Word: samurais
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Possessed by Vengeance. Author White invests each episode with the bladed tension of a poised samurai sword. Though the Japanese never appear, they lurk menacingly just behind the last hill. The major's men achieve grace or disgrace under pressure, but, unfortunately, they are etched in bas-relief-nearly flat characters caught in symbolic or merely arbitrary poses. The book is even shallower when it tries to be most profound, e.g., in suggesting that the major is the compulsive victim of his self-corrupting power when he goes on an irresponsible shooting spree to avenge the killing...
...Japanese seaside village of Kawana, hell-for-celluloid Director John Huston was about to shoot a panoramic movie scene encompassing some 350 fisherfolk extras, all decked out in elaborate 19th century samurai costumes, tunics, kimonos and big wigs. Suddenly a voice bellowed in Japanese over the village's loudspeaker: "Dolphins!" Departing radically from the script, the male extras quickly put to sea in Huston's rented sampans while the women took off their film kimonos and excitedly awaited the return of their men. Net catch for the inscrutable villagers: 270 dolphins worth $3,500 in the seafood market...
Early Career. Born in Yamaguchi Prefecture, 70 miles from Hiroshima, son of a poor sake manufacturer and an aristocratic mother (her father was a samurai) who demanded perfection. Nobusuke (meaning: defender of the trust) was a child prodigy at school, specialized in German law at Tokyo University, graduated at the top of his class (1920). With offers of teaching posts, he chose the civil service, joined the Agriculture and Commerce Ministry as a clerk, rose rapidly, toured (1926-27) in the U.S. and Europe studying the steel industry. Posted to Manchuria in 1937, he was a top economic czar...
Thus ended the decisive phase of the decisive Battle of Midway. For two more days Yamamoto planned samurai slashes with his battleships against the U.S. carriers, but he had lost his air power and he could not connect. Raymond Spruance, with Enterprise and Hornet, badgered Japanese surface vessels, sank a cruiser, but he dared not get too close to the outsize guns of the Japanese battle force or the land-based Japanese bombers on Wake Island (a trap Yamamoto hoped to the end that Spruance would fall into). The central fact was that without naval air power Yamamoto had lost...
Bamboo Swords. Intent on destroying the foundations of Japanese militarism. General Douglas MacArthur after World War II not only stripped the Emperor of his divinity, but banned movies "glorifying war," prohibited such samurai sports as kyujutsu (archery) and kendo (fencing with bamboo swords), and saddled Japan with a constitution renouncing war "as an instrument of national policy...