The River Imp and the Stinky Jewel and Other Tales

The River Imp and the Stinky Jewel and Other Tales PDF Author:
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231558082
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Edo-period Japan, readers relished works known as kibyōshi that combined text and illustration on the same page, much like comic books and manga. Monsters often took center stage in these stories. This book presents a selection of Edo monster comics in English for the first time, introducing readers to a captivating, humorous, and eye-opening genre of popular fiction. The River Imp and the Stinky Jewel and Other Tales collects five kibyōshi published between 1778 and 1807, chosen for both entertainment value and stylistic variety. Their authors reinvent traditional Japanese monsters as contemporary characters who mirror the foibles of the human world. They tell stories such as: The lover of the long-necked rokuro-kubi makes a ridiculous attempt to rescue her from her human captor. A mischievous river creature steals a jewel lodged deep inside a boy’s buttocks, setting off a curious chain of events involving a historical samurai and a real-life “fart man.” A demon girl from hell is sent to the world of the living in order to destroy a sacred Buddhist statue—but things don’t go quite as she plans. Exploring the grotesque, comic, bumbling, salacious, and charming world of these creatures, the stories also provide a glimpse into the society and culture of Edo-period Japan through the monsters’ distorted lens. The kibyōshi are reproduced in their entirety, conveying the feel of the original comics and allowing readers to experience the full visual impact of the monsters.

The River Imp and the Stinky Jewel and Other Tales

The River Imp and the Stinky Jewel and Other Tales PDF Author:
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231558082
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Edo-period Japan, readers relished works known as kibyōshi that combined text and illustration on the same page, much like comic books and manga. Monsters often took center stage in these stories. This book presents a selection of Edo monster comics in English for the first time, introducing readers to a captivating, humorous, and eye-opening genre of popular fiction. The River Imp and the Stinky Jewel and Other Tales collects five kibyōshi published between 1778 and 1807, chosen for both entertainment value and stylistic variety. Their authors reinvent traditional Japanese monsters as contemporary characters who mirror the foibles of the human world. They tell stories such as: The lover of the long-necked rokuro-kubi makes a ridiculous attempt to rescue her from her human captor. A mischievous river creature steals a jewel lodged deep inside a boy’s buttocks, setting off a curious chain of events involving a historical samurai and a real-life “fart man.” A demon girl from hell is sent to the world of the living in order to destroy a sacred Buddhist statue—but things don’t go quite as she plans. Exploring the grotesque, comic, bumbling, salacious, and charming world of these creatures, the stories also provide a glimpse into the society and culture of Edo-period Japan through the monsters’ distorted lens. The kibyōshi are reproduced in their entirety, conveying the feel of the original comics and allowing readers to experience the full visual impact of the monsters.

The Book of Yokai, Expanded Second Edition

The Book of Yokai, Expanded Second Edition PDF Author: Michael Dylan Foster
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520389565
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 479

Get Book Here

Book Description
Significantly expanded and updated—a lively excursion into Japanese folklore and its increasing influence within global popular culture. Monsters, spirits, fantastic beings, and supernatural creatures haunt the folklore and popular culture of Japan. Broadly labeled yōkai, they appear in many forms, from tengu mountain goblins and kappa water sprites, to shape-shifting kitsune foxes and long-tongued ceiling-lickers. Popular today in anime, manga, film, and video games, many yōkai originated in local legends, folktales, and regional ghost stories. The Book of Yōkai invites readers to examine how people create, transmit, and collect folklore, and how they make sense of the mysteries in the world around them. Revised and expanded, this second edition features fifty new illustrations, including an all-new yōkai gallery of stunning color images tracing the visual history of yōkai across centuries. In clear and accessible language, Michael Dylan Foster unpacks the cultural and historical contexts of yōkai, interpreting their varied meanings and introducing people who have pursued them through the ages.

