What makes Louise Young’s Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism such a fascinating, troubling work is that she details the way in which the Manchurian experience, and the strategic vulnerability of the Manchurian adventure, rebound into the politics and culture of Japan itself. It reverses, in a way, the traditional narratives of colonialism which see influence flowing from the metropole to the periphery rather than the other way around. And as consciousness of Manchuria became increasingly central to Japanese political and cultural identity, Japanese politics became increasingly radical: nationalist, racialist, expansionist, militarist; in a word, imperialist. Not that Japan wasn’t an empire before that — Taiwan, Korea, Liaodong, and a large swath of the South Pacific attest to Japan’s willingness to take control of other peoples — or that the cultural elements weren’t in place. But under the influence of the ongoing crisis in Manchuria, a crisis experienced by many who travelled there, worked there, and seen and heard through music, movies and other outlets, liberal alternatives like internationalism became unpalatable, even unacceptable. If you’re tied to the usual nation-bound histories of culture and politics, and the one-way influence of the standard metropole-periphery model, this is a paradigm-shifting piece of scholarship. As Albert Szent-Gyorgyi said, “Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought.”

I thought of Young’s work when I read this NYT profile of David Yerushalmi, one of the architects and driving forces behind the anti-Shariah movement in the United States. Yerushalmi’s radically political and hostile view of Islam have become common-place opinions in certain segments of the US political spectrum — primarily Republican, Tea Party, Buchananite Isolationist, Dominionist and similar groups — and have been put into legislative form in Oklahoma, as well as as other states. Especially in the context of US involvement in the Middle East, the specific focus of the xenophobia against the very kinds of people who are the target of US policy, the anxiety about subversion by global networks of muslims based on the statements and actions of a radicalized few, really does remind me of the Japanese turn in the 1920s and 1930s against communism, socialism and anarchism, against the Korean and Chinese activists, and their Japanese allies, who were the strongest proponents of those theories.

What really fascinated me about the profile, though, was Yerushalmi’s background. Or rather, a combination of his background and the way in which the article glided over the interesting bits.

His interest in Islamic law began with the Sept. 11 attacks, he said, when he was living in Ma’ale Adumim, a large Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

At the time, Mr. Yerushalmi, a native of South Florida, divided his energies between a commercial litigation practice in the United States and a conservative research institute based in Jerusalem, where he worked to promote free-market reform in Israel.

After moving to Brooklyn the following year, Mr. Yerushalmi said he began studying Arabic and Shariah under two Islamic scholars, whom he declined to name.

He is an American Hasidic Jew — literally the third thing we learn about him after his name and age — and lawyer, hostile to the secular socialist roots of Israel¹ who suddenly became troubled by the nature of Islam after the 9/11 attacks.

Maybe. But I don’t think that it’s coincidental that Yerushalmi was an American living in Israel — a state often described as an agent of American power in the Middle East² and in particular living in an areas which is easily (and I think fairly) described as an Israeli colonial territory. I think it’s more likely that the experience of living in occupied territory radicalized him, hardened his views on Islam. He was engaged in a struggle at the frontier of civilization, in his own mind, when members of a group he already percieved as the enemy struck at his homeland, to which he returned to share his hard-won perspective on the issues. And because of the shock of that attack, compounded by the ongoing challenge of war overseas and economic troubles, he found people receptive to his message of a subversive force at work in the world, an existential conflict.

Being an empire means having peripheries, and those peripheries are going to have troubles, in no small part because of their relationship with the metropole. But mistaking the tensions of the periphery for an existential crisis is the kind of lack of perspective which signals weak leadership, a distorted public sphere, and a high probability of escalating sunken cost fallacies driving policy.

1. Note that the “conservative research institute” isn’t named, begging the question of whose definition of “conservative” the reporter is using in this description.
2. though I think “stalking horse” or “scapegoat” might be more precise

The third installment of Chris Bradford’s Young Samurai series shifts modes mid-book, when the action moves from the original Harry Potter-esque bildungsroman mode to the tragic — Young Jack is on the side of the Toyotomi, as it turns out — Battle of Osaka.

