The Japan Society Review 90
Book, Stage, Film, Arts and Events Review

Issue 90 Volume 15 Number 6 (December 2020)

Welcome to the final issue of The Japan Society Review in 2020.
This has been a strange and difficult year, but we hope ourpublication has accompanied you during these uncertain times
offering new opportunities to discover, read and learn about
Japan. In 2020 The Japan Society Review has featured more than
30 reviews, including the five reviews in this December issue
which cover non-fiction books on Japanese history, philosophy,
gardening, film and cuisine.
The issue opens with a review of Revolution Goes
East by Tatiana Linkhoeva, an academic monograph which
concentrates on the intellectual history of Russo-Japaneserelations in the interwar period. It focuses mainly on the impact
and understanding of the Soviet revolution in imperial Japan,
weaving together histories of diplomats, intellectuals, andunderworld political agents. This review has been written by
Francesco Cioffo.
Originally written in Japanese, Flower Petals Fall, but the
Flower Endures by Seiichi Takeuchi revolves around the conceptof impermanence and transience in Japanese culture andsociety. As reviewer Chris Arning points out, the book examines
the notion from the perspective of philosophy, spirituality, andreligion emphasising how it permeates everyday life in Japan.
Also dealing with issues of change and conservation but froma naturalistic point of view is the book Tokachi Millenium Forest
by landscape designer, horticulturalist, writer and gardener Dan
Pearson in collaboration with Shintani Midori, head gardener at
the forest in Hokkaido. To reviewer Katie Croft, Dan “takes us ona journey from his first contact with Japanese gardens, throughhis design process, onto the creation of the garden and up to
the maintenance challenges of growing in such a harsh climate”.
For those readers interested in revisiting Japanese filmclassics, Noriko Smiling by Adam Mars-Jones, reviewed in thisissue by Laurence Green, offers an analysis of the narrative,
themes and style of the film Late Spring (Banshun, Ozu Yasujiro,
1949), a canonical work in the history of Japanese cinema.
To conclude this issue, our last review, written by Ann
Morrison, explores the cookbook No Sushi by MasterChef
Finalist Andrew Kojima (Koj). Expanding the focus beyond theworld of sushi, Koj’s book presents a wide range of Japaneserecipes which can be cooked successfully at home.
The Japan Society is extremely grateful to all of its
reviewers for giving their time and expertise. They transmit theirknowledge and passion about Japan and Japanese culture andthis publication could not be possible without them.
Alejandra Armendáriz-Hernández

Contents
1)

Revolution Goes East: Imperial Japan and Soviet
Communism by Tatiana Linkhoeva

Editor2)

Flower Petals Fall, but the Flower Endures by Seiichi
Takeuchi

Reviewers

3)

Tokachi Millennium Forest by Dan Pearson with Midori
Shintani

4)

Noriko Smiling by Adam Mars-Jones

5)

No Sushi by Andrew Kojima

Alejandra Armendáriz-Hernández
Chris Arning, Francesco Cioffo, Katie Croft, Laurence Green and Ann
Morrison.
Image: Tokachi Millenium Forest (official website: http://www.tmf.jp/)

