This week is our wrap up episode for the Japanese literature unit. We’ve learned to enjoy the three main ingredients of the Japanese Spirit - koku, depravity, and suicide. There have been many memorable characters as well, the goshin in his search for Yam Gruel, the outcast eta Segawa, the hysterical Komako and her emotionally distant lover Shimamura, and of course Noboru and his sadistic friends.

We also had the pleasure of learning of Saigo Takamori’s failed rebellion with Mark Ravina and the forces that shaped the Meiji Restoration with Beasly. All in all, this unit had a breadth and depth that the others lacked - partly due to our more purposeful selection of books and partly due to the unique and rich experience of the land of the rising sun.

Across snowy mountains to see a mountain geisha, to the seaside to kill our step dad, investigating the murder of a nobleman in a grove, it feels like we’ve been everywhere on this strange island.

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