Japanese Collections

A Rare Acquisition: Yosano Akiko’s A New Translation of The Tale of Genji

March 23, 2025 / davis.5257@osu.edu / Comments Off

The Japanese collections at OSU hold a wide range of contemporary and historic editions of the famous Genji Monogatari. Among these is a rare and historically significant set of A New Translation of The Tale of Genji (Shin’yaku Genji monogatari), published in 1912 by the renowned feminist writer Yosano Akiko (与謝野晶子, 1878–1942). Held in the Rare Books and Manuscript Library, this set represents a pivotal moment in the reception of Genji Monogatari, as Yosano boldly transformed the Genji Monogatari into a modern-language masterpiece that could be easily appreciated by all.

The four books that make up Shin’yaku Genji Monogatari.
Image courtesy of The Lavenberg Collection of Japanese Prints

Her translation was both a scholarly achievement and an uncommon intervention, offering a fresh poetic rendering of Genji at a time when it was largely studied through a male-centric academic lens. As a first edition, this set is exceptionally rare and an invaluable resource for scholars, students, and enthusiasts of Japanese literature.

(Un)Censored Wooden Printing Block from the Edo Period

November 27, 2024 / davis.5257@osu.edu / Comments Off

Recently our library acquired a couple of wooden printing blocks that were used during the Edo Period (1603-1868). One of these, featuring a kabuki actor named “Matsumoto Koshiro,” forms part of the Japanese Theatre Collection and is held in the Lawrence and Lee Theatre Research Institute. Dated roughly from the 18th century, the object measures 165 x 340 x 20 mm and is double-sided, with the main image carved on the obverse, and a background and outline carved on the reverse.

Matsumoto Koshiro is a stage name that has been held by a distinguished line of kabuki actors since the early 18th century. Based on the carving of “Toyokuni-e” on the upper right side of the obverse, it is believed that one of Utagawa Tokyokuni’s skilled disciples created the original illustration upon which the wooden block carvings are based.

This wooden block also bears a mark of censorship: a seal carved onto a “wooden plug” (ireki, 入木) that was inserted into the block to indicate it had been approved by censors.

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Online Japanese Newspapers with PressReader!

September 15, 2024 / Nicholas Castle / Comments Off

Current newspapers can offer a great way to see how events are unfolding and discussed in Japan. In this digital age, such resources are thankfully at our fingertips. The present blog shows how advanced readers of Japanese can access Japanese periodicals and newspapers like the Mainichi Shinbun (毎日新聞, literally “Daily News”) in full print view through an online database called PressReader!

The Mainichi Shimbun is one of the top five most widely read daily newspapers in Japan (along with the Asahi Shimbun, Yomiuri Shimbun, Sankei Shimbun, and Nikkei Shimbun). In addition to carrying the daily news, PressReader also offers over ten years of full print views of the Mainichi Shimbun dating back to April 2011. (It also offers of other foreign language newspapers, as well as English language newspapers published overseas. For example, readers who prefer reading in English can also access the Japan News, a major English language newspaper published by the Yomiuri Shinbun, on this powerful digital archive.)

Accessing PressReader and the Mainichi Shinbun

To access the Mainichi Shinbun, we recommend starting from the OSU library catalog page for PressReader . From here, you will click on the blue “PressReader” link near the middle of the page. After entering your OSU credentials (name.# and password), you will next be brought to Pressreader’s home page.

“If I could read that…” and other Paleography Handbooks

June 27, 2024 / davis.5257@osu.edu / Comments Off

Have you ever wished you could read the Japanese calligraphy (kuzushiji) in museum woodblock prints or old Edo-period manuscripts? When it comes to archival sources and manuscripts, even expert Japanologists often feel the need to brush up on– if not start completely from ‘zero’–their Japanese paleography reading skills.

With this in mind, we’ve recently stepped up our holdings in Japanese paleography handbooks, including several nifty new acquisitions by Kobayashi Masahiro, an expert and scholar of historical documents (komonjo).

The image here, courtesy of the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, is a digital facsimile of Shojiki-mono (正直者) from Kitagawa Utamaro’s series Kyokun Oya no Megane (教訓親の目鑑). It is one of several museum pieces featured in Kobayashi’s book Korenara yomeru! Kuzushiji, komonjo nyūmon (これなら読める!くずし字・古文書入門), which roughly translated is “If I Could Read That: An Introduction to Japanese kuzushiji and komonjo.” As the picture suggests, the book offers a variety of lesson as well as useful tips for learning how to decipher such Japanese texts often found in Edo-period woodblock prints. Describing the moral virtue of being honest for Edo period young women, the body text of famous woodblock prints such this one are all the more legible thanks to Kobayashi’s insightful lessons.