Revolution Goes East: Imperial
Japan and Soviet Communism
by Tatiana Linkhoeva
Cornell University Press (2020)
ISBN-13: 978-1501748080
Review by Francesco Cioffo
Tatiana Linkhoeva’s Revolution Goes East is a remarkablestudy that aims to deepen our understanding of both
Japanese modern history and the global history of theRussian Revolution.
The main argument of the book is that, in the period
between 1917 and the late 1920s, Japanese responses to
the Russian Revolution were influenced by a combinationof both ideological and geopolitical factors. More crucially,
Linkhoeva refocuses the attention upon the Soviet impact
on the Japanese empire, its continental aspirations andanxieties. This is not as straightforward as it may appear.
The author in fact goes to great lengths to correct theassumptions and misconceptions that have crowded thefield until now.
The long historiography of Russo-Japanese relations
has been quite predominantly limited to diplomatic relations
and military conflicts (chiefly the Russo-Japanese War of1905, the Siberian Intervention, and the events of WWII).
[1] It has often portrayed the two as natural ideologicalenemies at the expenses of their rich history of interactions
and exchanges.
In recent times, global intellectual and transnational
studies of Russo-Japanese relations have tried to shift thefocus upon more complex and variegated arguments thattake into account multiple socio-cultural perspectives aswell as the usual ones.[2] This diversification is a timely one.
For while state-to-state relations are of course relevant,they often tend to explain merely the perspectives ofpolitical elites. Linkhoeva’s analysis not only shows boththe intellectual and the geopolitical perspectives, but it also
demonstrates how crucial was the interplay of these factors
in shaping Japanese responses.
Revolution Goes East is divided in two main sections.
The first four chapters deal with the more familiar topic ofRusso-Japanese political relations from the Tsarist era to theend of the 1920s. It looks at the different interest groups
that supported or openly refuted political rapprochementwith Soviet Russia. These positions were hardly static, andthey tended to vary over time.
The author discusses the diverse responses to thepressing questions of the nature of the Soviet geopoliticalaspirations from Japanese politicians and political groups.
Quite interestingly, she shows how in Japan emerged two
main approaches that effectively mirrored the somewhat
2idiosyncratic foreign policy of the Bolsheviks whose goal
was the survival of the Soviet Regime through international
diplomacy, while facilitating world proletarian revolutions
through the support of revolutionary groups in the same
countries.
The first approached developed in Japan saw Soviet
Russia as a traditional state that would pursue with cynicalrealism the (tsarist) imperialist policies of spheres of influencein East Asia. A party like any other to coexist with throughskilled diplomacy. The core supporters of this approachwere party politicians, military and business leaders, as well
as some non-governmental groups.
The second approach instead recognised Soviet
communism as an existential and ideological treat to theJapanese polity. Looking at the revolutionary activitiesof the Comintern around the world, they concluded that
Communism was a foreign “disease” that would only threaten
Japan. Among the main figures behind this approach
there were officials of the Foreign Ministry, conservative
bureaucrats from the Home and Justice Ministries, liberalcommentators, the army as well national socialists.
The second section of the book builds upon Linkhoeva’s
PhD thesis and it describes the history of leftist movements
in Japan and their internal discussions over the nature andmeaning of the Revolution. Three main perspectives arepresented: the anarchists, the national socialists and theearly members of Communist Party of Japan.
Linkhoeva presents a series of arguments that aim
to further complicate the historical consensus around thefailure of the Left vis-a-vis the totalitarian imperial state in
the interwar period. The book points out, in fact, that ‘thebattle, in fact, was lost first within the Left’ (p.9). In otherwords, despite the consensus of the Russian Revolution asa political model, the internal intellectual debates about
Soviet Russia and its Revolution were put into frameworks
that never questioned the commitment to the nation, theempire and the national polity.
On the one hand, the primary goal for leftists became
the advancement of mass politics and the betterment of
the economic, social and moral conditions of the nation.
On the other, the conceptualisation of Russo-Japanese
civilisational, racial, and cultural differences in Japanesecircles engendered a scepticism over communist
universalism and the authority of Russian communists. Thisdiffidence had two key effects. Firstly, it elevated national
and imperial interests over supranational concerns ofproletarian revolutions. Secondly, Japanese leftists’ antiSoviet communism often overshadowed their challenges
to Japan’s imperialism (p.11).
The substantial bibliography encompasses primaryand secondary sources from multiple locations and written
Issue 90 Volume 15 Number 6 (December 2020)

in multiple languages. Linkhoeva uses published works,
personal documents, as well as extensive research in
diplomatic archives in both Russia and Japan.
The final result is an extremely detailed and wellresearched book that helps us see through the complex
variety of Japanese responses to the Russian Revolution.
For, as Linkhoeva reminds us, ‘there was no agreement,
either among factions of the government, bureaucracy,
and the military, or among members of socialist and rightist
movement, about what to make of communism and Soviet
Russia’ (p.11).
The almost picturesque histories of diplomats,
intellectuals and underworld political agents in interwar
Japan are all woven together by Linkhoeva’s clear andpunctual prose in such a way that makes the reader
actually curious to know more and dig deeper. Beyond the

