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Mitsui Group is one of the largest <i>keiretsu</I> (group of companes) in Japan and one of the largest corporate groups in the world.<br/><br/> The major companies of the group include Mitsui & Co. (general trading company), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Sapporo Breweries, Toray Industries, Mitsui Chemicals, Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines and Mitsui Fudosan.
‘Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji’ is an ‘ukiyo-e’ series of large, color woodblock prints by the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849). The series depicts Mount Fuji in differing seasons and weather conditions from a variety of places and distances. It actually consists of 46 prints created between 1826 and 1833. The first 36 were included in the original publication and, due to their popularity, 10 more were added after the original publication.<br/><br/> Mount Fuji is the highest mountain in Japan at 3,776.24 m (12,389 ft). An active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08, Mount Fuji lies about 100 km southwest of Tokyo. Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone is a well-known symbol and icon of Japan and is frequently depicted in art and photographs. It is one of Japan's ‘Three Holy Mountains’ along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku.<br/><br/> Fuji is nowadays frequently visited by sightseers and climbers. It is thought that the first ascent was in 663 CE by an anonymous monk. The summit has been thought of as sacred since ancient times and was forbidden to women until the Meiji Era. Ancient samurai used the base of the mountain as a remote training area, near the present-day town of Gotemba.
As part of the plans for the exploitation of China, during the thirties and forties the subsidiary tobacco industry of the Mitsui Company started production of special 'Golden Bat' cigarettes using the then popular in the Far East trademark. Their circulation was prohibited in Japan and was used only for export.<br/><br/> Local Japanese secret service under the controversial General Kenji Doihara had the control of their distribution in China and Manchuria where the production exported. In their mouthpiece there were hidden small doses of opium or heroin and by this millions of unsuspecting consumers were addicted to these narcotics, while creating huge profits.<br/><br/> The mastermind of the plan, the General of the Imperial Japanese Army Kenji Doihara was later prosecuted and convicted for war crimes before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, before being sentenced to death. Yet no actions ever took place against the company which profited from their production. According to testimony presented at the Tokyo War Crimes trials in 1948, the revenue from the narcotization policy in China, including Manchukuo, was estimated at twenty to thirty million yen per year, while another authority states that the annual revenue was estimated by the Japanese military at 300 million dollars a year.