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The Namazu, also called the Onamazu, is a creature in Japanese mythology and folktales. The Namazu is a gigantic catfish said to cause earthquakes and tremors. Living in the mud under the Japanese isles, the Namazu is guarded by the protector god Kashima, who restrains the catfish using the <i>kaname-ishi</i> rock. Whenever Kashima lets his guard down, Namazu thrashes about and causes violent earthquakes.<br/><br/> The Namazu rose to new fame and popularity after the Ansei great earthquakes that happened near Edo in 1855. This led to the Namazu being worshipped as a god of world rectification (<i>yonaoshi daimyojin</i>), sent by the gods to correct some of the imbalances in the world.<br/><br/> Catfish woodblock prints known as <i>namazu-e</i> became their own popular genre within days of the earthquake. They were usually unsigned and often depicted scenes of a namazu or many namazu atoning for their deeds. They were quickly squashed by the Tokugawa Shogunate, the prints censored and destroyed, with only a handful surviving to this day.
Toyohara Chikanobu, better known to his contemporaries as Yōshū Chikanobu, was a prolific woodblock artist of Japan's Meiji period. His works capture the transition from the age of the samurai to Meiji modernity.<br/><br/> In 1875 (Meiji 8), he decided to try to make a living as an artist. He travelled to Tokyo. He found work as an artist for the Kaishin Shimbun. In addition, he produced <i>nishiki-e</i> artworks. In his younger days, he had studied the Kanō school of painting; but his interest was drawn to <i>ukiyo-e</i>.<br/><br/> Like many <i>ukiyo-e</i> artists, Chikanobu turned his attention towards a great variety of subjects. His work ranged from Japanese mythology to depictions of the battlefields of his lifetime to women's fashions. As well as a number of the other artists of this period, he too portrayed kabuki actors in character, and is well-known for his impressions of the <i>mie</i> (formal pose) of kabuki productions.<br/><br/> Chikanobu was known as a master of <i>bijinga</i>, images of beautiful women, and for illustrating changes in women's fashion, including both traditional and Western clothing. His work illustrated the changes in coiffures and make-up across time. For example, in Chikanobu's images in Mirror of Ages (1897), the hair styles of the Tenmei era, 1781-1789 are distinguished from those of the Keio era, 1865-1867.
Ninja is an on'yomi (Early Middle Chinese-influenced) reading of the two kanji '忍者'. In the native kun'yomi kanji reading, it is pronounced shinobi, a shortened form of the transcription shinobi-no-mono (忍の者). These two systems of pronouncing kanji create words with similar meanings.<br/><br/> The word shinobi appears in the written record as far back as the late 8th century in poems in the Man'yōshū. The underlying connotation of shinobi (忍) means 'to steal away', hence its association with stealth and invisibility. Mono (者) means 'a person'. It also relates to the term shinobu, which means to hide.<br/><br/> Historically, the word ninja was not in common use, and a variety of regional colloquialisms evolved to describe what would later be dubbed ninja.
Kanji are the logographic traditional Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana, katakana, Indo-Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet (known as 'rōmaji'). The Japanese term 'kanji' literally means 'Han characters' or 'Chinese characters' and is the same written term used in the Chinese language to refer to the character writing system. The Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra was an encyclopedic collection of Prajnaparamita texts, usually attributed to Nagarjuna, translated into Chinese by Xuanzang and his assistants.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi (January 1, 1798 - April 14, 1861) was one of the last great masters of the Japanese ukiyo-e style of woodblock prints and painting. He is associated with the Utagawa school.<br/><br/> The range of Kuniyoshi's preferred subjects included many genres: landscapes, beautiful women, Kabuki actors, cats, and mythical animals. He is known for depictions of the battles of samurai and legendary heroes. His artwork was affected by Western influences in landscape painting and caricature.