Flower Petals Fall, but the
Flower Enduresby Seiichi Takeuchi
Japan Publishing Industry
Foundation for Culture (JPIC) (2019)
ISBN-13: 978-4866580692
Review by Chris Arning
The first thing that occurred when considering how toreview this book is that we judge books by their covers.
We cannot help it. My specialism is brand semiotics
which studies implicit associations and connotations in
bedded in all sorts of media. One of the principles I teach isprecisely that we need to judge the book by the cover. All
packaging seeks to rhetorically persuade the beholder thatits contents are worth sampling, whether food or words.
The cover in this case is a beautiful ink washed book cover,subtly related example of most beautiful sumi-e painting.
I was expecting a treatise on the transience in Japanese
aesthetics, art, poetry, music and the performing arts.
As a practitioner of Japanese calligraphy for 20 years, keen
appreciator of Japanese beauty and Buddhist meditator,
I was a bit disappointed not to hear more about the ideatransience in the mended gilding embedded in kintsugi
porcelain, the symbolism of nimbus clouds motifs in kimono
for instance or seasonal metaphors indicating transiencein waka, tanka, and haiku. Given the cover I was expecting
something in the line of the classic In Praise of Shadows by
Tanizaki Junichiro. This was not that. Yes, the subtitle is theJapanese philosophy of impermanence, and this was thecore of the book, but I felt the meat of the content only

Latest reviews: www.japansociety.org.uk/reviews

remarkable historiographical contribution, perhaps the key
quality that makes Revolution Goes East such a critical bookis the fact that despite all the questions it answers, it is able
to raise many new ones.
Notes[1] For Anglophone historiography see the many works of
Ian Nish on the topic.
[2] Konishi, Sho (2013), Anarchist Modernity: Cooperatism
and Japanese-Russian Intellectual Relations in Modern
Japan. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Asia
Center. Steinberg, John W., and David Wolff (2005), The
Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective: World War Zero.
Leiden: Brill.§

spoke to one aspect of impermanence, the vicissitudes oflife buffeting our self-determinations.
In the preface was written: ‘When the voluntary(mizukara) actions of human beings are displaced b grandspontaneous (onozukara) functions, the valus, meanings,“playfulness” and subliminity (shogon) of mizukara appear
at the boundaries (awai) between them. These concepts
form the underpinnings of Japanese mujo philosophy,
which I hope will become clearer in the text that follows’.
The through line or red thread that runs through thebook if there can be said to be one is that of the dialectic
between onozukara and mizukara. There is a familiarity tothese two concepts as every student of Japanese culture
will be familiar with ideas like honne vs tatemae, giri
and ninjo and other such binaries. The best way I foundof assimilating this dialectic was their similarity to the
Machiavellian concept of virtu and fortuna, respectively
action and the vagaries of chance. This is long debated byhistorians for instance, the “Great Men” school of history
versus the Annales school of “longue durée” of gradualor sudden socio-economic shifts in terms of what factors
can be ascribed prominence in accounting for events
unfolding. Except that the onozukara and mizukara seemto fit an attitude of resignation rather than political action
as in Machiavelli. The text proceeds mainly through literary
and other examples, and Seiichi Takeuchi acquaints us withthe two concepts through related concepts. We learn for
instance that hakanai is a thread in contemporary nihilism(the inability to predict the future, what we might call
imponderability). Seiichi delves into excerpts of classic
writers like novelist Natsume Soseki and poet/activist
Miyazawa Kenji to glean examples from their work .

3

An example of onozukara’s influence and being
inextricably linked to mizukara is the examples of “it turns outthat we will get married”. This suggests that the pairing ofbride and groom relied upon an improbable concatenationof events including their facticity, background; way beyond
their conscious control. The use of the passive voicereflecting the ambiguous diffuse and often deliberately
imprecise nature of the Japanese language - brought out
by Oe Kenzaburo in his Nobel Prize winning acceptancespeech, Japan, the Ambiguous and Myself – underscores
the sense of fatalism in the concept. I was once told about
the notion of en or thread of karma by a girlfriend, and I
guess this was analogous. And a sort of fatalist nihilism,
more than aesthetic aspects of mujokan is what the bookfocuses on. This for me, gave it a rather dour and gloomy
aspect, that I found salutary but not what I was expecting.
I did learn a lot about the etymology of fundamental
Japanese concepts such as yasashii or gentleness and linkwith sort of performative simpering through the kanji actor,

