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Samurai Executioner
''Samurai Executioner'', known in Japan as , is a 10-volume manga created by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima, the same team that created the popular ''Lone Wolf and Cub'' series. The series was first serialized in Japan, from 1972–1976. ''Samurai Executioner'' is set earlier than ''Lone Wolf and Cub'', with the main character of the former series appearing in a chapter of the latter. The story is set in the Edo period of feudal Japan. It revolves around , nicknamed ''Kubikiri-Asa'' (literally "Neck-chopper Asa", often translated as "Decapitator Asaemon"), a rōnin who is responsible for testing new swords for the shogun. The character is based on a real-life line of sword-testers who served the Tokugawa Shogunate up to the early 19th century. He is also frequently called upon to perform executions. Many of the stories focus not on Asaemon, but on several of the people he meets in the course of his work. More often than not they are the stories of the criminals he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kazuo Koike
was a prolific Japanese manga writer ( gensakusha), novelist, screenwriter, lyricist and entrepreneur. He is best known for his violent, artful ''seinen'' manga, notably ''Lone Wolf and Cub'' (with Goseki Kojima, 1970–6), '' Lady Snowblood'' (with Kazuo Kamimura, 1972–3) and ''Crying Freeman'' (with Ryoichi Ikegami, 1986–8), which – along with their numerous media adaptations − have been credited for their influence on the international growth of Japanese popular culture. Career Early in Koike's career, he studied under ''Golgo 13'' creator Takao Saito and served as a writer on the series. Koike, along with artist Goseki Kojima, made the manga ''Kozure Okami'' (''Lone Wolf and Cub''), and Koike also contributed to the scripts for the 1970s film adaptations of the series, which starred famous Japanese actor Tomisaburo Wakayama. In 1992 he himself produced a Lone Wolf and Cub's film Lone Wolf and Cub: Final Conflict which starred Masakazu Tamura. Koike and Kojima becam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kappa (mythology)
A — also known as , , with a boss called or – is a reptiloid ''kami'' with similarities to ''yōkai'' found in traditional Japanese folklore. ''Kappa'' can become harmful when they are not respected as gods. They are typically depicted as green, human-like beings with webbed hands and feet and a turtle-like carapace on their back. The ''kappa'' are known to favor cucumbers and love to engage in sumo wrestling. They are often accused of assaulting humans in water and removing a mythical organ called the ''shirikodama'' from their victim's anus. Terminology The name ''kappa'' is a contraction of the words ''kawa'' (river) and ''wappa'', a variant form of 童 ''warawa'' (also ''warabe'') "child". Another translation of kappa is "water sprites". The ''kappa'' are also known regionally by at least eighty other names such as ''kawappa'', ''kawako'', ''kawatarō'', ''gawappa'', ''kōgo'', ''suitengu''., citing Ōno (1994), p. 14 It is also called ''kawauso'' 'otter', ''dang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kodansha Manga
is a Japanese privately-held publishing company headquartered in Bunkyō, Tokyo. Kodansha is the largest Japanese publishing company, and it produces the manga magazines ''Nakayoshi'', ''Afternoon'', ''Evening'', ''Weekly Shōnen Magazine'' and ''Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine'', as well as the more literary magazines ''Gunzō'', ''Shūkan Gendai'', and the Japanese dictionary ''Nihongo Daijiten''. Kodansha was founded by Seiji Noma in 1910, and members of his family continue as its owners either directly or through the Noma Cultural Foundation. History Seiji Noma founded Kodansha in 1910 as a spin-off of the ''Dai-Nippon Yūbenkai'' (, "Greater Japan Oratorical Society") and produced the literary magazine ''Yūben'' () as its first publication. The name ''Kodansha'' (taken from ''Kōdan Club'' (), a now-defunct magazine published by the company) originated in 1911 when the publisher formally merged with the ''Dai-Nippon Yūbenkai''. The company has used its current legal name since ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Historical Anime And Manga
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of these events. Historians seek knowledge of the past using historical sources such as written documents, oral accounts, art and material artifacts, and ecological markers. History is not complete and still has debatable mysteries. History is also an academic discipline which uses narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect. Historians often debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effects. Historians also debate the nature of history as an end in itself, as well as its usefulness to give perspective on the problems of the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gekiga
, literally "dramatic pictures", is a style of Japanese comics aimed at adult audiences and marked by a more cinematic art style and more mature themes. ''Gekiga'' was the predominant style of adult comics in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s. It is aesthetically defined by sharp angles, dark hatching, and gritty lines, and thematically by realism, social engagement, maturity, and masculinity. History In the 1950s, mainstream Japanese comics (manga) came from Tokyo and was aimed at children, led by the work of Osamu Tezuka. Before Tezuka moved to Tokyo, he lived in Osaka and mentored artists such as Yoshihiro Tatsumi and Masahiko Matsumoto who admired him. Although influenced by Tezuka and his cinematic style, Tatsumi and his colleagues were not interested in making comics for children. They wanted to write comics for adults that were more graphic and showed more violence. Tatsumi explained, "Part of that was influenced by the newspaper stories I would read. I would have an emotiona ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edo Period In Fiction
Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate. Edo grew to become one of the largest cities in the world under the Tokugawa. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868 the Meiji government renamed Edo as ''Tokyo'' (, "Eastern Capital") and relocated the Emperor from the historic capital of Kyoto to the city. The era of Tokugawa rule in Japan from 1603 to 1868 is known eponymously as the Edo period. History Before Tokugawa Before the 10th century, there is no mention of Edo in historical records, but for a few settlements in the area. Edo first appears in the Azuma Kagami chronicles, that name for the area being probably used since the second half of the Heian period. Its development started in late 11th century with a branch of the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fictional Samurai
Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditional narrow sense, "fiction" refers to written narratives in prose often referring specifically to novels, novellas, and short stories. More broadly, however, fiction encompasses imaginary narratives expressed in any medium, including not just writings but also live theatrical performances, films, television programs, radio dramas, comics, role-playing games, and video games. Definition Typically, the fictionality of a work is publicly marketed and so the audience expects the work to deviate in some ways from the real world rather than presenting, for instance, only factually accurate portrayals or characters who are actual people. Because fiction is generally understood to not fully adhere to the real world, the themes and context of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dark Horse Comics Titles
Darkness, the direct opposite of lightness, is defined as a lack of illumination, an absence of visible light, or a surface that absorbs light, such as black or brown. Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low luminance. This is because the hue sensitive photoreceptor cells on the retina are inactive when light levels are insufficient, in the range of visual perception referred to as scotopic vision. The emotional response to darkness has generated metaphorical usages of the term in many cultures, often used to describe an unhappy or foreboding feeling. Referring to a time of day, complete darkness occurs when the Sun is more than 18° below the horizon, without the effects of twilight on the night sky. Scientific Perception The perception of darkness differs from the mere absence of light due to the effects of after images on perception. In perceiving, the eye is active, and the part of the retina that is unstimulated produces a complementar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marc Miyake
is an American linguist who specializes in historical linguistics, particularly the study of Old Japanese and Tangut. Biography Miyake was born in Aiea, Hawaii in 1971, and attended Punahou School in Honolulu, graduating in 1989. He studied Japanese language and literature at University of California, Berkeley, and then studied linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, from where he obtained his doctorate in 1999, with a dissertation entitled ''The Phonology of Eighth-Century Japanese Revisited: Another Reconstruction Based upon Written Records''. He is best known for his work on the phonetic reconstruction of Old Japanese, but is also known for his work on the extinct Tangut language. Between 2015 and 2019 Miyake was a research assistant at the British Museum, working on the decipherment of Pyu inscriptions. At the same time he was also a research associate in the Department of Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Works * Miyake, Marc Hideo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gō Wakabayashi
is a Japanese film and television actor from Nagasaki. A graduate of Senshu University, Wakabayashi became a member of Shin Kokugeki, then Wakabayashi Promotions. Currently he is a member of Toho Entertainment. After some roles in minor television series, he appeared for the first time in an NHK '' taiga drama'', ''Mominoki wa Nokotta'' in 1970. The network tapped him the following year for the role of Araki Mataemon in ''Haru no Sakamichi''. (A different Araki, the ''hatamoto'' Jūzaemon, was his character in a later film, ''The Fall of Ako Castle'', directed by Kinji Fukasaku.) Also in 1971, he appeared as Maehara Isuke in the year-long series ''Daichūshingura'' with Toshirō Mifune. He took guest roles in many other television series, including Mifune's ''Kōya no Surōnin'', the 1970s ''Lone Wolf and Cub'' TV series, and ''Suikoden''. Returning to NHK, he portrayed Saitō Yoshitatsu in the 1973 ''taiga drama'' ''Kunitori Monogatari.'' He has also appeared as Sanada Yukimur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trade Paperback (comics)
In comics in the United States, a trade paperback (shortened: TPB or trade) is a collection of stories originally published in comic books, reprinted in book format, usually presenting either a complete miniseries, a story arc from a single title, or a series of stories with an arc or common theme. A trade paperback may reproduce the stories either at the same size in which they were originally presented (in comic book format), in a smaller "digest-sized" format, or a larger-than-original hardcover. This article applies to both paperback and hardcover collections. In the comics industry, the term "trade paperback market" may refer to the market for any collection, regardless of its actual cover. A trade paperback differs from a graphic novel in that a graphic novel is usually original material. It is also different from the publishing term '' trade paperback'', which is a book with a flexible cardstock cover that is larger than the standard mass market paperback format. Histor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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