Book review by Matt S. “After all, we won’t die normally on straw mats. In all probability we’ll be murdered when we least expect it. So if that time should come, never be confused or grieve over me. Even if we should be killed, we ourselves will be happy because…
Read MoreBook review by Matt S. “Without military power”, Japan’s education minister announced in a radio address back in September 1945, “we go forward with culture.” His comment envisioned the country’s peaceful reinvention via education and the arts. Finding quality accounts of the development of Japan through its modern history is…
Read MoreBook review by Clark A. Masashi Kishimoto, author of one of the biggest names that springs to mind when hearing terms like “anime” and “manga” (that being Naruto), has gone from writing about ninja to writing about samurai. There’s no denying that Kishimoto’s new Samurai 8: The Tale of Hachimaru…
Read MoreBook review by Matt S. Almost every single samurai throughout history was Japanese. That’s perhaps the most obvious thing a person could say of course, but by the time that Japan was genuinely opening its boarders to international trade and cultural exchange, the samurai had already come and gone as…
Read MoreBook review by Matt S. Published a little over a decade ago (2008), Minato Kanae’s Confessions was the book that immediately established her as one of Japan’s pre-eminent crime fiction writers. Like many of the best modern crime fiction works, Confessions isn’t so interested in figuring out whodunnit – that’s…
Read MoreLiterature by Matt S. Kirino Natsuo is one of the most important figures in modern Japanese literature – right up there with Murakami. Kirino’s writing isn’t exactly pleasant to read, and you’ll walk away from Grotesque feeling more than a little deflated, but the way she structures her writing, and…
Read MoreArticle by Matt S. I’m a big fan of reading. I recommend it to all people. As much as the world seems to be moving away from the written word and books in favour of “in-depth” tweets at a whopping 280 characters, video games, YouTube videos of tasering rats, and…
Read MoreBooks by Matt S. We talk a lot about Japanese games, films, anime and manga in western culture, but we talk about Japanese literature far less frequently, and that’s a pity, because as with all those other mediums, Japan has produced many of the world’s finest writers, and literature gives…
Read MoreThe good folk over at PopMatters have run a review of Game Art, and saw it worth a very positive 8/10 score. As the author, Christopher Williams, writes: “Put simply, I’m rather taken by this book and the approach that Sainsbury has taken to his subjects and subject matter. This…
Read MoreSee, now I know how game developers feel. The anxious wait for reviews to start appearing after you know that the journalists are ploughing through something that you have spent years on and represents your very heart and soul. Hoping, praying, and begging any god that has ever been around…
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