No comments about Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan.

No comments about The Stars Who Created Kabuki: Their Lives, Loves and Legacy.

No comments about Following the Brush: An American Encounter With Classical Japanese Culture.

No comments about Sushi with Style.

No comments about Romaji Diary and Sad Toys: And, Sad Toys (Tuttle Classics).

No comments about Nomo: The Tornado Who Took America by Storm.

2 comments about Girocho: A Gi's Story of Bataan and Beyond.

1. Girocho: A Gi's Story of Bataan and Beyond
   
   I had a special interest because John Henry Poncio is/was a relative, but even more because he bore no enmity for the Japanese. That still amazes me. The story of what our troops endured should be required reading in our schools.



2. Poncio's story from Bataan to Hirohata, written with total context of the war. An outstanding and complete story.

   Every so often, one discovers a "POW" book that is not only accurate, but well written. Each line, each paragraph, each page weaves a complete tapestry of a Prisoner's life under the Japanese. Add to this, one sees beautifully crafted typography that makes this a classic. Of the more than 1000 books w have on the subject, this book ranks in the top ten.

   Poncio adds depth and meaning to the history of our POWS, especially the guerilla and public support by foreign nationals and Filipinos. His is one of the rare books that even acknowledges the support from the legendary Madame Utinsky, a heroine who deserved the Medal of Honor. No phase of the experience is slighted nor any detail ignored as the writers weave a tapestry of horror endured yet an inspiring and unending battle to survive and sabotage the Japanese war effort. Poncio's description of desperate hunger alone is worth the price of the book. On a scale of one to five stars, Poncio's book deserves seven extra large stars.
   Center for Research
   Allied POWS Under the Japanese

1 comments about The Similitude of Blossoms: A Critical Biography of Izumi Koyka (1873-1939), Japanese Novelist and Playwright (Harvard East Asian Monographs).

1. In a day when critical biographies are still suffering under the stigma instigated by Roland Barthes' alleged "death of the author" and all such postmodernish fluff, this work really stands out. Much scholarly care has gone into this study, which thus overflows with Inouye's deep interest and respect for Izumi Kyoka and his work. Never descending into useless detail and anecdote for its own sake, Inouye deals expertly with those aspects of Izumi Kyoka's life that grant us some familiarity with this man's experience and personality in ways that add to our appreciation of his incredibly eccentric and fascinating fictional works. One also gets a very tangible sense of this author's artistic development, as everything from his earliest attempts to his final masterpiece (including some of his flops) are discussed in relation with each other and to the "archetype" as a whole (the latter being Kyoka's overall vision more or less informing his various works and to some degree offering the key to unlocking some of their more obscure passages). After reading this, one wants to go back and re-read "Japanese Gothic Tales" and "In Light of Shadows" again with new insight.

No comments about Medieval Japanese Writers (Dictionary of Literary Biography).

3 comments about Taken Captive: A Japanese POW's Story.

1. In 1944, near the end of World War II, 35-year-old, Shohei Ooka, was drafted into the Japanese Imperial Army. After suffering from malaria and starvation he attempted suicide when American troops had landed on Mindanao and the situation looked hopeless for Ooka and his (mostly dead by then) comrades. He was captured and nursed back to health by the American forces.
   
   As he writes in ''Taken Captive,'' Japanese prisoners had to deal with their depression, and guilt at having shamed themselves by giving up when their comrades had died in battle or committed suicide. Captivity was strange to the Japanese prisoners because the Japanese military had taught them that the US military were savages and would kill them if they surrendered. Ooka wrote that they had a hard time ''accepting the Americans' warmheartedness with simple gratitude. Whereas they saw themselves as dishonorable captives, the Americans treated them as human beings, and this . . . confounded them completely.'' Over time, the prisoners became lazy and fat.
   
   Some of the former prisoners of war, Ooka writes, ''still refer to the camp as 'paradise' and speak of the time they spent there as the best year of their lives.'' Ooka, who died in 1988, became one of the most well known post-war writers in all of Japan with this book and he takes the reader on a travel from soldier, to prisoner, to a fear of disgrace upon returning home, and back to a father and family man. An excellent book that will show that not all Japanese soldiers were war criminals and psychotics ready to die for the emperor. Ooka held Japanese soldiers who "went amok" in China in great distain.



2. Taken Captive a P.O.W. Story by 0oka Sh0hei, is about a Japanese man name 0oka Sh0hei who was drafted into the Japanese Imperial Army to fight the American Forces On January 25, 1945. Being captured from the Americans. This book is is an okay book. There was some action in it,wich was great. It was okay to thouse who are interested in an middle-clsss scholar who tries this to survive the life of the prison. this would be the book for you. If you are interested in action, i would not sugest this.



3. For eight months during 1945 I served as a Japanese interpreter (U.S. Marine Corps) at the Japanese POW Camp on Guam. I met and interviewed many Japanese prisoners during that time. This is the first account published by a former Japanese POW that I have seen since the War. American POWS have published but no Japanese for reasons made obvious by the author. I was on the outside looking in. To view prison life from the other side of the fence was most interesting, The book is superbly written. It is factual and honest.For anyone who fought the Japanese in the Pacific this book will open windows and offer to you a view that you might never have expected to look upon. T