Latest Release

Ebook cover of The Nonserial Murders by Ango Sakaguchi

Click for the first chapter Ten Million Vulgar Human Relationships.

When Friends Gather, the Killing Begins

In post-war Japan, a circle of literary and artistic men and women gathers in the mountain villa of Utagawa Kazuma to spend the summer. Before they've unpacked their trunks, the killing begins.

Ango Sakaguchi published this mystery novel as a series in Nihon Shosetsu and challenged the readers to deduce the murderer and awarded prizes.

Translator's Note: Many reviews by Japanese readers of the original remark on the large number of characters and their confusing relationships. I thought about including a chart of some of the major relationships, but decided against it because it's a part of the reading experience. Read with paper and pencil handy, especially the first chapter.

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A short story mystery by Ango Sakaguchi to read now: The Spiritualist Murder Incident.

Audiobook cover of The New Chushingura by Eiji Yoshikawa

Click image for first two chapters.

Book cover of The New Chushingura by Eiji Yoshikawa

Click image for audio sample. Read by Mike, the computer voice. (14 hours, 3 minutes)

A Dish Best Served Cold

The true story begins with the bloody attack on Chief Master of Ceremonies Lord Kira by Lord Asano, the daimyo of Ako, in the shogun's castle and ends with the seppuku, ritual suicides, of forty-seven of Lord Asano's ronin. Eiji Yoshikawa uses facts and fibs in his retelling.

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$4.99 for audiobook.
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Graves of the 47 Ronin at Sengakuji Temple

Sengakuji Temple

Layout of the graves of the 47 ronin

Photo of the graves of the 47 ronin

The graves of the 47 ronin at Sengakuji Temple in Tokyo

3 Shorts Online

Three short stories by Yoshikawa Eiji related to the 47 ronin story. The first one takes place before the events in the book and the other two, during.

Book cover of Pandora's Box by Dazai Osamu or Osamu Dazai

Click image for sample PDF.

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Book cover of Goodbye by Dazai Osamu or Osamu Dazai

Click image for sample PDF.

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Dazai Osamu's major works were dark, but he also wrote humorous and uplifting stories. These books are two of his lighthearted tales. Pandora's Box details the experiences of a twenty-year-old youth in a quirky sanatorium in post-war Japan.

Breaking up may be hard to do, but it can be funny. Goodbye was his unfinished last work about a man's machinations to break up with his dozen or so lovers. Before completing this work, he committed suicide with his lover; the two are pictured on the cover.

Book cover of Pandora's Box (with Goodbye) paperback

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Autumn 1947

Dazai Osamu (1909-1948) was a major 20th-century Japanese author of fiction. His most popular novels were The Setting Sun and No Longer Human.

The online DAZAI Museum gives a nice overview of his life, family, literary works, and places associated with him and his works.

Dazai Osamu also makes an appearance as a character in the Japanese manga series, and later anime series, Bungo Stray Dogs (文豪ストレイドッグス).

Goodreads reviews for Pandora's Box

Reviews from Goodreads.com

Source of Dazai photos: Dazai Osamu, Dazai Osamu, Bunchosha, Tokyo, 1948.

Book cover of Night on the Milky Way Railroad by Miyazawa Kenji

Click image for free PDF of a few chapters.

Despite the early death of Miyazawa Kenji and only an unfinished manuscript left behind, Night on the Milky Way Railroad has become a children's classic in Japan. A boy, Giovanni, has few friends at school, a sick mother, and a father working far from home. One festival night, he is swept onto a train traveling the Milky Way and into a fantastic world.

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Apple badge for of Night on the Milky Way Railroad by Miyazawa Kenji

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Book cover of Kuroda Josui by Eiji Yoshikawa

Click image for the first chapter The Beehive.

Loyalty or Revenge

Kuroda Josui, known throughout the novel as Kuroda Kanbei, was a chief strategist and trusted adviser to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the second major unifier of the Japan of the Warring States (Sengoku) period. This novel imagines seven critical years in the first half of his life before he converted to Christianity (for a short time) and changed his name to Josui, and before Japan found peace.

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Here's a translation of the short story The Red Braziers by Eiji Yoshikawa about the Ako ronin, the 47 ronin.

Expert eyes see the whole board (妙手の眼ハ盤中に普し) by Utagawa Toyonobu (歌川豊宣)

Left: Kuroda Kanbei (aka Kuroda Yoshitaka aka Kuroda Josui), Right: Hashiba Hideyoshi (aka Toyotomi Hideyoshi)

Book cover of Home to Tsugaru by Osamu Dazai

Click image for an excerpt about Aomori.

In 1944, Osamu Dazai returned to Tsugaru where he was born and raised to see the people and places that made him and to find the Tsugaru native to model his life on.

