(Un)Censored Wooden Printing Block from the Edo Period

Collage of wooden printing block, obverse and reverse, with features

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 (kiwame-in) carved onto a “wood plug” (ireki, 入木) that was inserted into the block to indicate it had been approved by censors.

The carving on the reverse provides an outline for Matsumoto’s figure, a rigid shape in the background to frame his body, and a small added detail to the hilt of his sword. Both sides of the block feature kentô (or ‘pass marks,’ 見当) , carved corners that ensured the accurate registration of the woodblock image.

The image above shows a collage of four views of the block. In clockwise order, the top view reveals the main side, or obverse, of the printing block; the top right shows a close-up view of “Toyokuni e” carving on the obverse side; the bottom right shows the full reverse side of the printing block; and the bottom left provides a close-up view of one of two kentо̄ (carved corners) that ensured accurate placing of the block on the print.

The picture to the right shows a close-up view of the lower right-hand corner of the obverse where we can see the removable wooden plug (ireki) with the character for ‘approved’ (kiwame, 極).  As part of woodblock printing industry of that time, inspectors (gyoji) selected among fellow publishers were responsible for reviewing the draft sketches to ensure that they were not offensive to the Tokugawa shogun. If they approved the draft, they marked the image, literally, with the seal of ‘approval’. Then, the engraver carved the design along with the seal onto wooden printing boards.  

This kabuki printing block is one of two that are currently held in the Special Collections at the William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library. Stay tuned to hear more about the other wooden printing block, entitled “Sparrow in a Pine Grove” (“Suzume no Matsubara”), which was once used to print illustrated travel books in the late Edo period, circa 1800s-1868.

 

Online Japanese Newspapers with PressReader!

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!

Mainichi Shimbun shown on 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 you would like to read the Mainichi Shimbun, you will now have to  conduct a search for titles that are published in Japanese. To do this, scroll down past the “Featured” section to the header called “Publications.” Just right of this header, you will see the “All Languages” dropdown button, which you will click in order to find the “Japanese” language. After checking the appropriate box, make sure you click “Done” at the bottom right corner to see the results of this search. (If you click the “X” in the top right corner, you will cancel your selection.)

These steps should bring to you a page with thumbprint images of some of the Japanese Magazine and Newspaper titles available on PressReader.

As suggested in the screenshot above, you will see a thumbnail image for the Mainichi Shimbun under the “Newspapers” heading, and clicking on this thumbnail brings you to the newspaper’s top page.

Browsing the newspaper from here is relatively user friendly. You can either “Read Now” (by clicking the green button) or scroll down to view the latest issues, which appear further down the page. Alternatively, you can click the calendar icon to search by date for a specific back issue.

Selecting an issue on PressReader

We hope you will enjoy using the PressReader to access news from Japan, Ohio, or anywhere else in the world. If you would like to know more about other Japanese language options on PressReader, stay tuned! In my next blog, I will cover other tools and options for browsing various periodical titles. If you have further questions about research and resources, please contact the OSU Japanese Studies Librarian, Dr. Ann Marie Davis (davis.5257@osu.edu).

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

Woodblock print of Japanese courtesan with Japanese script in upper left corner 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 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 translates roughly as “If I Could Read That: An Introduction to Japanese kuzushiji and komonjo.” As the picture suggests, the book offers various translations as well as useful tips for learning how to decipher such Japanese calligraphic texts often found in famous Edo-period woodblock prints.


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

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

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)

2 Catalog Covers

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)

2 Catalog Covers

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)

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)

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Mapping the Allied Air War – AAF Target Chart of Tokyo

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.

 

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

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

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

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.

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Announcing the Thomas Gregory Song Research Fellowship, Spring 2023

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.

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The View that Rocks: The Geology of Mount Fuji

Guest post by Takuma Goto

In my ongoing explorations of the Japanese Maps Collection, Mount Fuji, or Fuji-san to speakers of Japanese, is perhaps the most prominent landmark in Japan. Given its significance in the Japanese geological, social, and spiritual landscape, in the present blog I have decided to focus on this great mountain.

Examples of Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji from Wikipedia.org. ‘Fine Wind, Clear Morning’ (Gaifū kaisei 凱風快晴); Thunderstorm Beneath the Summit’ (Sanka hakuu 山下白雨); ‘Tsukuda Island in Musashi Province’ (Buyō Tsukuda-jima 武陽佃島 ); Shore of Tago Bay, Ejiri at Tokaido ( Tōkaidō Ejiri tago-no-uraryakuzu 東海道江尻田子の浦略図) 

Reaching an elevation of 3,776 meters, Mount Fuji is the highest peak in Japan as well as a major cultural symbol. This mountain, which is also a dormant volcano, is so important to Japanese culture that it has been canonized in Shinto mythology. For example, at the base of Mount Fuji is the city of Fujinomiya, where the goddess of the mountain, Konohanasakuya-hima (木花咲耶姫), is housed in a dedicated shrine called Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha (富士山本宮浅間大社). Mount Fuji is also a popular motif in classical literature, traditional crafts, and gardens. This mountain is well recognized world-wide from its extensive depictions in traditional woodblock printing, most notably Katsushika Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Japanese: Fugaku Sanjūrokkei, 富嶽三十六景, published from 1830-1835).

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