[More Spoilers Ahead]¹

The book is considerably longer than the first two installments, a common feature of end-of-series climaxes, and continues with the cultural and historical bad habits noted in the first two works.² At least, being a climactic moment, many of the historical alterations are clarified — if not well justified. There are two substantial changes to the historical record, which explain most of the other distortions: postponing the Tokugawa dominion of Japan until after the Battle of Osaka, and transforming the banning of Christianity into xenophobic nationalism and a popular movement, rather than a geo-political calculation.³ And ninja. Lots of ninja. I’m going to focus on the historiographical oddities this time, though I reserve the right to note new contextual and literary failings.

The action in this book runs from 1613 through the end of the Battle of Osaka, though the two campaigns are collapsed into a single sequence of battles mostly focused on the Battle of Tennōji,⁴ a little Winter Truce interlude,⁵ and the subsequent fall of Himeji Castle. The historical timeline leading up to this point is still a little murky in my mind, but it seems that the Battle of Sekigahara⁶ was the final battle in Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s unification campaign, after which he died, resulting in a surprisingly stable Council of Regents.⁷ (166-168) The Toyotomi⁸ house is the Imperial house, suggesting either that the imperial institution had a continuous martial tradition⁹ or that Hideyoshi actually took that last step¹⁰ and supplanted the Imperial house.¹¹ The Battle of Osaka, then, is the real Sekigahara,¹² though with the added element of having the Hideyoshi house actually participating. In this rendition, the Hideyoshi/Imperial heir is the “good guy” (also Christian): the Tokugawa house is a usurper whose forces are made up of opportunists, racists and ronin.¹³ Also, it was Tokugawa/Lord Kamakura’s decision to switch sides which determined the result of the Nakasendo battle, and we all know that switching sides is something that honorable samurai warlords never did. (82, 168) A literary rendition of the early 1600s from the Toyotomi perspective could be powerful stuff, exploration of still-unstable political and ethical ethos and real tragedy. Needless to say, that’s not what we’ve got here.

I suppose the vision of the Tokugawa house as religious and racial chauvinists could also be a matter of perspective: it’s true that the expulsion of Christianity from Japan was a violent process, though I don’t remember any sources that describe it as any sort of popular movement.¹⁴ In fact, in Bradford’s Japan, the Buddhist and Shinto religious leadership whom you’d expect to be at the forefront of an anti-foreign movement are largely agnostic on the question of Christianity. Also, oddly, the Tokugawa-ish Kamakura house never rhetorically connects the anti-foreign and anti-Toyotomi movements, though the fact that the “heir apparent” is a Christian (308) and working closely with the subversive Jesuits (320) would make it eminently sensible for them to use it as leverage; really, they’re just mean.¹⁵ The descriptions of the anti-Christian movement resemble the Boxer Rebellion or 1930s Germany more than the actual historical events which left non-Catholic foreigners alone. (253) I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again here: the actual historical events are more than sufficiently dramatic to be interesting; distorting them through a modern pseudo-fascist lens is gilding the lily, at best. Curiously, the anti-foreign Tokugawa forces are much better equipped with firearms and cannon than the Jesuit-supported Toyotomi side. (335, 392, etc.)¹⁶

The identity of the über-ninja Dokuganryu is revealed early on in the book (50-51), and while I’m sure this was intentional from the beginning, I still think that Bradford both missed an opportunity and did great damage to the biography of historical figures. Actually, the identity would have been obvious if I had paid more attention to the common nicknames of daimyo, because the “One-Eyed Dragon” moniker is associated with smallpox-scarred Date Masamune, whose disfigurement and family history the character share. However, Bradford changes the name to Hattori, a name associated in real life with both ninja and the Tokugawa house, taking Date’s life in a very strange direction at the time of Sekigahara,¹⁷ and ignoring the real history and character of Date Masamune himself, who lived and served the Tokugawa ably into the 1630s. In this version, the ninja pulls the strings, using the xenophobia of the Kamakura/Tokugawa as leverage to take vengeance on the Toyotomi/Hasegawa and Masamoto/Miyamoto.