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For pictures and maps related to this book, look at the photo album Tsugaru by Dazai Osamu. A ton of pictures of his family is found on this Japanese blog (scroll to the bottom and click left << for the next entry). The first page shows his home, parents, and his aunt (mother's younger sister).

Click image for chapter one.

These are the first ten stories about the police detective Zenigata Heiji of Edo, now Tokyo. In the first story, Heiji witnesses the kidnapping of Shizu, the young lady who ignites love in him, and must rescue her from a satanic cult. In the last story, he must save the same woman, now his bride, when she is kidnapped on their wedding day. In the other tales, he confronts the challenges of other kidnappings, robberies, and, of course, murders.

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Click image to download PDF of chapter one.

Ango's Detective Casebook No. 1

Meiji Era, Japan -- Toranosuke, the owner of a dojo for swordfighting, is also an amateur detective. He brings murder cases too baffling for the police to The Great Detective, Yuki Shinjuro, a handsome and brilliant man who has traveled to the West. Tora recruits the genius Katsu Kaishu to unravel the mystery in his attempt to outwit Shinjuro. After his investigation, Shinjuro unveils the murderer at the scene of the crime. In the final scene, Kaishu consoles himself for being wrong as usual, and Tora never loses faith in him.

Two old Japanese tales are mentioned in passing in this book. One is Crackling Mountain (かちかち山: Kachi-Kachi Yama) in The Mystery of the Demon Religion, and the other is Hanasaka Jijii (花咲かじじい) in The Secret of the Clock Tower. Read Crackling Mountain or Hanasaka Jijii now.

Buy Ango's Detective Casebook No. 1 at Amazon

Click image to download PDF of chapter one.

Ango's Detective Casebook No. 2

This casebook completes the classic murder mysteries solved by the Gentleman Detective, Yuki Shinjuro, with a bit of assistance from Toranosuke, Hananoya, and Officer Furuta.

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Paperback cover - Ango's Detective Casebook No. 2 by Ango Sakaguchi

Click image to download PDF of chapter one.

A samurai warrior is cursed to live in a time of peace. Saotome Mondonosuke is a samurai plagued by boredom. He is not a ronin, but a direct vassal with wealth, a license to kill, and a frightening but captivating scar.

This book contains all eleven stories in the series 旗本退屈男 (Hatamoto Taikutsu Otoko) by 佐々木味津三 (Sasaki Mitsuzo), serialized in the monthly literary magazine 文芸倶楽部 (Bungei Kurabu) beginning April 1929. These stories formed the basis of the popular Japanese movie series of the same name [The Idle Vassal in English].

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Book cover of The Kanji Starter Pack by Shelley Marshall, Asataro Goto

Click image for a screenshot.

Learn all 80 kanji learned by first graders in Japan and 100 of the kanji learned by second graders. The stroke order to write each kanji and its Chinese and Japanese pronunciations are presented. You can learn fewer than 200 kanji and nearly 2,000 kanji-compound words containing them!

Buy The Kanji Starter Pack at Amazon

Click to download practice sheets (PDF): one for 50 kanji characters and the other for 160 characters.

Click to download a kanji chart of all the kanji Japanese students are supposed to learn in grades 1 to 6.

Kanji Flashcards

Click for Hiragana Refresher

The Emperor's New Clothes + 3 by Shelley Marshall (Editor)

Click image for a screenshot.

This book has four stories. Each Japanese sentence comes with a glossary and the English sentence. The full Japanese and English text of the stories is included.

The Princess and the Pea by Hans Christian Andersen, translated into Japanese by Masao Kusuyama
The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen, translated into Japanese by Souhuu Taketomo
Tsue the Mouse by Kenji Miyazawa
The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe, translated into Japanese by Naojiro Sasaki

Buy The Emperor's New Clothes +3 at Amazon

Book cover of The Adventure Begins: Hinomaru Hatanosuke by Nakajima Kikuo

Before Astro Boy, the hero of the children of Japan was Hinomaru Hatanosuke, a samurai teenager, created by Nakajima Kikuo, a teacher and a manga artist. This series ran as a serial from January 1935 to September 1941 in the boys' magazine Shonen Club (少年倶楽部).

Grab The Adventure Begins now. It's free!
Grab Friend or Foe. It's free!
Grab The Journey Home. It's free!

The journey begins in The Adventure Begins: Hinomaru Hatanosuke, continues in Friend or Foe: Hinomaru Hatanosuke, and ends in The Journey Home: Hinomaru Hatanosuke.

Here is the original manga 日の丸旗之助.

The result of an evening spent with iMovie

So Many Books, So Little Time

Here are some authors and scenes from books I may translate... someday.

