Fran Guil returns with a new visual and informative work. This time we travel to Sengoku-jidai Japan, the Country at War (16th century), where they fight day in and day out. The samurai are at their peak, but are these famous warriors really what we think they are? Are they really guided by bushido? Is the katana really the soul of the samurai? Sengoku samurai or Edo samurai - which is the real thing? Amusing, full-colour vignettes illustrate in detail the appearance and the most diverse situations of these legendary warriors. We will discover the real protagonists of the battlefields of the time: the ashigarus (light-footed). Sieges, battles, Mongols, warrior monks, samurai women, Korea, the arrival of the Portuguese, the arquebus, the recipe for oniguiri. And we'll still find time to talk about ninjas! In the same vein as the previous The Late Roman Cartoon Army! (2020), this book is short, succinct and entertaining. The protagonists are undoubtedly the more than 50 drawings that, accompanied by an explanatory text, make up the chapters of the book. In this case, the reference to films reinforces this visual work.

The Ultimate Guide to the Real Teachings of Sun Tzu The Art of War is the world’s most famous military treatise, yet few people have explored what its much-quoted maxims really mean. Created for all those who want to study Sun Tzu’s teachings in depth and apply his strategic insights in their own lives, this is the first ever step-by-step guide to the ancient Chinese classic, breaking down the enigmatic text into 235 lessons that explain the core concepts more clearly than ever before. Including a full translation of Sun Tzu’s original, as well as in-depth commentary that summarizes current academic interpretations of the text, this is the only edition of Art of War to highlight the different perspectives of all recent translators as well as those of the historical commentators. To help you fully absorb the lessons you will also find: • Striking strategic diagrams and conceptual graphics to embed the teachings. • A War Tip with each lesson, to make it even more memorable. • A closing section containing the entire Art of War boiled down to a concise list of bullet points – the essential reference tool for studying the complete strategy of Sun Tzu.

"This book tells the story of an unusual group of American soldiers in World War II, second-generation Japanese Americans (Nisei) who served as interpreters and translators in the Military Intelligence Service."--Preface.

Playing War: Field games. Paper battles -- Picturing war: The moral authority of innocence. Queering war -- Epilogue: the rule of babies in pink

This book charts comprehensively the various discoveries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific of Japanese soldiers still fighting the Second World War many years after it had ended. It explores their return to Japan and their impact on the Japanese people, revealing changing attitudes to war veterans and war casualties' families, as well as the ambivalence of memories of the war.

Creating Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force, 1945–2015 is a timely contribution to postwar Japan security studies. It is the first comprehensive account of Japan’s post-1945 army, including a comprehensive institutional history, together with the evolution of roles and missions and the adoption of successive professional identities. The organizational history is embedded within a thorough examination of Japan’s own defense policy, as well as of America’s policy of alliance with Japan. The book examines and challenges assumptions about the drafting and adoption of the War Renunciation clause of Japan’s postwar Peace Constitution, Article 9, which uniquely not only renounces war, but the arms to wage war. Thus Japan’s army is not called an army, but the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF). The work also examines the place of an army and soldiers in the formation of Japan’s national identity after its last devastating war, and explores the impact of constitutional, legal and policy restrictions, as well as the power of the legacy of the still-largely vilified Imperial Japanese Army on GSDF members who seek to serve because “there are people we want to protect.” The study is rounded by an examination of the place of soldiers in Japan’s popular culture, focused on movies, manga and anime, assessing the impact on the GSDF of a public imagination that most often ignores or villainizes soldiers, though ending with a note that some positive images of soldiers and of the GSDF members themselves have started to appear in the last few years. The book’s author, a retired U.S. Army soldier who spent more than twenty years working, studying and training with the GSDF, offers a broad-ranging exploration of a unique organization. This work is extensively researched, using English and Japanese sources, and will appeal to anyone interested in Japanese security studies, alliance studies, and military imagery in Japanese pop culture, as well as to students of military history, international security, international relations, and cultural identity.

This biography of the first foreign-born samurai and his journey from Africa to Japan is “a readable, compassionate account of an extraordinary life” (The Washington Post). When Yasuke arrived in Japan in the late 1500s, he had already traveled much of the known world. Kidnapped as a child, he had ended up a servant and bodyguard to the head of the Jesuits in Asia, with whom he traversed India and China learning multiple languages as he went. His arrival in Kyoto, however, literally caused a riot. Most Japanese people had never seen an African man before, and many of them saw him as the embodiment of the black-skinned Buddha. Among those who were drawn to his presence was Lord Nobunaga, head of the most powerful clan in Japan, who made Yasuke a samurai in his court. Soon, he was learning the traditions of Japan’s martial arts and ascending the upper echelons of Japanese society. In the four hundred years since, Yasuke has been known in Japan largely as a legendary, perhaps mythical figure. Now African Samurai presents the never-before-told biography of this unique figure of the sixteenth century, one whose travels between countries and cultures offers a new perspective on race in world history and a vivid portrait of life in medieval Japan. “Fast-paced, action-packed writing. . . . A new and important biography and an incredibly moving study of medieval Japan and solid perspective on its unification. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal (starred review) “Eminently readable. . . . a worthwhile and entertaining work.” —Publishers Weekly “A unique story of a unique man, and yet someone with whom we can all identify.” —Jack Weatherford, New York Times–bestselling author of Genghis Khan