Portal:Japan/Selected article
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[edit] Usage
This page is an archive that lists all of the current Selected article choices that have been chosen to be used on the Portal:Japan. The layout design template for these subpages is at Portal:Japan/Selected article/Layout.
[edit] Layout template
When adding to the Selected article list, first click on the next unmade Portal:Japan/Selected article/XX on the list. On that page, paste the following template, fill it out with the appropriate information regarding the article you are adding and create the page.
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[edit] Selected articles
Here is the current list of selected articles for Portal:Japan. It is always growing, so feel free to add some of the Japan-related FA and GA located on the WikiProject Japan page that haven't already been added.
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Branded to Kill (殺しの烙印 Koroshi no rakuin?) is a 1967 Japanese yakuza film directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Joe Shishido, Koji Nanbara, Annu Mari and Mariko Ogawa. It was a low budget, production line number for the Nikkatsu Company. The story follows Goro Hanada in his life as a contract killer. He falls in love with a woman named Misako, who recruits him for a seemingly impossible mission. When the mission fails, he becomes hunted by the phantom Number One Killer, whose methods threaten his sanity as much as his life.
The studio was unhappy with the original script and called in Suzuki to rewrite and direct it at the last minute. Suzuki came up with many of his ideas the night before or on the set while filming, and welcomed ideas from his collaborators. He gave the film a satirical, anarchic and visually eclectic bent which the studio had previously warned him away from. After its release Suzuki was fired for making "movies that make no sense and no money". Suzuki successfully sued Nikkatsu with support from student groups, like-minded filmmakers and the general public and caused a major controversy through the Japanese film industry. Suzuki was blacklisted and did not make another feature film for 10 years but became a counterculture hero.
The film drew a strong following which expanded overseas through the 1980s and 1990s and has established itself as a cult classic. Film critics and enthusiasts now regard it as an absurdist masterpiece. It has been cited as an influence by filmmakers such as Jim Jarmusch, John Woo, Chan-wook Park and Quentin Tarantino. Thirty-four years after Branded to Kill, Suzuki filmed Pistol Opera (2001) with Nikkatsu, a loose sequel to the former. The company has also hosted two major retrospectives spotlighting his career.
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Daitō-ryū Aiki-jūjutsu (大東流合気柔術?), originally called Daitō-ryū Jujutsu (大東流柔術 Daitō-ryū Jūjutsu?), is a Japanese martial art that first became widely known in the early 20th century under the headmastership of Takeda Sokaku. Takeda had extensive training in several martial arts (including Kashima Shinden Jikishinkage-ryū and sumo) and referred to the style he taught as "Daitō-ryū" (literally, "Great Eastern School"). Although the school's traditions claim to extend back centuries in Japanese history there are no known extant records regarding the ryū before Takeda. Whether he is regarded as the restorer or founder of the art, the known history of Daitō-ryū begins with Takeda Sokaku.
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Ten-gō sakusen (Kyūjitai: 天號作戰, Shinjitai: 天号作戦; "Operation Heaven One"), also known as Ten-ichi-go, was the last major Japanese naval operation in the Pacific Theater of World War II.
In April 1945, the Japanese battleship Yamato, the largest battleship in the world, along with nine other Japanese warships, embarked from Japan on a deliberate suicide attack upon Allied forces engaged in the Battle of Okinawa. The Japanese force was attacked, stopped, and almost completely destroyed by United States (U.S.) carrier-borne aircraft before reaching Okinawa. Yamato and five other Japanese warships were sunk.
The battle demonstrated U.S. air supremacy in the Pacific theater by this stage in the war and the vulnerability of surface ships without air cover to aerial attack. The battle also exhibited Japan's willingness to sacrifice large numbers of its people in desperate attempts to slow the Allied advance on the Japanese home islands.
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Sakurajima (桜島?) is an active volcano and a former island (now connected to the mainland) of the same name in Kagoshima Prefecture in Kyūshū, Japan.
