(1) Tattoos, especially large, intricate motifs of mythical beasts and shogun-era courtesans , are traditionally associated in Japan with yakuza gang membership.
(2) Anxious that the homosexuality rife in the samurai and priestly classes might spread to the population at large, the shogun moved, in the early 1650s, to ban performances.
(3) The shogun of the slogan has always managed to find the right form of words and to conjure images to convey important ideas.
(4) The repressive shoguns had, from 1630, cut off Japan from the outside world; enforcing feudal structures, they also brought peace after a long period of civil war, and the population was released to pursue cultivated activities, which quickly became an obsession of the mercantile middle classes.
(5) The prospects for an alliance with Ichiro Ozawa, the influential "shadow shogun" who left the DPJ to form a new party, have dimmed.
(6) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Share Share this post Facebook Twitter Pinterest close Updated at 5.30pm GMT 5.26pm GMT Cathy and Chris Reed, born and raised in America to a Japanese mother, skate to the music of strategy video game Total War: Shogun 2.
(7) The spa was discovered 1,800 years ago, according to local legend, and by the Edo era the shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune had Kusatsu water delivered to the capital.
(8) In 1629, the severe ruling shogunate, based in Edo (Tokyo), put an end to this so-called Prostitute Kabuki; the vacuum was swiftly filled by the creation of a Youth Kabuki, performed by boy actors, who quickly proved quite as erotically provocative and purchasable as their disgraced sisters.