The Mongol Invasions Of Japan 1274 And 1281

Yesterday I walked into the store at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco and spotted a new book by Stephen Turnbull. The Mongol Invasions Of Japan 1274 And 1281 and bought a copy. Now why would the Cartoon Art Museum have a history book on samurai warfare? Well they have the Drawing the Sword: Samurai in Manga and Anime exhibit going on. I do have to confess playing a role in this book being in the store. I advise the store on things Japanese and when they wanted to get books on samurai to have on hand for sale during the exhibit I simply recommended everything in print by Dr Turnbull. I cannot recommend his works too strongly, if you want well researched and written works on samurai and Japanese military his are some of the best you can get. I did recommend plenty of books by other authors.

All the Kannon for now

The last of my current series of posts on Kannon.

This one is on Maria Kannon マリア観音. This time it is not a Buddhist deity but a representation of the Virgin Mary.

If I find other forms of Kannon I'll add entries for those.

Hum, what to do next week?

Suggestions welcome.

And even more Kannon

Another Kannon entry. This one Fukūkenjaku Kannon Bosatsu 不空羂索観音菩薩.

I have another Kannon entry lined up for next week. After that I'll keep an eye out for others as there are several I have yet to see in anime or manga.

More Kannon

The first post of the new year continues a trend started last year, entries related to Kannon.

This one is specifically:

Senju Kannon (Thousand-Armed Kannon) 千手観音菩薩

Expect other Kannon related entries in the future as I find references to other forms of this popular bosatsu. I actually have two in the pipeline for release in the near future.


Seen something in an anime or manga you would like me to research and add to the Anime Companion Supplement? Drop me an email and I'll get on it.

Ryoma

Around the new year I start getting excited. You see this is the time of year when NHK starts advertising their new Taiga Drama series. Now I don't live in Japan, but I do live in the San Francisco Bay Area where we get the shows on regular TV with subtitles.

Cable? Cable? We don' need no stinkin' cable!

Of course we have to wait until the US stations get their subtitled version of the show which means we start watching in late January or early February rather than early January.

But in any case I get excited.

This year I'm even more excited as the program is about Sakamaoto Ryoma one of the most famous figures in Japanese history and almost totally unknown outside Japan.

So this morning, after being away from the internet for a week, I checked the Japan Times website and spotted this article:
"Legendary, dirty samurai gets makeover ". A good little teaser about the show, damn I want it to start sooner!

Two for Kannon

This week I have two entries as next weekend I will be doing Xmas stuff with family.

Both of these deal with the major Bodhisattva Kannon, also known as Kuan Yin etc.

Kannon 観音

Shōkannon Bosatsu 聖観音菩薩

Another Ōoku related entry

This week I do a historical personage, something I tend not to do as I figure other items may be of greater interest.

However a woman such as Kasuga no Tsubone 春日局 is such a unique individual that she gets special treatment.

By the way if you live in the San Francisco Bay Area channel 26 (8 on cable) will be showing a subtitled Japanese movie about her on Jan 1 in the afternoon.