In the end, the vast majority of the characters die in battle, which is likely to be somewhat emotionally wrenching given the Harry Potterish way in which nobody important dies (after the initial onslaught that orphans Jack) despite spending two and a half books playing with weapons, attempting deadly challenges and fighting off ninja. Even the super-ninja Dokuganryu appears to die, though Jack doesn’t have time to verify the ninja’s death, which takes the combined effort of both a ninja-trained young woman¹⁸ and a number of other of Jack’s colleagues. However, the survival of Jack (plus his romantic interest, of course) means sequels,¹⁹ and sequels means that Jack needs a worthy enemy. Jack’s chief student nemesis also survives; like Gollum, due to the mercy of the protagonist (473). In an amusingly implausible bit of historical preservation, Masamoto/Miyamoto survives his Horatio-at-the-bridge last stand and is forced into retirement by the Tokugawa/Kamakura: he takes the tonsure, which will allow him to do the writing he’s always wanted.²⁰

There are two new cultural themes which are bad enough to deserve note. First, swords get seriously weird. Swords in Bradford’s milieu have the makers’ names stamped on the blade, rather than hidden on the tang. (29-30, 75) Swords have characters which affect their wielders, and evil ones demand blood before resheathing. (29, 35-38, 48, 375) Finally, the sharper the blade, the more effective: in some ways that’s true, certainly, but a sharper blade doesn’t make you a better fighter. (433) Second, poetry is a running theme, and while Bradford uses some actual works from the period,²¹ the poetry competition is themeless and the poems prepared beforehand. (234, etc.) And at one point a Japanese character turns Aesop’s Tortoise and Hare into a haiku. (143) Poetry is associated with women (100, 147) and with the “soft, cultured features of a nobleman” (83-85) though most of the major (and minor) poets of the age were samurai-born men.²²

Finally, for a work written by a martial artist, the descriptions of combat and battle are still oddly bad. Early on, an arrow passes “within a hair’s-breadth of his heart” (18) though clearly Jack doesn’t get a near-fatal chest wound at that point, not even a scratch. At one point “A cold steel blade was pressed against Jack’s throat” (150) though he had a cloth sack over his head which usually makes this sort of thing difficult. In a climactic scene, an arrow is shot through a hand which is holding a sword handle (473), an unlikely shot, at best. The elite Red Guard of the Kamakura/Tokugawa, vicious and effective warriors who give no quarter, are described late in the battle as “mean-looking.” (447) There are other little things: siege engines which are never described or used (405), the inexplicable explanatory chat break in the middle of a raging battle (377), the kiai shout as a mystical attack speciality of sohei warrior-monks (177), distinction between ashigaru, ronin and samurai (151, 159).²³

Works like the Young Samurai series claim to be originalist, purist representations of a fine culture, but really they are presentist projections of ahistorical apologia which apparently require not just revisionism, but wholesale historical reorganization to be credible. Some of these changes are probably justified, in Bradford’s mind, as simplifications: the dual Emperor/Shogun system is a little counter-intuitive, and having the greatest samurai of the age participate in a civil war for less than pure, honorable reasons would obviate the martial culture Bradford is promoting. These are, at best, excuses and rationalizations, rather than adequate reasons. As I said before, no disclaimer can excuse a presentation this far removed from reality claiming educational value. At least, having read the books, I feel a little more prepared for the onslaught of error I’m going to be seeing in my students’ work and the popular press.

