Budo Perspectives

Budo, the martial arts ways of Japan, are perhaps the most significant of all the Japanese cultural exports. Literally millions of people practice Japanese Budo around the world, such as Karate, Judo, Aikido, Kendo and so on. Despite the remarkable post-war international proliferation of Budo, surprisingly little interaction has been conducted at an academic level between Japanese and non-Japanese experts in the field. Furthermore there are few academic publications that consider the various Budo from different historical, cultural, philosophical and regional perspectives in Japanese, let alone English. This publication is the result of an international symposium: The Direction of Japanese Budo in the 21st Century: Past, present and future were conducted at the International Research Centre for Japanese Studies in November 2003. The objective of the symposium and this book is to stimulate.