totoi for the idea of preciousness, and the related idea ofichigu. He quotes Shiga Naoya’s essay A Drop in the Nile:‘Even if you go back scores of thousands of years, you
cannot find another me... I will not be born again’.
I learned about the word for thank you as derivingfrom arigatai as being grateful for life – itamu the verb tohurt or to be pained as being literally ‘something slippingout of the heart’ and the fatalism of the word sayonara
meaning ‘as things will be’ a way of acquiescing in the fateof the departee, and the divine and incantatory originsof the iwai as a form of celebration, shiawase as meaning
something fitted or aligned with circumstances.
I also learned that the word sumimasen comesfrom the idea of not allowing a bad situation to persist(the negation of residing or settling or sumu), and thatomoshiroi originates in the Shinto creation myth involving
the reclusive sun goddess, Amaterasu who was temptedout of the cave with a lascivious dance – now thought tobe residing in a mirror at the Ise Shrine. I always love theway Japanese can be so brutally direct.
This reminded me of my favourite portmanteau –kokoronokori –meaning nostalgia for something where
one has left one’s heart. The book was indeed replete withsuch fascinating linguistic excursion, but it also felt a little
bit disorientating at points too.
The frequent jump from one concept to anothermade me think that this book would have been more
appropriate perhaps as a dictionary or as a compendium ofconcepts for easy reference to the reader.
Overall, I was a bit perplexed because to mymind the book deals with one aspect of transience theunpredictability of life which requires a certain fatalism.
4

What was missing for me was the experiential dimension ofimpermanence and clinging to things that change as thesource of suffering and the relish that can be taken in mono
no aware. I was surprised not to see more poetry in thebook and explicit Buddhist concepts. There was mention
of Buddhism and the Heart Sutra for instance, ‘form is
emptiness, emptiness is form’ – but overall Buddhism
was given a cursory mention even though it is the mostthorough philosophy of transience - best expressed inmonk Kukai’s Letter to a Nobleman.
Have you not seen, O have you not seen?
That billions have lived in China, in Japan,
None have been immortal, from time immemorial:
Ancient sage kings or tyrants, good subjects or bad,
Fair ladies and homely – who could enjoy eternal
youth?
Noble men and lowly alike, without exception, die
away;
They all have died, reduced to dust and ashes;
The singing halls and dancing stages have become
the abodes of foxes.
Transient as dreams, bubbles or lightening, all areperpetual travelers.
I was surprised no to see any reference for example
to the iroha uta poem, a chain of hiragana with which I am
fascinated – which is a pangram, containing all Japanesephonetics - a formative text in the Japanese education
system and suffused with impermanence. No reference
to the classics of Japanese the Tale of Heike and Tale ofGenji, the former characterised by the short life span,sudden reversal of fortunes, the worldly winds of politicalmachinations courtiers taking the tonsure, or out of favour
noblemen being sent into exile; the latter characterised by
the drifting and enigmatic shining prince, Genji, movingfrom one unsatisfactory liaison to the next with various
amenable various court women, unaware of his craving
to replace the mother love he’d never had. Given the titleof the poem, again, I was expecting the author to touchon that most famous of seasonal tropes, the falling cherry
blossom.
Anthropologist Ohnuki-Tierney’s book Kamikaze,
Cherry Blossoms and Nationalisms (2002) was a masterclassin think about the uses of ephemerality and is impossible
not to read alongside this book, so obvious are the parallels.
Ohnuki-Tierney traces the percolation of the cherry blossom
into Japanese painting, Yamato-e in the 9th century as away of forging a nativist Japanese style vs the previously
influential Chinese styles. She then chronicles the cherry
blossom as a polysemous sign standing for the individual
and social groups in Japan, how it became immortalised
Issue 90 Volume 15 Number 6 (December 2020)

in art but that then later became appropriation by a deathcult of militarism: ‘The symbolism of cherry blossoms wastransformed from full blooms as a life force to falling petals
as the scriifice of soldiers, who then are reborn as blossoms...’.
But even after death the souls (damashii) of these soldiers
endured even after the petals had been scattered.