1. I don’t really consider that a spoiler; it’s an actual event. Knowing how things turn out is fundamental to historical work. Though I must concede that Bradford’s willingness to mess with the timeline does raise some doubt.
2. The Way of the Warrior and The Way of the Sword. Also, the book jacket copy is unchanged.
3. Needless to say, the historical changes require substantial alterations to the characters of many historical figures. One can only hope that the bad pseudonyms shield young readers from connecting these caricatures with real people. At one point, the Miyamoto Musashi stand-in orders Jack to commit seppuku, then retracts it and calls it a “little joke.” (72)
4. very simplified, minus cavalry, with the addition of super-soldier elite troops
5. So the Tokugawa side can be made to look even more treacherous (350)
6. called Nakasendo here, after the highway
7. And no invasion of Korea!
8. called “Hasegawa”
9. And Hideyoshi, then wasn’t a commoner.
10. and given his pretensions to divinity, why not? It’s always a little tricky explaining to students why and how the imperial institution survived this era
11. Oddly, the living Hasegawa, Toyotomi Hideyori’s stand-in, is referred to as the “heir apparent” (167) which would mean that the throne is empty, which never happened. Child emperors with regencies were SOP. Also, “royal geisha.” (126)
12. Or Dan-no-ura, given the echoes of the Gempei war created by conflating the samurai and aristocratic traditions. (217, 308, etc.)
13. In the actual war of 1614-15, it’s the Toyotomi forces which were miscellaneous odds and ends, including ronin who, if they weren’t samurai, we’d more properly call mercenaries.
14. A lot of people outside of the xenophobic movement spend a lot of time being mildly racist (47, 55, 158) and apparently there’s a neutral term for foreigner — gaijin is considered derogatory — but we’re never told what it is. (129)
15. Their children are thuggish punks; their elite forces are implacable, nameless; and they don’t respect culture. Also, they use legalistic tactics. (350)
16. And Jack, who is supposed to be more experienced in these matters, apparently doesn’t realize that well-trained military forces know how to keep their powder dry in wet conditions and can keep using firearms and cannon in the rain. (390)
17. using the kagemusha dodge to allow him to appear dead while he joins the ninja (424), becomes an undefeatable assassin who somehow keeps losing.
18. among the least-surprising reveals of the book
19. at least three, apparently detailing Jack’s attempt to get to Nagasaki and escape Japan
20. Oddly, however, his home is not under surveillance after the battle, which allows Jack an avenue of escape that really wouldn’t exist if the Tokugawa were as effective and powerful as they’re portrayed here.
21. Historical poet Saigyo is called on to judge the contest. (197)
22. Since the imperial institution is conflated with the warlords, I’m not sure where these “soft” noblemen come from, either.
23. My favorite example is when one character challenges another to action with “Are you ashigaru or samurai?” (361)

It’s been a while since I did some syllabus blogging, but the most interesting course I was going to teach last semester didn’t come through,¹ so it’s been a little while since I taught a heavily revised or new course on Japan.

Next semester I’ll be teaching my “Japan since 1700” course, and I’m doing a substantial shuffle of the readings. One shift is that I’m increasing my focus on Japanese women: the course includes Recreating Japanese Women for the Tokugawa-Imperial period, Haruko’s World for the post-war, and Robin LeBlanc’s Bicycle Citizens for the post-post-war. I’ve used RJW before, but never for the survey; Bicycle Citizens replaces Bumiller’s Mariko’s Secrets which I’ve been using practically since it was published twenty years ago. It’s still a good book, for the end-of-bubble era, but I want something closer to the present for my end-of-course reading and this is the best looking candidate in a while. Japanese men get their due, I think: Chushingura for Tokugawa; Fukuzawa’s Autobiography for the Meiji; and the Cook&Cook Japan at War collection for the 20th century; something else for post-war might be good, but I might actually show a movie this time. The last three are all books I’ve used before, but again not in this configuration. I’ll probably have them doing reports and reviews on literature in translation, mostly, which will also fill in some of that.

One thing I discovered, when putting my orders together, is that my library is much better equipped than it used to be. Not only did it get a Nippon Foundation library grant, but it’s also a subscriber to the ACLS Humanities E-Book Collection, which has a small but nicely curated Japan collection. Both Bernsteins and Bicycle Citizens are in the collection, which means that some students will not have to purchase them. I have slightly mixed feelings about the e-books, though: while the collection is very good, the interface is inconsistent, like a JSTOR knock-off that didn’t quite make the cut. I’m not sure I’d assign whole books to be read that way without another option available. I will, however, be using it heavily for selected readings in my World History seminar.