For additional titles on learning Japanese hentaigana, check out these recent additions:

Jitsuryoku Hantei Komonjo Kaidokuryoku by Kobayashi Masahiro. Kashiwa Shobō, 2016).
Korenara Yomeru! Kuzushiji, Komonjo Nyūmon by Kobayashi Masahiro. (Ushio Shuppansha, 2018).
Yomereba Tanoshii Komonjo Nyūmon: Rikyū, Utamaro, Bashō No Kuzushiji o Yomu by Kobayashi Masahiro. (Ushio Shuppansha, 2017).
Iroha de Manabu! Kuzushiji, Komonjo Nyūmon by Kobayashi Masahiro (Ushio Shuppansha, 2019).
Kakereba Yomeru! Kuzushiji, Komonjo Nyūmon: Kyōiku Kanji Senjimon by Kobayashi Masahiro (Ushio Shuppansha, 2018).
Tanoshiku Manaberu! Kuzushiji, Komonjo Pazuru. 1. by Kobayashi Masahiro. (Ushio Shuppansha, 2020).
Toite Oboeru Kuzushiji, Komonjo Doriru. by Kobayashi Masahiro. (Ushio Shuppansha, 2019).

An Update on JKBooks: Two New Primary Source e-Collections

March 14, 2024 / davis.5257@osu.edu / Comments Off

Guest post by Mitch Clark

We are pleased to announce the addition of two new exciting collections to the JKBooks eBook platform at University Libraries: the Dai-ichi Koto Gakko Koyukai Zasshi (published by The Museum of Modern Japanese Literature) and the Kobunso Taika Koshomoku (a major corpus of antiquarian book catalogs). Both of these collections will be useful to scholars investigating topics related to early 20th century culture, especially youth culture, education, literature, and philology. With the addition of these titles, the number of online JKBooks collections now reaches a grand total of thirteen available to OSU users. Below is a short description of these collections as well as some highlights and screenshots of their contents.

Dai-ichi Koto Gakko Koyukai Zasshi (第一高等学校校友会雑誌)

Two Sample covers of the
Daiichi Koto Gakko Koyukai Zasshi

The Dai-ichi Koto Gakko Koyukai Zasshi is a magazine published by First Higher School of Japan, a former preparatory boy’s boarding school in Tokyo and one of Japan’s most elite institutions of the modern era. Published from the Meiji period until during WWII, the database offers all but 2 issues (380 of 382 ever published) of the magazine. (Issues No. 293 and 295 of 1923 (Taisho 12) have not been found and are therefore not included in the collection).

In the publisher’s words, this “magazine vividly records the mentality fostered within this elite high school” from the pre-war period until World War II. In addition to leading artists and literary figures, many of the students of this school eventually became prominent leaders in academia, politics, the economy, and education. The repository thus “stands as a spiritual record of the youthful times of those figures” during much of Japan’s modern era (1890-1940).

Among other topics, the journal overflows with poetry and prose written by such luminaries as Jun’ichiro Tanizaki (谷崎潤一郎, Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, 1886 – 1965) and Yasunori Kawabata (川端康成, Kawabata Yasunari, 1899 – 1972) during their high school days. While many of the issues emphasize the arts, its diverse contents will be of interest to wide-ranging scholars from many disciplines including the social sciences. Some of pages that stood out to me, for instance, were those with multiple essays (as well as a team fight song) about the school’s baseball club in the early Taisho period. An analysis of such sources can certainly help in constructing a more vivid image of early baseball culture in Tokyo and Japan!

Screenshot of the school’s Baseball Club Fight Song, Supplement Issue No. 2, February 28, 1909, pp. 110-11.

Kobunso Taika Koshomoku (弘文荘待賈古書目)

Two Sample covers of the 77-volume
catalog Kobunso Taika Koshomoku

The Kobunso Taika Koshomoku is a 77-volume catalog collection that lists approximately 20,000 antiquarian books. Distributed to customers of the vintage bookstore “Kōbunsō” founded by Shigeo Sorimachi (1901-1991), the volumes were originally published between 1933 and 1984 and filled with detailed bibliographical information, illustrations, and publishing histories. They are therefore an especially useful reference for scholars of philology and bibliographical studies.

In my first browsing of the catalogue, I stumbled upon some Western classics. Entries 93 through 95, for example, list first edition copies of such famous English language books as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

Entries 93-95. Kobunso Taika Koshomoku, No. 48,
Showa 51.01 (January 1976), pp. 106.