Overall I thought this book was an informative readbut I felt that I had been mis sold because its content wasmore about fatalism and resignation to circumstances thantransience.§

Tokachi Millennium Forest

mountain foothills and arable flat land, from sato(里) village, and yama (山) mountain). There are somethought-provoking words here, as Pearson scathingly
describes how modern Japan’s relationship with the land isframed by chemicals, mechanisation and efficiency.
He also reflects on the tradition of Japanese gardening
and how it holds nature somewhat apart from humans,even whilst idealising it. We are often expected to view
rather than touch; the interpretation of nature is controlled
and balanced, never wild or unkempt. This, therefore, isan unusual garden for Japan: Pearson’s design is on an
extremely large scale and visitors are expected to explore
the garden with every sense.
He examines the balance that is struck between
visibly cultivated spaces such as the meadow garden andproductive gardens, and the native woodland gardens. The
latter is carefully tended by the garden team with such askilled touch that the casual visitor may not realise that they
are walking through a gardened space. Pearson takes time
to discuss how we think about and interact with wild versus
human spaces.
He has included the familiar traditional forms ofhorticulture (vegetable and flower production) with purpose,as an entry point to naturalistic gardening. Although the
New Perennial Movement has made naturalistic planting so
popular as to become ubiquitous in the West, it is still new
in Japan. It is, therefore, interesting to read that Pearson
uses the more familiar cultural counterpoints of forest andsatoyama to lead the visitor gently out to the meadow
garden and then onwards to the earth garden and out tothe true wilderness of the mountains.
At no point is the Hokkaido Millennium Forest
presented as a “Japanese Garden”, but Pearson clearly
intends to use his position as an outsider to repackage
and reintroduce the Hokkaido landscape and culture to
Japanese people. If that is a lofty or arrogant aim, it is one
required of him by the goals of Hayashi Mitsushige. If he has
succeeded or not, I cannot tell without visiting the garden.
Although Pearson’s writing is fascinating, the shining
light of this book are the interludes written by Head Gardener
Shintani Midori. Her short essays share thoughts on topics
such as the significance of shun 旬 (seasonal eating) andforaging wild food, historical relationships with the forest,by Dan Pearson with Shintani
Midori
Filbert Press (2021)
ISBN-13: 978-1999734541
Review by Katie Croft
Dan Pearson is one of the few garden designers to havebroken out of the horticulture world to find, if not A-list fame,then at least wider recognition with the general public. He
is known for his wild, naturalistic garden style which can beseen at Lowther Castle in the Lake District, the Trout Stream
Garden at Chatsworth and the Garden Museum in London
amongst others. This book charts the design, creation andevolution of the Tokachi Millennium Forest, which he has
been involved with for the last 20 years.
Situated at the foot of the Hidaka Mountains insouthern Hokkaido, the Tokachi Millennium Forest was
the brainchild of newspaper magnate Hayashi Mitsushige.
Hayashi purchased almost 1000 acres of land between
1990 and 2000 in order to off-set the carbon footprint of
his company and protect the land from development. His
secondary goal was to counter the urbanisation of the
population by providing a place where people can rekindle
an intimate relationship with nature.
Opening to the public in 2008, the Tokachi Millennium
Forest includes vast land forms, forest gardens and hugeswathes of naturalistic planting. The goal of reuniting
people with nature is also supported by the productive
gardens which supply the café, serving seasonal, organic
food. Although ostensibly a coffee table book, Pearson’s
detailed prose is as informative, insightful, and inspiringas the photography. He takes us on a journey from his firstcontact with Japanese gardens, through his design process,onto the creation of the garden and up to the maintenancechallenges of growing in such a harsh climate.
Pearson takes care to explain his design approachto the garden in the context of the highly industrialised
agricultural lowlands of Hokkaido. He explores thehistory and geography of the area, detailing the Ainu
people’s traditional relationship with the landscape aswell as Honshu’s culture of satoyama (the area between
Latest reviews: www.japansociety.org.uk/reviews

