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A story of friendship
Eiji is a smart, good-looking apprentice with a bright future. His fellow apprentice, Sabu, is a slow guy with a pointy head. A false accusation turns Eiji's world upside-down. He hates the world and seeks revenge. Fortunately, he has friends.
Click image for the first short story The Secret.
Strange & mysterious stories
This is a collection of early works, three novellas and four short stories, by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki. They are from a book compiling some of Tanizaki's mystery and detective stories but are stranger tales than simple mystery or detective stories.
- The Secret
- The Yanagiyu Incident
- The Passing of a Young Man
- Gold & Silver
- Along the Way
- The Tumor With a Human Face
- The Story of Mr. Aotsuka
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.
Click image for first two chapters.
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.
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
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.
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.
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).
Seven-year-old Dazai Osamu (second from left)
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Handwritten Manuscript of Goodbye
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Source of Dazai photos: Dazai Osamu, Dazai Osamu, Bunchosha, Tokyo, 1948.
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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.
Click image for the first chapter The Prince and the Slave Girl.
The First Samurai
Taira no Masakado was an ill-fated, reluctant warrior and a bit too naive.
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Click image for the first chapter Signs of Life.
Dragon vs Tiger
Uesugi Kenshin, the Dragon of Echigo, fought five battles at Kawanakajima against his rival Takeda Shingen, the Tiger of Kai. This fourth battle, which took place in the 16th century during the Warring States era, is captured by the great historical novelist, Eiji Yoshikawa.
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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)
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).
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Oshikawa Shunro
Oshikawa Shunro is credited as one of the fathers of science fiction in Japan. The Undersea Warship series was his popular series of six adventure novels. This novel, written while he was a student, was the first in that series.
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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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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
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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.