It is a stratovolcano with the summit split into three peaks, Kitadake (northern peak), Nakadake (central peak) and Minamidake (southern peak) which is active now. The surface of the island is about 77 km².
Its North Peak (北岳 Kitadake?) is Sakurajima's highest peak, rising to 1,117 metres above sea level. The mountain is located in a part of Kagoshima Bay known as Kinkō Bay (錦江湾 Kinkōwan?). The former island is part of the city of Kagoshima.
In 1914, a great eruption occurred, burying the straits with lava, thus connecting the former island to the Osumi Peninsula, so that Sakurajima is no longer an island. The volcanic activity still continues, dropping large amounts of volcanic ash on the surroundings. Earlier eruptions built the white sands highlands in the region.
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Pierre Joseph Rossier (born July 16, 1829, died between 1883 and 1898) was a pioneering Swiss photographer whose albumen photographs, which include stereographs and cartes-de-visite, comprise portraits, cityscapes, and landscapes. He was commissioned by the London firm of Negretti and Zambra to travel to Asia and document the progress of the Anglo-French troops in the Second Opium War and, although he failed to join that military expedition, he remained in Asia for several years, producing the first commercial photographs of China, the Philippines, Japan and Siam (now Thailand). He was the first professional photographer in Japan, where he trained Ueno Hikoma, Maeda Genzō, Horie Kuwajirō, as well as lesser known members of the first generation of Japanese photographers. In Switzerland he established photographic studios in Fribourg and Einsiedeln, and he also produced images elsewhere in the country. Rossier is an important figure in the early history of photography not only because of his own images, but also because of the critical impact of his teaching in the early days of Japanese photography.
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Kitsune (狐?)(Pronunciation) is the Japanese word for fox. Foxes are a common subject of Japanese folklore. Stories depict them as intelligent beings and as possessing magical abilities that increase with their age and wisdom. Foremost among these is the ability to assume human form. While some folktales speak of kitsune employing this ability to trick others — as foxes in folklore often do — others portray them as faithful guardians, friends, lovers, and wives.
Foxes and human beings lived in close proximity in ancient Japan; this companionship gave rise to legends about the creatures. Kitsune have become closely associated with Inari, a Shinto kami or spirit, and serve as his messengers. This role has reinforced the fox's supernatural significance. The more tails a kitsune has — they may have as many as nine — the older, wiser, and more powerful it is. Because of their potential power and influence, some people make offerings to them as to a deity.
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Carlson's patrol, also known as The Long Patrol or Carlson's long patrol, was an operation by the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion under the command of Evans Carlson during the Guadalcanal Campaign against the Imperial Japanese Army from November 6 to December 4, 1942. In the operation, the 2nd Raiders attacked forces under the command of Toshinari Shōji, which were escaping from an attempted encirclement in the Koli Point area on Guadalcanal and attempting to rejoin other Japanese army units on the opposite side of the U.S. Lunga perimeter.
In a series of small unit engagements over 29 days, the 2nd Raiders killed almost 500 Japanese soldiers while suffering only 16 killed. The raiders also captured a Japanese artillery cannon that was delivering harassing gunfire on Henderson Field, the Allied airfield at Lunga Point on Guadalcanal.
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Kimi ga Yo (君が代?), often translated as "May your reign last forever" is Japan's National Anthem, and is also one of the world's shortest national anthems in current use. The lyrics are based on a Waka poem written in the Heian Period, sung to a melody written in the later Meiji Era. The current melody was chosen in 1880, replacing an unpopular melody composed eleven years earlier.
Although Kimi ga Yo has long been Japan's de facto national anthem, it was only legally recognized as such in 1999 with the passing of the Law Concerning the National Flag and Anthem. After its adoption, there was controversy over the performance of the anthem at public school ceremonies. Along with the national flag, Kimi ga Yo was considered to be a symbol of imperialism and militarism in wartime.