5her experience of gardening around the world and how
the garden connects people. A mixture of personal stories
and cultural reflection make for a wonderful insight intoa Japanese understanding of nature that can sometimes
seem lost amongst the bright lights of Tokyo or Osaka.
For the knowledgeable gardener, there is muchdetail here on the construction and maintenance of thegarden. The planting is carefully designed to mimic wild
ecosystems using native and non-native plants which are
rarely seen in Japan and Pearson goes into detail about
the botanical interactions in each area of the garden. The
exquisite photographs illustrate the planting as well as thewider landscape and are thoroughly labelled with botanicalnames and design details.
It is unusual and refreshing for a garden designer’sbook to include the voice of the gardeners or so muchdetail about maintenance. This garden is in an extremely
challenging climate with long, cold winters and short,
hot summers and so it is fascinating to hear about theBoth Pearson and Shintani’s writing suggest that theJapanese maintenance approach brings a subtlety andperspective that is often missing from naturalistic gardens
in Europe. The attention to both the micro and macro isessential for a garden whose core aim is to be sustainable
for 1,000 years. In this search for sustainability, Pearson ishonest about the experiments with plants that have failed
to thrive and about compromises that have to be made due
to time, climate and money. He helpfully lists the planting
mixes for the meadow garden, including the failures andwhat has been substituted for them. It would certainly beinteresting to see how these lists evolve over the coming
decades as the climate warms.
Pearson also questions whether or not it is truly
appropriate to be sinking energy and resources into
growing species that cannot survive without intervention,such as the collection of roses he included in the productive
gardens. The reluctant conclusion he comes to is that theintensive inputs are worth the resulting engagement withtechniques that the gardeners employ to work with theseasons.
The most surprising is ‘breaking the winter’ by
scattering charcoal on the surface of the snow to speed
melting. Although they are maintaining a Western-stylegarden, the gardeners employ Japanese techniques andaesthetics. Pearson describes the approach of 透かしsukashi (transparency) in the thinning of perennial plants
so that they can recover from the heavy summer rains. The
gardeners also build 冬囲い fuyugakoi (protective covers
for plants) from rice straw mats to protect woody shrubs
from the temperatures that drop down to -25°
C.

visitors; a compromise that many environmental gardeners
struggle with.
Pearson’s writing style sometimes becomes too
dense or florid, and non-gardeners are likely to find the useof botanical names and technical terms difficult to grapple
with. However, the photographs serve very well to illustrate
what may be opaque in the text and this book will appeal
to anyone with an interest in the natural world. If nothingelse, it will certainly inspire you to plan a trip to Hokkaido to
see the garden for yourself.§

Noriko Smilingto continue her duties as a devotional daughter – and thus
the film’s central dramatic tension is set. Will she, or won’t
she, end up getting hitched?
Over the course of around 240 pages, writer Adam
Mars-Jones sets to examining Late Spring with a finetoothed comb, offering a surprisingly frank, and often
humorous take on the film’s narrative and themes. Those
used to the quiet, composed subtlety of Ozu’s cinema mightfind this tone jarring at first; Mars-Jones places himself andhis personal viewing experience very much at the centreof proceedings here – so much so that he almost seems to
supplant Noriko herself at times.
The feel is much like author Peter Carey’s classic Wrong
About Japan, and it has to be said, Mars-Jones backgroundas the Independent’s film critic from 1986-1997 puts him
in good stead to offer what quickly becomes an energised
dismantling of previously unassailed Japanese Studies
scholarship in favour of journalistic storytelling. Donald Richie

by Adam Mars-Jones
Notting Hill Editions (2011)
ISBN-13: 978-1907903458
Review by Laurence Green
This pocket-sized volume focusing exclusively on Ozu
Yasujiro’s 1949 masterpiece Late Spring (Banshun) is rather
quaintly subtitled ‘It’s the quiet ones you have to watch’, but
the truth is, this is a loud – almost overconfident – book, andis unashamed about it.
Those familiar with Late Spring will know that the film’s
essential plot is simplistic in the extreme – almost minimalist,
one could say. We follow Noriko (played so memorably by
the iconic Hara Setsuko), at the age of twenty-seven, still
living with her widowed father. She faces constant pressure
from those around her to marry, but all she wants from life is6

Issue 90 Volume 15 Number 6 (December 2020)

