books

Confining the Lord

In 1988, the historian Kasaya Kazuhiko published Shukun “oshikome” no kōzō, The Structure of the Lord’s Confinement. It won the Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities. The book describes oshikome, a practice of Edo-period domains.

When a lord ruled badly, his senior retainers agreed among themselves to confine him and give him time to reform. If he did not, they retired him and installed another lord. The prize citation notes that the practice was widely accepted as legitimate and was usually carried out peacefully.

Counting on Goodwill

Amae (甘え): the Daijisen dictionary defines it as the feeling of counting on the goodwill of others. In 1971, the psychiatrist Doi Takeo published “Amae” no kōzō, The Structure of Amae. The book sold more than two million copies.

Doi defined the psychology of amae as an attempt to deny the fact of separation that belongs to human existence, and to overcome the pain of that separation.

Star of the Giants

The manga Kyojin no Hoshi, Star of the Giants, ran in Weekly Shōnen Magazine from 1966 to 1971. One device from the story became famous: the dai rīgu bōru yōsei gipusu, the major league ball training cast, which the hero wears all the time to build his muscles. The magazine Hiragana Times calls the series a pioneer of supokon, sports and guts, manga.

The Chrysanthemum and the Sword

Ruth Benedict’s The Chrysanthemum and the Sword appeared in 1946. A Japanese translation followed in 1948. The book analyzes Japan through the words on and giri. In the Japanese edition, chapter 6 is titled “Repaying one ten-thousandth of on.” Chapter 7 is titled “Nothing is as hard as giri.”

A Japanese encyclopedia sums up her view of on as a burden and a debt that a person must carry with all their strength.

The Japan That Can Say No

In 1989, the publisher Kōbunsha brought out “NO” to ieru Nihon (The Japan That Can Say No) by the politician Ishihara Shintarō and Morita Akio of Sony. Newsweek Japan calls it a million seller.

The title implies that saying no did not come easily to Japan.

The Village Meeting

In the folklorist Miyamoto Tsuneichi’s Wasurerareta Nihonjin (The Forgotten Japanese), the chapter “In Tsushima” describes a village meeting, the yoriai. The chapter draws on his experience during a survey of the island in 1950.

“When a village decides something,” he wrote, “everyone talks for as many days as it takes, until everyone is satisfied.” The book collects the series “Toshiyoritachi,” published in the magazine Minwa from 1958 to 1960, and other essays.

The Legal Consciousness of the Japanese

In 1967, the legal scholar Kawashima Takeyoshi published Nihonjin no hō-ishiki (The Legal Consciousness of the Japanese). He argued that the Japanese lacked a sense of rights. Since the Edo period, lawsuits had often ended not in a judgment but in a settlement between the parties. A dispute was best settled “roundly,” in a way that did not destroy the community relationship.

The book became the starting point of postwar research on legal consciousness. Later scholars have disputed much of it.

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