Graphic Narratives from Early Modern Japan

Graphic Narratives from Early Modern Japan PDF Author: Laura Moretti
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004691200
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 662

Get Book Here

Book Description
Part of a formidable publishing industry, cheap yet eye-catching graphic narratives consistently charmed early modern Japanese readers for around two hundred years. These booklets were called kusazōshi (“grass books”). Graphic Narratives from Early Modern Japan is the first English-language publication of its kind. It enables anyone new to kusazōshi to gain comprehensive knowledge of the field. For the specialist, our edited volume marks a turning point in scholarship, uncovering fresh research avenues. While exploring the powerful effects of the visual-verbal imagination, this collection opens up bold new vistas on the act of reading and advances provocations around comics and manga. Contributors are: Jaqueline Berndt, Joseph Bills, Michael Emmerich, Adam L. Kern, Fumiko Kobayashi, Frederick Feilden, Laura Moretti, Matsubara Noriko, Satō Satoru, Satō Yukiko, Satoko Shimazaki, Takagi Gen, Tanahashi Masahiro, Ellis Tinios, Tsuda Mayumi and, Glynne Walley.

Portraits of Eight Families

Portraits of Eight Families PDF Author: Yasutaka Tsutsui
Publisher:
ISBN: 9784061860469
Category : Japanese literature
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Get Book Here

Book Description


A Kamigata Anthology

A Kamigata Anthology PDF Author: Sumie Jones
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824882636
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 545

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is the first of a three-volume anthology of Edo- and Meiji-era urban literature that includes An Edo Anthology: Literature from Japan’s Mega-City, 1750–1850 and A Tokyo Anthology: Literature from Japan’s Modern Metropolis, 1850–1920. The present work focuses on the years in which bourgeois culture first emerged in Japan, telling the story of the rising commoner arts of Kamigata, or the “Upper Regions” of Kyoto and Osaka, which harkened back to Japan’s middle ages even as they rebelled against and competed with that earlier era. Both cities prided themselves on being models and trendsetters in all cultural matters, whether arts, crafts, books, or food. The volume also shows how elements of popular arts that germinated during this period ripened into the full-blown consumer culture of the late-Edo period. The tendency to imagine Japan’s modernity as a creation of Western influence since the mid-nineteenth century is still strong, particularly outside Japan studies. A Kamigata Anthology challenges such assumptions by illustrating the flourishing phenomenon of Japan’s movement into its own modernity through a selection of the best examples from the period, including popular genres such as haikai poetry, handmade picture scrolls, travel guidebooks, kabuki and joruri plays, prose narratives of contemporary life, and jokes told by professional entertainers. Well illustrated with prints from popular books of the time and hand scrolls and standing screens containing poems and commentaries, the entertaining and vibrant translations put a spotlight on texts currently unavailable in English.

An Edo Anthology

An Edo Anthology PDF Author: Sumie Jones
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824837762
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 534

Get Book Here

Book Description
During the eighteenth century, Edo (today’s Tokyo) became the world’s largest city, quickly surpassing London and Paris. Its rapidly expanding population and flourishing economy encouraged the development of a thriving popular culture. Innovative and ambitious young authors and artists soon began to look beyond the established categories of poetry, drama, and prose, banding together to invent completely new literary forms that focused on the fun and charm of Edo. Their writings were sometimes witty, wild, and bawdy, and other times sensitive, wise, and polished. Now some of these high spirited works, celebrating the rapid changes, extraordinary events, and scandalous news of the day, have been collected in an accessible volume highlighting the city life of Edo. Edo’s urban consumers demanded visual presentations and performances in all genres. Novelties such as books with text and art on the same page were highly sought after, as were kabuki plays and the polychrome prints that often shared the same themes, characters, and even jokes. Popular interest in sex and entertainment focused attention on the theatre district and “pleasure quarters,” which became the chief backdrops for the literature and arts of the period. Gesaku, or “playful writing,” invented in the mid-eighteenth century, satirized the government and samurai behavior while parodying the classics. These entertaining new styles bred genres that appealed to the masses. Among the bestsellers were lengthy serialized heroic epics, revenge dramas, ghost and monster stories, romantic melodramas, and comedies that featured common folk. An Edo Anthology offers distinctive and engaging examples of this broad range of genres and media. It includes both well-known masterpieces and unusual examples from the city’s counterculture, some popular with intellectuals, others with wider appeal. Some of the translations presented here are the first available in English and many are based on first editions. In bringing together these important and expertly translated Edo texts in a single volume, this collection will be warmly welcomed by students and interested readers of Japanese literature and popular culture.

