196 pages (including
index), hardcover £140.00
ISBN-13: 978-1435710009
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi
This work by a Japanese legal historian describes theprocess by which Japan’s first constitution was drawn
up. Much of the book is devoted to Japanese studiesof German constitutional law and the author accepts
that ‘the Meiji Constitution bore the heavy stamp of7

German influence’ but hepoints out that the Japaneseterm kempo means laws,
rules and regulations andthat the Japanese, when they
were working on the Meiji
Constitution, were actuallydeveloping the whole processof government.
This point is brought out inthe first chapter devoted to
the Iwakura Mission which
has the subtitle “From the Law
of Nations toward a Constitution”. Takii notes in thiscontext “the almost child-like dependence upon theWestern nations displayed by Japanese leaders.” Thevirtue embodied in the law of nations was civilization,
but the nature of civilization was misunderstood bymany on the mission. In the first part of the voyage
emphasis was placed on superficial elements suchas table manners and dress. Takii notes that, “while
Iwakura maintained his dignity, discipline was slack
among the rank and file where there was a wild anduncouth element resisting the Western civilization ofJapan.” Even Iwakura, after about a month in America,abandoned Japanese for Western clothing to thechagrin of conservative elements in the entourage. But
the understanding of Western civilization, even by Kume
the rapporteur of the mission, was limited. According
to Takii “Kume grasped the essence of Western
civilization as competition between autonomous
individuals engaged in the pursuit of personal profit. In
this context the role of politics became the expansionof personal gain through the encouragement of suchcompetition.” He observes, “The task Japan faced inachieving a spirit of cooperation among its people
in order to join the ranks of then ‘civilized’ world isrestated as an effort to arouse and develop feelings ofpatriotism and nationalism.” Their understanding ofWestern civilization was hardly enhanced by a talk given
to the Ambassadors by Bismarck which emphasised
realpolitik. Bismarck reportedly declared: “Nations
these days all appear to conduct relations with amity
and courtesy, but this is entirely superficial, for behind
this façade lurks a struggle for supremacy and mutual
contempt.” International law afforded no security.
The leaders of the Iwakura mission, for whom “all of
America and Europe were a universal exposition,”concluded that “the spirit running consistently throughWestern political culture was of government basedon the manners and customs of the people. Hasty
imitation of Western national institutions by Japan
was to be avoided in favor of their gradual adoption
and cultivation on the basis of Japanese politicalcustoms and practices.” Thus the Meiji leaders, basedon the experiences of the Iwakura Embassy, “sought
to fundamentally strengthen Japan for survival in the8harsh international environment.” They were agreed
that top priority be given to domestic administrationand policy. A constitution was the fundamental legal
principle upon which the Meiji state should be founded.
This meant for Kido Takayoshi at least “one enabling
absolutist rule by the emperor and his advisers.”
It fell to Ito Hirobumi to work out the form which aJapanese constitution should take despite the fact that
Itō’s behaviour during the Iwakura mission had irritated
his more restrained and conservative colleagues. Ito
had been “by far the liveliest of the Embassy’s leaders,”
but “his reckless behaviour on ‘civilized’ soil belied his
affectation of Western manners and gives us a glimpseof his true colours.” In particular he misinterpreted “theAmerican willingness to sit down at the negotiatingtable as a major step towards ending extraterritoriality.”
In Takii’s view much of the blame for the diplomatic
ineptitude of the Iwakura mission lay with Ito.
Chapter Two is entitled “Ito Hirobumi’s European
Research: From Constitution as Law to Constitution as
National Structure.” One of Ito’s German mentors was
Rudolf von Gneist who admitted that he knew nothingof Japan and who thought that “Japan was about acentury too early for a constitution”. This was to say
the least discouraging. The German Kaiser Wilhelm
I also hardly helped Ito’s thinking by declaring: “Forthe sake of the Japanese emperor, I hope you do notcreate a national assembly.” In Vienna, however, Itō
met Dr Lorenz von Stein who regarded the state “asa distinct human personality”. For Stein, “The humanpersonality possessed self-awareness and volition andacted accordingly…The self-awareness of the stateis embodied in the institution of the sovereign, theformation of the state’s will in the legislative branch,and the conduct of the state’s activities by the executive
branch.” Stein’s lectures enabled Itō to “grasp the issue
of a nation’s political structure within a broader context.
A constitution and a national assembly were, after all,no more than one aspect of the life of the nation; theirfunctions could not be fulfilled without the contemporary
workings of the administrative institutions.” No mention
was made of democratic processes but Ito was no
democrat. His aim and that of the other Meiji leaders
was the establishment of a modern nation state and therenegotiation of the unequal treaties.
Chapter 3 is headed “Yamagata Aritomo’s European
Tour: A Different Kind of Constitutional Approach,”
The concluding sentence of this chapter sums it up
succinctly: “Yamagata returned from Europe with a
private resolve; though the constitution itself might
now be an established fact, ‘men’ could do whatever
was in their power to diminish its effects.”
Students of Meiji history will find this account of thedevelopments leading up to the Meiji constitution
informative and stimulating.
Issue 17 Volume 3 Number 5 (December 2008)