JapanKnowledge Books (aka JK Books) is an ever-expanding eBook platform hosted by JapanKnowledge (an online treasure trove in its own right of Japan’s most important dictionaries and encyclopedia). For an overview (or just a refresher) on “JKBooks,” please take the time to visit this past blog. The list below shows a list of the newest collections (marked with *) along with the many others offered through our library.

1. Taiyo
2. Bungei Kurabu: Meiji-hen
3. Dai-ichi Koto Gakko Koyukai Zasshi*
4. Takita Choin kyuzo Kindai sakka genkoshu
5. Fuzoku Gaho
6. Gunsho Ruiju series
7. Bijutsu Shinpo
8. Toyo Keizai Shimpo / Weekly Toyo Keizai Digital Archives
9. Kobunso Taika Koshomoku*
10. Jinbutsu Sosho
11. The ORIENTAL ECONOMIST Digital Archives
12. Kamakura Ibun
13. Bungeishunju Archives

If you have any questions regarding JKBooks, or any other resource offered for Japanese Studies at the OSU Libraries, please contact us!

The Dainihon kōtei ōezu: an Edo Travel Map Facsimile (ca. 1840s)

October 31, 2023 / davis.5257@osu.edu / Comments Off

Guest Post by Takuma Goto

Originally published in 1843, the Dainihon kōtei ōezu (大日本行程大繪圖 transl.: Great Japanese Travel Map) illustrated the Japanese state and its borders at that time. The northern island of Ezochi (present-day Hokkaido), for instance, is not pictured on this map as it was not yet annexed into Japanese territory. This colonial acquisition occurs after the Meiji Restoration (1868). Our copy at OSU (pictured below) is a facsimile (printed in 1977) of an 1857 re-issue of the original version from 1843.

Dainihon kōtei ōezu ( 大日本行程大繪圖). 27 x 199 cm (unfolded)

Mapping the Allied Air War – AAF Target Chart of Tokyo

April 24, 2023 / davis.5257@osu.edu / Comments Off

Guest Post by Takuma Goto

In a previous blog, I discussed our University Libraries’ ongoing Japanese maps project. Today, I’d like to share another interesting map I’ve encountered: a World War II U.S. Army Air Forces’ (AAF) “target chart” of Tokyo, Japan.

Historical Background

Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941, the United States quickly mobilized for the Pacific War. The following April, the AAF’s aerial campaigns against Imperial Japan began with the Doolittle Raid on the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. This small-scale air raid would become the first of hundreds of Allied bombings throughout World War II until Japan’s surrender in August 1945.

AAF Target Chart Japan. Washington, D.C.: Army Map Service, 1942.

Herman J. Albrecht Library of Historical Architecture – Rare Pop-up Teahouses by Nobutatsu Tansai

February 15, 2023 / Nicholas Castle / Comments Off

Modern architects are acquainted with the idea of representing their designs in three-dimensions with the help of computer software. CAD (computer-aided design) programs can turn useful two-dimensional plans into practical 3D models as they would be seen in real life. Before the evolution of such digital technologies, artists in Edo Japan (1603-1868) created highly technical pop-up drawings known as okoshi-ezu (起絵図 Okoshi-ezu defined by JAANUS), which modeled 3D buildings through the construction of folding paper and cut-outs. Nobutatsu Tansai (覃斎信立) was one such designer, and he made dozens of examples of this origami-like art form with a particular focus on the spaces of the tea ceremony (茶の湯, cha no yu).

The contemporary wooden box containing the flattened pop-ups
The opened box
Table of contents for the set of architectural teahouses held at University Libraries
A flat, deconstructed teahouse, ready to be assembled
A fully constructed pop-up teahouse
Interior details
Stamp of the artist

This unique collection of Tansai’s chashitsu (茶室, teahouse, lit. “tea room”) pop-ups is held in the Herman J. Albrecht Library of Historical Architecture, located in OSU’s Thompson Library. Contained in a wooden box, these paper replicas are exceptionally rare, one of only three known collections in the world. The other two are held in Japan’s National Diet Library in Tokyo and in the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Dated between 1820 and 1860 and believed to have been made in Kyoto, this set of okoshi-ezu are comprised of 65 pieces and are in remarkable condition for nearly 200-year-old sheets of folding paper.