is quickly dismissed with the withering sobriquet: ‘rather
inconsistent critic’. In this sense, Adam-Mars approach to aclassic of Japanese cinema is refreshing – unburdened bydecades of scholarly baggage and cultural “knowledge” of
how writing about Japan “should be done”. As he puts it rather
neatly himself; ‘being Japanese is not a state with a single
dimension’. And so too, there are many ways to approach anesteemed director and their work, both of which have been
covered countless times before. Another pointed line from
Mars-Jones suggests: ‘Masterpieces are not fragile but robust.
They can stand up go more than a reverent dusting’.
And yet, while the opening scene-setting and critiqueof the film’s historical context makes for a punchy start, thefollowing scene-by-scene close-reading quickly becomes
overbearingly dull – like a pulpy novelisation of the film
itself, complete with transcribed dialogue and timestamps.
Without Ozu’s accompanying visuals, much of the magicis undoubtedly lost – as such, it is highly advisable to havewatched (or re-watched) Late Spring immediately prior toreading Noriko Smiling so that it remains as fresh in the mind
as possible. When the book hits its mark, it is entertaining andundoubtedly witty, but one can’t help but wish there had
been more here about the star behind the “Noriko Smile” –those looking for insights into Hara Setsuko’s enigmatic life
on and off the camera will unfortunately find little new orinsightful here.
Mars-Jones is clearly a strong writer, and an
experienced voice when it comes to film analysis, but it’s
hard to tell if the book fits its self-proclaimed status as longform essay, or if it’s more at home as a high-calibre piece of
fan-ish adoration. Lines like ‘Is it just me, or is it odd to keep
a visitor waiting while you brush your teeth and discuss yourjourney?’ feel like they would have been better suited to a
supplementary audio-commentary track to a DVD edition of
Late Spring. In print, they just feel unnecessarily trite.
The book reaches its introspective nadir when MarsJones ponders: ‘Am I being sucked into the vortex of overinterpretation? Occupational disease of the critic’. It feels as
if he has lost touch with the subject matter, treading waterin an attempt to keep the words coming – so ironicallyunlike the long pregnant pauses Ozu himself favoured. The
analysis becomes skin-deep, constantly and infuriatingly
pre-faced with disclaimers like ‘I can’t help feeling that...’or ‘I’m not claiming any actual knowledge of...’. The everpresent ‘I’ looms larger than ever over the narrative here –an author and book in love with themselves. It is only in thelast 50 pages that we return again to a more general analysis
of Late Spring’s core themes. But by this point it’s too little,
too late, and the book never again delivers the sharpness
and clarity of its early passages.
Noriko Smiling is a valiant attempt to capture whatmakes Ozu’s cinema so enchanting. Yet, despite initialpromise and some keen analysis in the book’s opening
sections, it soon descends into a dull, repetitive replay of thefilm’s events – a mere imitation wilting in the shadow castby the original. While this tastefully presented and lovingly
cloth-bound volume will no doubt make a fine gift for fans ofOzu, the writing is as likely to infuriate as it does entertain.§

No Sushi

Koj promises no sushi recipes - and this book delivers.
In the introductory section he explains why, quoting froma MITI report ‘There are half a million places to eat in Japanand less than 10% of them are sushi restaurants’. Koj
contrasts this with his estimate that there are some 120,000
Japanese restaurants around the world and 90% of themserve sushi. He recognizes the appeal of sushi and its place‘as the poster boy of Japanese culture’, that it is photogenic
and regarded as a healthy food. But he laments that infocusing on sushi, we are missing out on the breadth andvariety in Japanese cuisine. His mission in his restaurant in
Cheltenham (also named “Koj”) is ‘to promote the eclectic
range of Japanese food that exists outside the world ofsushi’. The mission is extended in this book with a range ofrecipes which can be cooked successfully at home (watch
also the video of Andrew’s recipe for spicy miso peanut
aubergine with The Clearspring Kitchen at Japan Matsuri
Presents https://www.japanmatsuripresents.com/).
This is a beautifully presented book - the coverechoes Japanese design simplicity, being in black andby Andrew Kojima
A Way With Media (2020)
ISBN-13: 978-1910469231
Review by Ann Morrison
I was very attracted by the title of Andrew Kojima’s (Koj)
new cookery book – No Sushi. I liked the word play of thetitle and while I do like sushi, the memory of fast lunchesbought from the usual outlets found around office hives
was not cheering. Eating ice cold sushi straight from thefridge, trying to open the un-openable pickled ginger
sachet while juggling the tiny fish-shaped plastic soy saucebottle (which promptly fell, soaking the first two or threesushi pieces in pure salt, leaving nothing for the others)
and eking out the wasabi - was not a great experience.
The sushi itself, once out of all its plastic packaging and atroom temperature was pretty good - but you get my drift.