Tanizaki Junichiro circa 1916

Tanizaki Junichiro circa 1927

Amakusa Shiro

Scene from Kikigakisho: A Second Blind Man's Tale

Kunikida Doppo and handwritten manuscript

Yoshikawa Eiji circa 1935

右門捕物帖 Umon Torimono-cho	佐々木味津三 Sasaki Mitsuzo	This story set in old Edo follows the adventures of a detective called Umon.
錢形平次捕物控 Zenigata Heiji Torimono Hikae	野村胡堂 Nomura Kodo	Zenigata Heiji is another detective in old Edo. He flicks coins at the bad guys.
丹下左膳 Tange Sazen	林不忘 Hayashi Fubou	Our hero Tange Sazen is a fictional swordsman with one eye and one arm.
天草美少年録 Amakusa Bishonenroku	佐々木味津三 Sasaki Mitsuzo	An imagined record of Amakusa Shiro, leader of the Shimabara Rebellion.
聞書抄: 第二盲目物語 Kikigakisho: Daini Moumoku Monogatari	谷崎潤一郎 Tanizaki Junichiro	A continuation of Tanizaki's A Blind Man's Tale.
五人女 Gonin Onna	真山青果 Mayama Seika	The tragic tales of five amorous women. Taruya Osen. Yaoya Oshichi. Onatsu [and Seijuro]. Osan [and Moemon]. Oman [and Gengobee].
武蔵野 Musashino	国木田独歩 Kunikida Doppo	A diary of the the author's stay in Musashi Province.
剣難女難 Kennan Jonan	吉川英治 Yoshikawa Eiji	The title says it all: Sword Trouble, Woman Trouble. This was Yoshikawa Eiji's first novel.

Places to Go

国立国会図書館内限定 - National Diet Library Digital Collection

青空文庫 - Aozora Bunko - copyright-free literature

読書 - Book Meter - A Japanese site for finding books in Japanese, has rankings and reader reviews (like Goodreads, but better organized)

japanese literature in english - a database of all Japanese literary works translated into English

MOJIZO - Drag and drop a picture of one cursive kanji character (崩し字、草書) to get a list (with pictures) of possibilities.

The Japan Foundation - Japanese Literature in Translation Search

The Samurai Archives - tons of samurai info

Ghibli Museum - the only thing on my bucket list

Today I will learn Japanese!!

Learn how to read and write hiragana using Japanese words you already know.
Marugoto Plus will get you off to a great start. It teaches Japanese grammar, the writing systems, and some basic vocabulary. There are recordings of native speakers, animations that show you how to write the characters, and videos for a more lively learning experience.
Easy Japanese Lessons - These video lessons from NHK World Japan teach what to say in various work settings using non-native speakers of Japanese who work in Japan.
Japanese in Anime & Manga is for lovers of anime and manga on a quest to learn Japanese.
This huge PDF (34 megabytes) わたしがしりたいせいかつ漢字 from Higashihiroshima FACE via the Agency for Cultural Affairs in Japan is packed with useful kanji for everyday life in Japan.

Latest Release

When Friends Gather, the Killing Begins

A short story mystery by Ango Sakaguchi to read now: The Spiritualist Murder Incident.

A Dish Best Served Cold

Graves of the 47 Ronin at Sengakuji Temple

Sengakuji Temple

Layout of the graves of the 47 ronin

Photo of the graves of the 47 ronin

3 Shorts Online

Click image for sample PDF.

Click image for sample PDF.

Autumn 1947

Seven-year-old Dazai Osamu (second from left)

Click image to enlarge.

Handwritten Manuscript of Goodbye

Click image to enlarge.

The First Samurai

Dragon vs Tiger

Loyalty or Revenge

Expert eyes see the whole board (妙手の眼ハ盤中に普し) by Utagawa Toyonobu (歌川豊宣)

Left: Kuroda Kanbei (aka Kuroda Yoshitaka aka Kuroda Josui), Right: Hashiba Hideyoshi (aka Toyotomi Hideyoshi)

Oshikawa Shunro

Ango's Detective Casebook No. 1

Ango's Detective Casebook No. 2

Kanji Flashcards

Click for Hiragana Refresher

Hayashi Fumiko circa 1940

The result of an evening spent with iMovie

Akutagawa Ryunosuke as a boy

Picture from Shunpuku by Akutagawa Ryunosuke, published by Shunyoudou, 1923.

So Many Books, So Little Time

Tanizaki Junichiro circa 1916

Tanizaki Junichiro circa 1927

Amakusa Shiro

Scene from Kikigakisho: A Second Blind Man's Tale

Kunikida Doppo and handwritten manuscript

Yoshikawa Eiji circa 1935

Natsume Soseki Before the Mustache

5 or 6 years old

11 or 12 years old

19 years old

24 years old

Click to enlarge.

Places to Go

Today I will learn Japanese!!

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