The title of my graduate seminar is “World History as Discipline”: it’s awkward, but I had to indicate that the course was not just in the World History category – we offer graduate seminars in “American” and “World” history – but was about World History as such.² The readings are a mix. There are some relatively early classics of the field – Bailyn on Atlantic history, Mintz on sugar, Dunn on Ibn Battuta, and McNeill on disease and demographics – and some very new work – Burbank&Cooper on empires, Richards on evironmental history – and some stuff that’s there because I think it’s interesting – Ichioka on diaspora, Iriye on internationalism. There’s some theory in the Dunn collection The New World History, which also provides an entree into the necessary discussion of translating global history into local classrooms, and there will be some journal articles on that topic as well. I’m going to have them read an issue or two of the Journal of World History, to get the flavor of the field, as well, and their research project – more of a historiographical survey in this case – will be an extended investigation into a region or theme. I could teach the course twice more without repeating books, there’s so much good stuff on different aspects of these. I’d like to have more world systems theory in there than the bits in TNWH, for example, but that would push out Burbank&Cooper which, I’ve been assured, is the bleeding edge on the empire theory, and is at least as ambitious as any of the World Systems work I’ve read. I could do a whole other version of the class on Asia in regional and world history – Louise Young on empire, and Kuhn on diaspora, material on manga and cinema, the Mongols and Silk Road as global history, comparative feudalisms and environmental histories, the Early Modern question, more Iriye on regional diplomacy – and still not cover it in a semester, even with graduate students.

For better or worse, the seminar is an online course – our graduate program serves students across a broad swath of Kansas and beyond, not to mention a lot of full-time teachers – so the discussions will be slower, more focused. But that’s not a bad thing: I’m fairly sure that the vast majority of this is going to be very new material for my students, most of whom haven’t taken a history course that actually spanned multiple regions or nationalities since Hist 101 and 102. Much of this is relatively new to me, and I’m really looking forward to this semester.

1. For reasons passing understanding, “US-East Asia Relations: Migration, Trade and War” failed to garner a single registrant. We have a strong military history component to our program, though, so I’m considering breaking it down further, and just doing a course on 20th century US-East Asian wars. It would be really fun if I could co-teach it with my US military historian colleague, but that’s new administrative territory for me.
2. “Seminar in World History: World History” just didn’t seem like it would get my point across. “World History Theory and Practice” is closer, but sounds like an intro historiography course.

Reading The Way of the Sword while listening to the “Restoring Honor” event, I began to wonder if our current shift to discourses of honor and warriors is a side effect of the ubiquity of martial arts in the US over the last 35 years. The values of martial arts, even the most modern ones, include personal and collective honor in ways that were, for a long time, rather absent in most American rhetoric. Sarah Palin said “If you look for the virtues that have sustained our country, you will find them in those who wear the uniform, who take the oath, who pay the price for our freedom.” That’s as good a paraphrase of the Imperial Rescript for Soldiers and Sailors as I’ve ever heard from an American politician.

The cultural and historical problems which made Young Samurai: The Way of the Warrior such a weak hash of Harry Potter plotting and dojo delusions persist in the second book of the trilogy. Like the first volume, it’s a quick read, probably most suitable for middle school/junior high readers, though older readers with an interest in the martial arts won’t find it childish. Historians of Japan, however, will find this gaijin-boy-in-early-Edo tale a test of character not unlike the one the protagonist faces: to get through it, you must ignore exhaustion, overcome moments of sharp pain, focus on the goal, and achieve a state of no-mind…. [spoilers ahead, of course, though the fact that it's the middle part of a trilogy probably tells you most of what you need to know.]

As I said in my review of the last book, there is a lot of anachronism here regarding samurai culture, in particular the transposition of a fully-developed Hagakure-style bushido and 20th century dojo culture into early 17th century Japan. The books, after all, chronicle the adventures of a teenage English boy orphaned and marooned when ninja kill his father in Japan. Jack is adopted into the Miyamoto Musashi-like Masamoto Takeshi’s family, and begins his training as a samurai in Masamoto’s Two-Sword Kyoto School. The action is in the 1610s — though, as you’ll see below, not the 1610s that we’re familiar with — but for Bradford’s purposes, the culture is timeless.

Most of the anachronisms are minor, but the sheer quantity is, after a while, exhausting. From food¹ to women’s roles² to culture,³ Bradford routinely sacrifices historical reality to creating a familiar cultural milieu for his readers.⁴ Bradford also has his foreign characters using Western idioms — “The blind leading the blind,” (232) and “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” (344) — but not noting how strange they would sound to the Japanese characters. On the other hand, the Japanese characters talk in koans (or fortune cookies) a lot of the time as well: this culminates in a scene where Jack is preparing for a fight and everyone he talks to repeats their signature aphorism, and Jack then has to remember and use them all during the fight, a triumph of authorial pedantry. (pp. 375-389)