Latest reviews: www.japansociety.org.uk/reviews

7

white with a splash of red, this, with the unusual title, makes
you curious to look inside. The layout of the introductory
chapters and the recipe sections is clean and clear withlovely, atmospheric, photographs of each completed
recipe. In some ways it is an unusual book. It opens withseveral short sections describing Koj’s background andhis journey, via the Masterchef finals in 2012, from leaving
his job in corporate finance, working in various kitchens
to gain experience, becoming a private chef and then,opening “Koj” in Cheltenham (now unfortunately closed).
It then moves to describing the development of therestaurant over the last 3 or 4 years, the team Koj works
with and the suppliers he uses. I enjoyed the story but, asa Japanese cooking tyro, I would have liked the section on
how Japanese cooking can be made accessible to homecooks expanded. That said, the book is not setting itself
up as a guide to Japanese cooking for beginners - there
are other authors who do that very successfully. Rather,
it describes a particular range of dishes which are truly
Japanese in inspiration, are served in his restaurant, butwhich can also be prepared by home cooks. While somerecipes for basic flavourings are given, these are not put
together in one place for reference. In one section Koj
describes simple, time-effective meals which can beprepared at home such as donburi or noodles stir-fried as
in yakisoba, but I cannot find separate recipes for thesein the book. (I looked for them, but, tragically, there is noindex; very unusual in a cook book. After a search I founda recipe for a lovely, unctuous-sounding Mabodon, a spicy
gravy originating in Sichuan, which Koj suggests can beserved as a topping to a donburi rice bowl.)
The recipes look absolutely yummy which, withthe almost edible photographs next to them, make youlong to eat the completed dish. The sections covered are- Cocktails, Appetisers, Buns, Grazing plates, Side-dishes
and Desserts.
The cocktails sound delicious. They start with the
Okinawa Old Fashioned - a short, strong drink made ofAmerican Bourbon (in a reference to the US naval presence
in Japan), Pedro Ximenez sherry, shiso vinegar, sugar syrup
and orange bitters. The description of the cocktail and its
photograph made me just want to reach in and slurp!
Koj also suggests making it with Japanese whisky which
can have a similar feel to Bourbon. And the section ends
with a wonderful-sounding mocktail - the Red Lantern,(referencing akachochin red lanterns which hang outside
Japanese izakaya (informal bars serving drinks and snacks)
composed of cold brew hojicha tea, grenadine syrup,
hibiscus tonic and fino sherry.
The appetisers are real taste-bud teasers – small
plates of food light-years away from the usual crisp andpeanut offerings in many UK bars. Some are familiar,
such as the Padron peppers (the European equivalent ofJapanese shishito peppers) with sea salt and a twist of
yuzu; but others less so - crispy shitake mushrooms withtonkatsu mayo or aubergine agebitashi both sounded
perfect for starting a meal or to serve with drinks.
Filled buns are the current vogue in Europe. Foodoutlets of all descriptions (fast or otherwise) now offer
them as authentic street food options. So Koj’s section on
filled buns rides the bun zeitgeist perfectly. The fillings arebuilt for oozing out of a folded, puffy bun, filled with amix of savoury tastes, flooded with sauces or mayo. Who
could resist panko cauliflower, yuzu pickled red onion
and curry mayo? Or crispy shiitake, aubergine and truffle
mayo? I made the panko cauliflower buns and they were
simply gorgeous. The only surprise was that Koj does
not give a recipe for making buns; he simply lists bao
buns in the ingredients list. This seems a pity as they arestraightforward to make at home.
Koj describes “grazing”’ as a Japanese cultural
custom. Rather than quickly eating one main dish, served
hot, as we often do in the UK, he suggests that the Japanese“graze” through several dishes, taking time to enjoy the
carefully prepared variety of tastes on offer. The recipes inthis section are a mix, including Koj fried chicken (his own
version of karaage), beef shoga yaki salad, miso marinated
cod with bok choi and radish, chicken curry udon (withthe curry sauce clinging to the udon and topped withchicken, pak choi and soft boiled egg - mmmmm!). All
are packed with flavour. These gorgeous grazing dishes
would be accompanied by a variety of vegetable side
dishes and rice.
There is a short section on desserts - small portionsof singing sweetness, designed to finish off a good meal.
The photographs reflect elegant and beautifully presented
puddings, providing a sweet hit without making you
feel like Paddington Bear after a particularly large pot of
marmalade. Gets my vote!
This is an interesting and enjoyable book, following
one man’s journey to becoming a successful chef andrestaurateur, now sharing his Japanese food heritage withhis customers. The recipes in the book are clear and simple
to follow and are carefully chosen and presented in a waythat makes you long to cook them (and eat them!). Koj has
been careful to make the most of Japanese flavours andthe great thing about his book is that we can now replicate
these in carefully chosen home-cooked dishes. Most of
the recipes include Japanese ingredients; and while manycan now be bought on line, it might have been helpful if
Koj could have suggested some alternatives.§