Japanese Biography

When Ian Buruma arrived in Tokyo in 1975, Japan was little more than an idea in his mind, a fantasy of a distant land. A sensitive misfit in the world of his upper middle class youth, what he longed for wasn't so much the exotic as the raw, unfiltered humanity he had experienced in Japanese theater performances and films, witnessed in Amsterdam and Paris.

カナダのカフェで食べたふわふわのワッフル。モンゴルの青空の下、遊牧民と調理した羊のドラム缶蒸し。旅の最終日にバーテンダーが作ってくれたコーヒー味のオリジナルカクテル。

Flown to Japan as a 16-year-old exchange student, Roy Dean entered the world of fighting through the art of Judo. Returning to the USA, he pursued even more intense study, becoming an apprentice to a Japanese jiu jitsu and aikido master in Monterey, California. This is a recollection of transformative events, his introduction to the art of Brazilian jiu jitsu, and the lessons you can only learn by living in a dojo.

Marine general William H. Rupertus is best known today for writing the Corps' Rifleman's Creed. Rupertus was one of the outstanding Marines of the twentieth century, but he died in 1945, so his story has never been told. Rupertus "made his bones" in the USMC's "savage wars of peace" before World War II: Haiti for three years after World War I, China in 1929, and again in 1937.

オーケストラを指揮したい! 東京藝大で指揮者修行に奮闘するイワキとナオズミ。師と出逢い、ケンカと失恋を越え、ついに演奏会の日がやって来た! 名エッセイストが綴る、涙と笑いの傑作藝大青春記。

週刊文春連載エッセイ「夜ふけのなわとび」から抜粋した林真理子さんのお言葉集。毒舌が芸にまで昇華された林さんのエッセイですが、中でも含蓄があっておもしろい言葉のエッセンスを集めた金言格言集ともいうべき一冊です。

笑えて泣ける岸田家の日々のこと　車いすユーザーの母、ダウン症で知的障害のある弟、ベンチャー起業家で急逝した父――

自ら災難に突進する性癖ゆえの艱難辛苦を乗り越え92年間生きて来た佐藤さんだからからこそ書ける緩急織り交ぜた文章は、人生をたくましく生きるための箴言も詰まっていて、大笑いした後に深い余韻が残ります。

ぜひ日本最高峰の名エッセイをご堪能ください。

タイカレーの普及に執念を燃やす食品メーカー社長、活け締め名人とのタッグで極上の鯛寿司を生み出す寿司職人、ミニスカのユニフォームで一世を風靡した理容店女性オーナー……。

Oscar-winning director Hayao Miyazaki is the genius behind such animated classics as Princess Mononoke, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds. His bountiful imagination and compassion have earned him accolades the world over. Until the early 1990s, Miyazaki’s work was largely unfamiliar to American audiences. But that would soon change, and now fans of all ages eagerly await new material from the master.

Kiyo's father arrived in California determined to plant his roots in the land of opportunity after leaving Japan. He, his wife, and their nine American-born children labored in the fields together, building a successful farm. Yet at the outbreak of World War II, Kiyo's family was ordered to Poston Internment Camp. This memoir tells the story of the family's struggle to endure in these harsh conditions and to rebuild their lives afterward in the face of lingering prejudice.

無一文から２兆円企業へ――ドン・キホーテを成功に導いた「運」の極意。三十四期連続で増収増益を成し遂げ、売上二兆円のドン・キホーテ。無一文から日本を代表する創業経営者へ――

Euphemistically labeled as the "Water Supply and Prophylaxis Administration" and "HippoEpizootic Administration" of the Imperial Japanese Army, Unit 731 and Unit 100, as well as their subsidiary branches, performed human experimentation on the innocents under the leadership of Dr. Ishii Shiro. Although the exact number of victims is unclear since the Japanese destroyed most of the evidence at the end of the war, but it ranged from 3,000-250,000 innocent men, women, and children.

スポーツコラムニストとして活躍するミッチ・アルボムは、偶然テレビで大学時代の恩師の姿を見かける。

February 19, 1942. George Takei is four years old when his world changes forever. Two months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares anyone of Japanese descent an enemy of the United States. George and his family were American in every way. They had done nothing wrong. But because of their Japanese ancestry, they were removed from their home in California and forced into camps with thousands of other families who looked like theirs.

Naomi Osaka grew up in Japan and the US, with one foot in each place. But wherever she was, she loved to play tennis—and she worked hard at it too, always practicing and improving. Many people doubted that she would make it as a professional player, but she persisted and showed the world that she is a champion. Her talent on the court and her activism for racial justice and mental health causes off it have made Naomi an inspiration to fans everywhere.

A naive young man, a railway enthusiast and radio buff, was caught up in the fall of the British Empire at Singapore in 1942. He was put to work on the 'Railway of Death' - the Japanese line from Thailand to Burma. Exhaustively and brutally tortured by the Japanese for making a crude radio, Lomax was emotionally ruined by his experiences.

One by one, things that Norm and his Japanese American family took for granted are taken away. In a matter of months, they, along with everyone else of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast, are forced by the government to move to internment camps, leaving everything they have known behind.

池谷裕二氏(東京大学薬学部教授)推薦!「あなたの脳には正体不明の支配者がいる。あなた自身はその生態を傍観するだけの脇役。ともあれ読んで衝撃を受けてほしい」

常に「特殊」なものとして語られ、現実感に欠けていた「ドラッグの世界」。「他人のトリップなど聞きたくない。面白いのは、ドラッグの周辺にいる人たちだ」と豪語する著者がリポートする、愉快で、どこか物悲しいドラッグの世界。 眠れないシャブ、運び屋の努力と苦悩、ジャンキーの素顔、実録覚醒剤裁判、熱狂レイブ、ドラッグセックス、アムステルダム帰りのジャンキー、裏山マリファナ栽培記、イラン人と売人の関係、ケタミンで臨死体験、インド人化する日本人売人、笑えない禁断症状、各国マリファナ事情、…… ※本商品は「実録ドラッグ・リポート」(彩図社刊 草下シンヤ著 ISBN:978-4-88392-354-0 1,260円(税込))をオーディオ化したものです。 (C)Shinya Kusaka