There are some truly weird alterations of history in this book, though, that go beyond behavioral quirks or contextual trappings. While this is a Japan in which Oda Nobunaga ruled the late 1500s⁵, it appears that in this version of history the Battle of Sekigahara hasn’t happened, and the Tokugawa polity does not, in fact, exist! There is a Daimyo Takatomi Hideaki (Toyotomi Hideyoshi?) who rules the Kyoto region and is the daimyo whom Masamoto serves and who supports the school, and a Daimyo Kamakura Katsura⁶ who rules Edo and is the patron of a rival school. While Daimyo Kamakura is gathering forces and beginning a nationalistic anti-Christian movement (46, 131, 171, passim), Daimyo Takatomi is maneuvering against him⁷ and is described as follows:

As you’re well aware, the ruling lord here in Kyoto is Daimyo Takatomi. But Daimyo Takatomi is not just responsible for this province. He governs Japan as one of the appointed regents, and he’s popular among the samurai lords. He likes Christians and foreigners. In fact, he likes them so much, I’ve heard that he’s converting to Christianity himself. (p. 96)

It’s not clear from this or from the context whether Takatomi is regent for the Emperor (who features prominently in the first book) or for the unnamed heir of the unnamed Hideyoshi. In fact, it’s not clear that Hideyoshi unified Japan in this timeline: it’s entirely possible that Oda Nobunaga did it, since he gets credit for most of the interesting military adventures of the recent past, or that Japan never really went through a period of disunity and civil war. Given the frequency with which characters either traveled to China (232, 349) or had contact with Chinese (346), there may not have been a wako pirate problem or invasion of Korea to interfere with the China trade. There are still areas considered “ninja territory” (283) which means that political control over localities is pretty weak. And the final challenges are referred to as “ancient samurai tradition” (352) which, in addition to conflating the school with the entire samurai class, seems to contradict the idea that this is Masamoto’s school, a recent development.

Clearly this is a very different timeline: there were in our history no daimyo outside of Kyushu who converted to Christianity — though the teacher speaking here could just be very wrong — and the anti-Christian movement and gradually escalating persecutions orchestrated by Daimyo Kamakura⁸ bear no resemblance to the nonchalance with which most daimyo greeted Christianity and foreign contact. Christianity was oppressed in Japan, but it was on orders from Hideyoshi and the Tokugawa Shoguns, and it was based on the dual loyalty problem, not on any theological or cultural revulsion against the religion. Granted, theology was cited in the Expulsion edicts, but I don’t know any credible historian who considers that more than a bit of rhetorical cover for the geopolitical considerations regarding contact with European Catholic empires.

Even in the discussions of combat, which is supposed to be Bradford’s forte, there’s an immense amount of sloppy work in this book. There’s the clichéd scene where a brash young bravo duels an older, calmer warrior, and gets efficiently dispatched. There’s the Hong Kong Cinema inspired move by Masamoto Akiko, turning her caught leg into a base for a cartwheel kick, then riding the momentum to land on the neighboring roof. There’s constant references to “the fighting stance,” (e.g. 233) as though there were only one. There’s the preternaturally perceptive blind staff master who trains Jack, et al., in blindfolded balance-beam combat and runs off the green-eyed ninja master almost single-handedly. Sensei Kano⁹ at least has one of the best lines in the book, when the ninja tries to exploit his blindness with scattered spikes: “Tetsu-bishi, how uninspired.” (343, then he pole vaults over them!) In the running for most bizarre detail is that one of the girls at the rival school has “blackened teeth and fingernails that had been sharpened into claws.” (169)¹⁰

Then there are the moments where the characters, in order to move the plot along, must be a little dim. One of the teachers claims that “Iron is full of impurities that weaken it.” (85) One of Jack’s schoolmates is confused when ninja show up in the snow wearing white because “ninja always wear black” (225) though in a society with a substantial ninja problem, the concept of camouflage would have to be pretty well known. Jack is assured several times that the anti-foreign political winds won’t affect him because he’ll be a tough and dangerous samurai, ignoring the fact that skill in combat has very little to do with freedom from oppression for small, visible minorities. (e.g. 177) Jack publicly accuses a schoolmate and rival of cheating in a competition, and none of the adults question his statements or investigate.¹¹ Jack breaks (briefly) under torture (337), which is quite out of character, and fails to recognize the difference between xenophobic prejudice and distrust of an individual who routinely cheats. (326)

