Sftyhhujnko

Crested Kimono

Matthews Hamabata got off to an unpromising start when he first arrived in Japan to study influential business families. An unmarried, third-generation Japanese-American graduate student, he was there to learn about business executives in their roles as male principals and heads of households. Some Japanese were less than hospitable and often downright rude to him, and the souvenirs bearing the Harvard University emblem that he had brought along for gifts proved to be inappropriate within the highly ritualized system of Japanese gift-giving. In this engaging and personal narrative, we watch Hamabata in the first disappointing six months of his fieldwork as he attempts to map the boundaries of culture, class, and sexuality. "I became my own biggest fieldwork problem," he writes. "Was I inside or out? When I thought I was in, I was actually out, but when I acknowledged the fact that I was out, I was let in." He soon recognized the importance of marital and filial relations in transmitting power in the business world, and he began to direct his study to examining the social and emotional lives of all members of the Japanese ie (household) and the way they affect business activity and ownership. He takes us behind the scenes of the family enterprise to see how the multiple "layers of reality"--biological, social, religious, emotional, and symbolic--relate and cause dilemmas for ie members. (Names, locations, and other details have been altered for the sake of anonymity.) We meet the Moriuchis, the Itoos, the Okimotos--people who must constantly balance their own personal desires against the good of the ie. Many telling vignettes illustrate a central tension in their lives--their need for love, power, and emotional expression versus the constraints of traditional attitudes toward their ancestors, public honor, the economic enterprise, and the obligation to continue the ie over time. A grandfather stubbornly refuses to hand over the reins of succession to the next generation, creating an impossible situation that eventually tears apart an economic empire, as well as the fabric of various interrelated families. Economic, familial, and religious factors figure in a clash for succession between the person who possesses the ancestral tablets and the head of the enterprise. A daughter must reconcile personal love with arranged marriage. Ambitions for the son in line for succession war with the realization that this spoiled, incompetent young man may well ruin the ie. A fascinating portrait of everyday life told with vibrant sensitivity as well as humor, this book is full of the vitality of common concerns: life choices, love and commitment, confrontations with death. It is about very real people trying to make sense of their lives--trying to reconcile the roles and duties dictated by custom and tradition with rapidly changing expectations in the international milieu of contemporary Japan.

Total Woman

Mortal Kombat X Vol. 2

The quest for the Kamidogu daggers continues…fight! Great changes are coming to Outworld and Earthrealm alike. Whether they seek to protect the worlds of gods and men or to rule them, Kombatants new and old are heading toward bloody conflict. Hoping to thwart the coming evil, Raiden has conscripted Hanzo Hasashi-Scorpion-and his charge, Takeda Takahashi, to gather the mystical Kamidogu daggers. Their journey leads them to an old foe, who holds one of the powerful cursed weapons-Kuai Liang, the ninja known as Sub-Zero! With Sub-Zero corrupted by the Blood Magik of the dagger and Scorpion's deadly thirst for vengeance, the two will lock in a Mortal Kombat for the ages! Elsewhere, Kotal Kahn faces a challenge to his rule from the scorned tribe of the Shokan. King Gorbak is leading an army of Shokan and Oni warriors powerful enough to decimate the Emperor of Outworld. Though Kahn refuses to unleash his Kamidogu's Blood Magik again, he has an unlikely group of allies in the Earthrealmers Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade. The pair only wishes to rescue their daughter from the clutches of Reiko, but first they'll have to help Kahn protect his throne-which means an alliance with Kano and the Black Dragon! Writer SHAWN KITTELSEN continues his epic debut with the help of artists DEXTER SOY (DC UNIVERSE VS MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE), IGOR VITORINO (Green Hornet) and DANIEL SAMPERE (BATGIRL), as they paint the blood-soaked story that leads into the video game phenomenon in MORTAL KOMBAT X: BLOOD GODS! Collects issues #5-8.