Kuu and the four sisters, the last of the Shidai try and find their place in a world that has turned their back on them. Kuu, heir to the throne of the lands of the West, must war within to decide to follow the enigmatic sisters or his fathers plan to place him on the throne of the Emperor. Seiryu, youngest twin of the four sisters, fighting to break through the walls she built about herself must decide between love and family. Suzaku, oldest twin of the four sisters, struggles to keep her innocence in a changing world. Byakko, second oldest of the sisters, struggles to keep her family together while longing to find herself. Genbu, the eldest of the sisters, struggles to understand her place in the world and find happiness in her role as the familys head. Chaos threatens the balance of the world, seeking to destroy the sisters and any that are assisting them in their quest. Torn from a loving family by the threats of war, the whispers of destruction, the Shidai sisters are hurled into the unforgiving, unfamiliar world where they are both revered and reviled. Traveling to keep the hounds of the Generals from discovering their location, the sisters find comfort within each other. Finding themselves trapped, captured, they must find each other and decide whether or not to fight for a world of people who offered them nothing but a cold shoulder. Ghosts of memories of the past haunt them, mysteries of the people of the world intrigue them, voices in their head confuse them between a world long past and a hint of a future yet to be.

This is the first full-length study of Zeami Motokiyo (1363–1443), generally recognized as the greatest playwright of Japan's classical Noh theater. The book begins with a biography based on the known documents relating to Zeami's life. It then examines the documentary evidence for authorship and explains the various technical aspects of Noh. Subsequent chapters explore the role of the old man in noh (particularly in the play Takasago), as well as Zeami's plays about women and warriors, with primary attention to Izutsu and Tadanori. The book concludes with a general discussion of Zeami's style and the relationship between his dramatic theory and his plays.

The first book of its kind: a collection of the most important genres of Japanese performance--noh, kyogen, kabuki, and puppet theater--in one comprehensive, authoritative volume.

This book is the first in English to consider women's movements and feminist discourses in twentieth-century Taiwan. Doris T. Chang examines the way in which Taiwanese women in the twentieth century selectively appropriated Western feminist theories to meet their needs in a modernizing Confucian culture. She illustrates the rise and fall of women's movements against the historical backdrop of the island's contested national identities, first vis-à-vis imperial Japan (1895-1945) and later with postwar China (1945-2000). In particular, during periods of soft authoritarianism in the Japanese colonial era and late twentieth century, autonomous women's movements emerged and operated within the political perimeters set by the authoritarian regimes. Women strove to replace the "Good Wife, Wise Mother" ideal with an individualist feminism that meshed social, political, and economic gender equity with the prevailing Confucian family ideology. However, during periods of hard authoritarianism from the 1930s to the 1960s, the autonomous movements collapsed. The particular brand of Taiwanese feminism developed from numerous outside influences, including interactions among an East Asian sociopolitical milieu, various strands of Western feminism, and even Marxist-Leninist women's liberation programs in Soviet Russia. Chinese communism appears not to have played a significant role, due to the Chinese Nationalists' restriction of communication with the mainland during their rule on post-World War II Taiwan. Notably, this study compares the perspectives of Madame Chiang Kai-shek, whose husband led as the president of the Republic of China on Taiwan from 1949 to 1975, and Hsiu-lien Annette Lu, Taiwan's vice president from 2000 to 2008. Delving into period sources such as the highly influential feminist monthly magazine Awakening as well as interviews with feminist leaders, Chang provides a comprehensive historical and cross-cultural analysis of the struggle for gender equality in Taiwan.

In A Modern Miscellany: Shanghai Cartoon Artists, Shao Xunmei’s Circle and the Travels of Jack Chen, 1926-1938 Paul Bevan explores how the cartoon (manhua) emerged from its place in the Chinese modern art world to become a propaganda tool in the hands of left-wing artists. The artists involved in what was largely a transcultural phenomenon were an eclectic group working in the areas of fashion and commercial art and design. The book demonstrates that during the build up to all-out war the cartoon was not only important in the sphere of Shanghai popular culture in the eyes of the publishers and readers of pictorial magazines but that it occupied a central place in the primary discourse of Chinese modern art history.