There were a few unexpectedly nice touches. The gold-leafed tea room (79) represents an authentic strain in Tea in the 1500s and early 1600s, and suggests that Takatomi is supposed to be an alternate Hideyoshi, but with a very different character. Bradford also correctly notes that tea was not yet an English drink. (82) Though I can’t say I care for it as a plot device, there was a tradition among medieval warriors of premonitory dreams. (e.g. 120) And the Zen parable that teaches that enlightenment gets further away the harder you try is nicely deployed by one of the teachers. (256).

At this point, I have to read the third book, just to see how the alternate timeline comes out, or if Bradford will clarify the bizarre historical process that brought us to this point. As far as these two books go, though, no disclaimer¹² can possibly cover for the history, culture and writing which are on display here.

1. Sushi and Tempura unlikely at formal banquet, p. 38. Sashimi unlikely as student food, p. 87.
2. A daimyo daughter invited to a tea ceremony with her father, p. 43. The budding romantic triangle between her, Jack and Masamoto’s daughter. The fact that the daimyo’s daughter and Masamoto’s daughter — among others — are coequal students at Masamoto’s school.
3. Hard to know for sure, but seems early for origami, especially as Zen metaphor, and the crane isn’t a symbol of peace yet. (90-92, passim). I’ve never heard of hallucinogens used as meditative aids or tests of character in Japan. (358). And while elite samurai were probably mostly literate by this time, the attempt to bar Jack from participating in a critical rite of passage because he can’t write his name in kanji is a maneuver straight out of the 20th century bureaucratic playbook. (45).
4. and their teachers and guardians who want the books ‘educational’
5. and led assaults on ninja territory, (254)
6. a fascinating mix of historically implausible names, continuing the tradition he began in the first book with Masamoto’s sons Yamato and Tenno
7. with Masamoto’s help as a diplomatic envoy (150), which clearly breaks any remaining literary connection between Masamoto and the nearly unemployable Musashi
8. Using the term “Daimyo” as a cognate for “Lord” is awkward, at best, but I don’t want anyone thinking that the Kamakura bakufu was somehow involved in this. It’s not that far gone
9. Yes, Bradford uses “Sensei” as an honorific prefix
10. The blackened teeth aren’t really bizarre, except that she’s the only female Jack encounters in either book who does this, and it’s entirely inappropriate for an unmarried teenager.
11. This happens all the time in the Harry Potter books: when it’s necessary for the plot, the adults are completely oblivious to things like Quidditch equipment behaving radically differently than normal. The other laughably obvious Harry Potter borrowing in this book is a Patronus moment. (363)
12. “Young Samurai: the Way of the Sword is a work of fiction, and while based on real historical figures, events and locations, the book does not profess to be accurate in this regard. Young Samurai is more an echo of the times than a reenactment of history.”

My China-side colleague, Alan Baumler, noted that China seems to have supplanted Japan as the go-to model for economic development. This has, he says, required him to alter his own attitude towards Chinese history, which never really had much of a triumphal arc before. He says, though

Well, the Japan people seem to have adjusted to going from an Asian Anomaly to a model for humanity and back, so I guess we can.

My response was

Actually, Japan’s gone 180 degrees and has become a negative example for demographic, financial and rights development. Between the “aging Japan”, “Lost Decade” and rising tide of neo-nationalism….. we need a new narrative, too.

The last few times I’ve taught my Japan course that comes up to the present, I’ve used Bumiller’s book, but that one comes just at the beginning of the economic stagnation, and is now approaching 20 years old. I haven’t seen much that I’d like to use to replace it, either literature or ethnography. There’s Japan After Japan, but it seems like the kind of stuff I’d have to spend more time explaining and excusing than making good use of. I’m tempted to shift in the direction of global diaspora or something on the globalization of Japanese culture, but both of those seem a bit like avoiding the question.

What’s the new narrative? Have the economic slowdown, normalization, and globalization affected the way you present the post-war arc, or are the last two decades a distinct period?