Japanese-style architecture is eminently unique. Tansai masterfully captured the trappings of chashitsu, drawing (and folding) from the designs of famous historical buildings in and around Kyoto like the Fushin-an and Myoki-an teahouses. Each design is numbered and recorded in an accompanying manuscript. Tansai’s precise work demarcates the shape of the teahouses, but he has also faithfully written the materials and exact real dimensions of each structure. The sizes of rooms in Japan are often measured by the number of straw tatami mats that can fit inside, one of the measurements Tansai recorded. This is especially apt for a traditional tea room, an exemplar of Japanese-style rooms (和室, washitsu). Other elements of Japanese architecture represented include shōji (paper-covered sliding doors) and tokonoma (alcoves where hanging calligraphy scrolls or other artistic objects are displayed). The folded drawings are made on washi (和紙), a kind of durable handmade paper crafted in Japan, and the artist has stamped his personal artist’s stamp (判子, hanko) onto each model.

It is hard to overstate the rarity and significance of this special item. Japan’s paper arts, historic architecture, and ceremonial heritage are all well represented here through Tansai’s work. They are tangible icons enveloping intangible tradition; carefully crafted and lovingly preserved, these drawings express qualities that one could say permeate the macro culture of Japan’s old customs and are befitting of the stature of great historical architecture.

To view this rare collection, please contact Dr. Eric Johnson (johnson.4156@osu.edu), Curator of Thompson Special Collections, or Dr. Ann Marie Davis (davis.5257@osu.edu), Japanese Studies Librarian.

To see additional photographs, you can take a look at the Rare Books & Manuscript Library’s Facebook page. Consider following them to see news about other unique pieces.

These folding models belong to the Herman J. Albrecht Library of Historical Architecture, which can be visited in Thompson Library.

Read more about Japanese teahouses with materials from our collections:

Niwa to chashitsu by Tei Nishimura (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1956)

Shiro to chashitsu : Momoyama no kenchiku, kōgei I by Nobuo Tsuji et al. (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1992)

Kyō no chashitsu by Takao Okada (Kyoto: Gakugei Shuppansha, 1989)

External links to scholarly articles about okoshi-ezu:

Okoshi-ezu: Speculations on Thinness by Andrew Barrie, comparing modern Japanese architectural design to the paper pop-ups of the past

Okoshi-ezu by Siân Bowen, written for the Victoria and Albert Museum of Art & Design, UK, the world’s largest museum of applied arts and decorative design

Level Up Your Japanese With Online TADOKU

January 9, 2023 / Evelyn Seitz / Comments Off

Some of our Tadoku (多読) books at Thompson Library, now available online, too!

What is Tadoku?

Do you like to read? Seeing that you have made it to this library website, I’m guessing you do. If so, tadoku (多読 )—literally, “extensive reading”—is one of the best things you can do to improve your Japanese language skills. In fact, you may have done tadoku before without even realizing it!

As a grade-schooler, did you ever have “silent reading?” An “SSR” (Sustained Silent Reading) period? If this rings a bell, then you are already familiar with the practice of tadoku. Now, if you hated being forced to read for long periods of time in school, don’t fret! Tadoku need not be so regimented. In principle, it is the reading of a large quantity of comprehensible material rather than reading short-yet-difficult material (think chapter books over academic reading assignments).

While not a uniquely Japanese concept, tadoku is popular in the Japanese language learning sphere to improve reading speed, comprehension, and vocabulary. Incidentally, you can also use this method for listening practice! The concept is simple: read a lot from a book that you mostly understand, without the help of a dictionary.

Announcing the Thomas Gregory Song Research Fellowship, Spring 2023

November 11, 2022 / davis.5257@osu.edu / Comments Off

Thomas Gregory Song ca. 1940 in school uniform in Japan-occupied Dairen
(present-day Dalian, China). Image courtesy of Rare Books & Manuscripts Library

The Ohio State University Libraries is pleased to announce the Thomas Gregory Song Research Fellowship for an independent research project that makes substantial on-site use of the Thomas Gregory Song (TGS) Papers in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library (https://library.osu.edu/collections/ SPEC.RARE.0195/collection-inventory). Written predominantly in Japanese and English (with some documents in Korean), the TGS Papers include Song family genealogical records; personal photographs from Song’s childhood; an Oral History Interview; over 2300 blog posts; and personal correspondence, journals, and essays. The TGS Papers shed significant light on topics of World History, East Asian Studies, Asian American Studies, Asian diaspora, migration, and gender and sexuality studies. For more detailed information on the Song Family history and related collections held at the University Libraries, please visit the recently launched Thomas Gregory Song Family Exhibit.

Applications are due by on Dec. 15, 2022 at 5:00pm.