Way Of the Warrior: Japan

THE WAY OF THE WARRIOR: JAPAN
By Alex Ness
August 17, 2021

“There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. There will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.”   Yamamoto Tsunetomo

A reader of this website writes "Hey Alex, I am fascinated by many of the subjects that fascinate you. We are about 2 years different in age, we have nearly identical taste, and I went to elementary, middle and high school 50 miles away from you. As you might not remember, in the recent past I mentioned that I went for a teacher degree in college and acquired a teacher license. What is an area of History that you like more than others? And tell us some works to get the fires inside going."

Some, if not all, of my readers know that I love Japan, and most all things Japanese. This appreciation and affection began early for me. My first book outside of any children's book that I'd read was 30 Seconds over Tokyo. One of the next books read was called Kamikaze by Yasuo Kuwahara. I bought at the age of 8 years old at a used book store in Central Wisconsin. I tightly held any money I made or was given, but this book was well worth the half of cover price cost. Over time I bought and collected World War II books, and I read all of them, both in number and depth. In my life only my brother, my lifelong best friend Russ and my wife Beth read more than me. (I suspect other folks have read more than me, but I didn't observe them reading all the time like I did with my brother, bestie and wife.)

“Bushido is realized in the presence of death. This means choosing death whenever there is a choice between life and death. There is no other reasoning.” Yamamoto Tsunetomo

From the beginning of my life I've liked all kinds of history, history and human progress and regress is all interesting to me, but military history was amazing to me and my young brain. I knew very early on that I wasn't a warrior. I didn't dream of fighting, I dreamed of knowing. I was someone moved by courage, but I never presumed to have had the same courage of anyone serving as a member of the military, at any time in my existence.

My religious faith also found a home in the ideals of Japan. As I studied and explored my inner spaces, I found a linear concept of creation, fall, redemption or damnation to Heaven or Hell, to be perfectly simple to understand, but in some ways lacking.  I think for me information without boundaries led me to think in ways most sharing my religious beliefs do not consider.  I am not saying I am better than anyone of any religion.  I just pursue my faith with a desire to know, to discover, to taste and feel all that my beliefs express.  A professor I had in college always got on my ass to get deeper into the thoughts in question. He'd say, you get good grades, but do you really remember and hold your lessons in your heart and find they are true?  Truth is a very high peak to pursue.

I love Japanese food, Sumo tournaments, the aesthetic of beauty and life, nature and death, led me to a place in my soul that I know I was woven with Japanese parts before birth.  And let us not forget Godzilla.  I think I've never lived without loving Japan and Japanese things.

The images at the bottom of the page show 12 tpbs of excellent quality. The first book is 47 Ronin, which is a classical samurai tale, with art done well by Stan Sakai, famous for the rabbit samurai Usagi Yojimbo, which is utterly fantastic. My love for Lone Wolf and Cub is well known. The Path has some distracting elements due to the publisher desire to make all works fit in a mythical linked magical universe, but that is, for the most part, toned down here.  It is a beautiful looking and great reading story.  Ron Marz did an excellent world journey for love Samurai tale. Samurai Son of Death felt a lot like the great movie Heaven and Earth (Not the Oliver Stone work.)  Samurai Jack is in my top three animated works. Ronin by Frank Miller was new, completely different than American comics, but to some it was derivative in style, a hybrid between Goseki Kojima, and Moebius. But what Miller did was tell a new story, using wonderful homages, and great depth. It is hard to go wrong there.  And there are some works from Europe that Marvel released about ten years ago.  Samurai is well done, great stories and art.

In the realm of books, most of these are not fiction.  The non-fiction realm is the first place to visit if you want to know more about Japan. There are fantastic writers about culture, who are not writing from Western civilization supremist views.  You might notice that not all are Asian writers. I think the writing works for me, and the commentary and information are valid despite the oddity of outsiders writing about the subject, I am an American, and my cultural outlook is similarly American.  While I might speak more than one language, have written books and covered all sorts of subjects, my brain still works in the cultural short cut of Americanisms.

The first works are by Jonathan Clements who wrote two brief history concise works about the Samurai and Japan. He has done books about other subjects, but his Samurai volume and brief history of Japan tell you exactly what you came to hear (or read).  I am often amazed how so many really dull books get recommended due to the obvious work put into them, but Clements does the opposite.  He knows you want to get a quick course of study, and gain a mastery of knowledge quickly.  (His book about the Mongols is similarly fantastic.)

Ivan Morris wrote about the ethos in the heart of Japan, and rather than separate peoples of the world with labels and shortcuts he looks at the cultural ideals and asks how they function, and how they came about.  The Nobility of Failure by him discusses why it is that the Japanese, supposedly perfectionist, admire and find noble acts of failure, so long as they are sincere in their action.  This goes a long way to understanding how samurai when protesting or being punished, would commit ritual suicide, and still have their honor.  With his book The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan (1964) Morris absolutely paints with exquisite detail how the Japanese carried out their leadership roles and how the emperor of Japan's life was complex, and if difficult, beautiful.

The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon and The Tale of Genji are milestones in world literature.  The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki Shikibu was perhaps the world's very first novel, a long tale with chapters and development of their lives.  The book, however good, is more good for the time and first of the species of book.  Whereas the Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon has tales of deeper intrigue, delicious and juicy comments, and tells a story about the court life of Japan in perhaps the same court as Lady Mirasaki.  Time obscures our knowledge of her life, but she is a fine recorder of thought.

“The world know it not; but you, Autumn, I confess it: your wind at night-fall stabs deep into my heart” Murasaki Shikibu

Bushido: The Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe was seen in the West as magnifying glass over the small print and details of a complex, intricate, brilliant culture.  But in Japan many scholars thought the work was a cheap, shoddy work. Time has since allowed the book to find a better reckoning by critics and readers, but for a new mind never having had any exposure, this book would be a fine introduction.

Hagakure by Yamamoto Tsunetomo and The Way of the Samurai, by Yukio Mishima are a guidebook to something entirely Japanese, the Samurai code and philosophy of life/death. Hagakure is a work with proverbs and short concise bits of knowledge meant for deeper reflection by the way it is written and shared.  Mishima's book is about a modern Japanese man, who might have won the Nobel prize for literature if certain things had gone in his direction, writes about the Hagakure and interprets it, not for Americans or Westerners, and not even for all Japanese. Mishima saw the world as entering a state of entropy. He wrote his companion book to the Hagakure for the Japanese men and women who had lost their way from the cultural fire that burned in everyone, and now was revered and applauded by so few.  Some said he wrote it to assert himself after not serving in World War Two. He had legitimately failed his physical, so while he might have fed his ego bitter regret, he needn't have done so. I've read accounts that the physical was rigged for him to fail by people who knew war would have destroyed the sensitive man. Whatever the case was, The Way of the Samurai is a brilliant book, illuminating more of an already perfect book the Hagakure.  

Stephen Turnbull is a trained historian, bright man with an encyclopedic mind possessing additional volumes of megabytes in his massive number of years and research.  He does write like a know it all sometimes. I love his books, I enjoy the flavor of his words, but I've read a number of people saying they thought he was an arrogant jerk in person. He might be, but that doesn't equal hubris. His knowledge came from experience, and education and training, and he had to have a natural talent of thought and expression to have written so many books. He covers the world of the samurai warrior, their leaders, their castles, and their enemies.  He has always accompanied his words with either beautiful art, or photographs or maps.  For me I get both why some are put off, and appreciate that obviously some like what he writes or there would not be so many works that he has successfully written and sold to a publisher.

“Summer grasses,
All that remains
Of soldiers' dreams”   Bashō