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Hasekura Rokuemon Tsunenaga (1571 – 1622) (Japanese: 支倉六右衛門常長 was a Japanese samurai and retainer of Date Masamune, the daimyo of Sendai.
In the years 1613 through 1620, Hasekura headed a diplomatic mission to the Vatican in Rome, traveling through New Spain (arriving in Acapulco and departing from Veracruz) and visiting various ports-of-call in Europe. This historic mission is called the Keichō Embassy. On the return trip, Hasekura and his companions re-traced their route across Mexico in 1619, sailing from Acapulco for Manilla, and then sailing north to Japan in 1620. This is conventionally considered the first Japanese ambassador in the Americas and in Europe.
Although Hasekura's embassy was cordially received in Europe, it happened at a time when Japan was moving toward the suppression of Christianity. European monarchs such as the King of Spain thus refused the trade agreements Hasekura had been seeking. Hasekura returned to Japan in 1620 and died of illness a year later, his embassy seemingly ending with few results in an increasingly isolationist Japan.
Japan's next embassy to Europe would only occur more than 200 years later, following two centuries of isolation, with the "First Japanese Embassy to Europe" in 1862.
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The Heian Palace was the original imperial palace of Heian-kyō (present-day Kyoto), the capital of Japan from 794 to 1227. The palace, which served as the imperial residence and the administrative center of Japan for most of the Heian Period, was located at the north-central location of the city in accordance with the Chinese models used for the design of the capital.
The palace consisted of a large rectangular walled enclosure, which contained several ceremonial and administrative buildings including the government ministries. Inside this enclosure was the separately walled residential compound of the emperor or the Inner Palace. In addition to the emperor's living quarters, the Inner Palace contained the residences of the imperial consorts, as well as certain official and ceremonial buildings more closely linked to the person of the emperor.
From the mid-Heian period, the palace suffered several fires and other disasters. During reconstructions, emperors and some of the office functions resided outside of the palace. This, along with the general loss of political power of the court, acted to further diminish the importance of the palace as the administrative centre. Finally in 1227 the palace burned down and was never rebuilt. The site was built over so that almost no trace of it remains. Knowledge of the palace is thus based on contemporary literary sources, surviving diagrams and paintings, and limited excavations conducted mainly since the late 1970s.
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The Imperial Japanese Navy (大日本帝国海軍 Dai-Nippon Teikoku Kaigun?)(Pronunciation) , also known as the Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes. It was the third largest navy in the world by 1920 behind the United States Navy and Royal Navy. It was supported by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service for aircraft and airstrike operation from the fleet. It was a major force in the Pacific War.
The origins of the Imperial Japanese Navy trace back to early interactions with nations on the Asian continent, beginning in the early medieval period and reaching a peak of activity during the 16th and 17th centuries at a time of cultural exchange with European powers during the Age of Discovery. After two centuries of stagnation during the country's ensuing seclusion policy under the shoguns of the Edo period, Japan's navy was comparatively backward when the country was forced open to trade by American intervention in 1854. This eventually led to the Meiji Restoration. Accompanying the re-ascendance of the Emperor came a period of frantic modernization and industrialization. The navy's history of successes, sometimes against much more powerful foes as in the 1895 Sino-Japanese war and the 1905 Russo-Japanese War, ended in almost complete annihilation during the concluding days of World War II. The IJN was officially dissolved in 1947.
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Aikido (合気道 aikidō?) is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a synthesis of his martial studies, philosophy, and religious beliefs. Aikido is often translated as "the Way of unifying (with) life energy" or as "the Way of harmonious spirit." Ueshiba's goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from injury.
Aikido is performed by blending with the motion of the attacker and redirecting the force of the attack rather than opposing it head-on. The aikidoka (aikido practitioner) "leads" the attacker's momentum using entering and turning movements. The techniques are completed with various throws or joint locks. Aikido can be categorized under the general umbrella of grappling arts.
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