The Voice and Other Stories

The Voice and Other Stories PDF Author: Seichō Matsumoto
Publisher: Kodansha Amer Incorporated
ISBN: 9784770019493
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 179

Get Book Here

Book Description
Presents six detective stories from Japanese mystery writer, Seicho Matsumoto.he puzzle in these tales lies not so much in "who dunnit" but rather in howt was done.

Eight Dogs, or "Hakkenden"

Eight Dogs, or Author: Kyokutei Bakin
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501755196
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Get Book Here

Book Description
Kyokutei Bakin's Nansō Satomi hakkenden is one of the monuments of Japanese literature. This multigenerational samurai saga was one of the most popular and influential books of the nineteenth century and has been adapted many times into film, television, fiction, and comics. An Ill-Considered Jest, the first part of Hakkenden, tells the story of the Satomi clan patriarch Yoshizane and his daughter Princess Fuse. An ill-advised comment forces Yoshizane to betroth his daughter to the family dog, creating a supernatural union that ultimately produces the Eight Dog Warriors. Princess Fuse's heroic and tragic sacrifice, and her strength, intelligence, and self-determination throughout, render her an immortal character within Japanese fiction. Eight Dogs is the culmination of centuries of premodern Japanese tale-telling, combining aspects of historical romance, fantasy, Tokugawa-era popular fiction, and Chinese vernacular stories. Glynne Walley's lively translation conveys the witty and colorful prose of the original, producing a faithful and entertaining edition of this important literary classic.

More Than Medals

More Than Medals PDF Author: Dennis J. Frost
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501753096
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Get Book Here

Book Description
How does a small provincial city in southern Japan become the site of a world-famous wheelchair marathon that has been attracting the best international athletes since 1981? In More Than Medals, Dennis J. Frost answers this question and addresses the histories of individuals, institutions, and events—the 1964 Paralympics, the FESPIC Games, the Ōita International Wheelchair Marathon, the Nagano Winter Paralympics, and the 2021 Tokyo Summer Games that played important roles in the development of disability sports in Japan. Sporting events in the postwar era, Frost shows, have repeatedly served as forums for addressing the concerns of individuals with disabilities. More Than Medals provides new insights on the cultural and historical nature of disability and demonstrates how sporting events have challenged some stigmas associated with disability, while reinforcing or generating others. Frost analyzes institutional materials and uses close readings of media, biographical sources, and interviews with Japanese athletes to highlight the profound—though often ambiguous—ways in which sports have shaped how postwar Japan has perceived and addressed disability. His novel approach highlights the importance of the Paralympics and the impact that disability sports have had on Japanese society. Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Green with Milk and Sugar

Green with Milk and Sugar PDF Author: Robert Hellyer
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231552947
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 187

Get Book Here

Book Description
Today, Americans are some of the world’s biggest consumers of black teas; in Japan, green tea, especially sencha, is preferred. These national partialities, Robert Hellyer reveals, are deeply entwined. Tracing the transpacific tea trade from the eighteenth century onward, Green with Milk and Sugar shows how interconnections between Japan and the United States have influenced the daily habits of people in both countries. Hellyer explores the forgotten American penchant for Japanese green tea and how it shaped Japanese tastes. In the nineteenth century, Americans favored green teas, which were imported from China until Japan developed an export industry centered on the United States. The influx of Japanese imports democratized green tea: Americans of all classes, particularly Midwesterners, made it their daily beverage—which they drank hot, often with milk and sugar. In the 1920s, socioeconomic trends and racial prejudices pushed Americans toward black teas from Ceylon and India. Facing a glut, Japanese merchants aggressively marketed sencha on their home and imperial markets, transforming it into an icon of Japanese culture. Featuring lively stories of the people involved in the tea trade—including samurai turned tea farmers and Hellyer’s own ancestors—Green with Milk and Sugar offers not only a social and commodity history of tea in the United States and Japan but also new insights into how national customs have profound if often hidden international dimensions.