Notes About Japanese

Names

When both names are used, Japanese names are presented Western style, with personal names first and family names second.

Orthography and Transliteration

Many Japanese words have long vowels. Various conventions are used to indicate them, with macrons being the most typical. However, that convention is abandoned for very common words such as Tōkyō and Ōsaka, which are typically written merely as Tokyo and Osaka. This text takes the same liberties with all Japanese words with long vowels, and numerous personal and place names, most notably the names of the men of the Miyazawa family: Shōtarō, Tetsutarō, and Gentarō, appear in the text without any indication of their long vowels. Other personal names (some real, some imaginary, and some mythical) that have lost their macrons in the text include Ōtomo (Tabito, Yakamochi, and Fumimochi) Natsume Sōseki, Kūkai, Matsuo Bashō, Akiko Satō, Saburō Miyakawa, Masao Katō, Amaterasu Ōmikami. Names of places and institutions (some real and some imaginary) that have suffered the same fate include: Hōryūji Temple, Hokkaidō, Honshū, Kyūshū, the Ryūkyūs, Chūō University, Kyōdai (Kyoto University), Tōdai (Tokyo University), Keiō (University), Tōzawa (University Hospital), Ōkaidō. The Manyōshū, Japan’s great eighth century compilation of famous poems, is another victim, and is referred to in the text simply as the Manyoshu. Other words that are missing long vowels in the text include shōchū, Shintō, tokkō, Itō, Dōki no Sakura, tokkō, Ōaka-gera.

The sound written with “n” in Japanese is pronounced “m” before bilabials such as b and p. Thus, the Tokyo neighborhood, “Shinbashi” is often rendered in English as Shimbashi (as it is typically pronounced). In this work, words with this combination are therefore transliterated using an “m” rather than “n.” Hence, kempeitai rather than kenpeitai, and mompe rather than monpe.