"A History of Japanese Armour Vol 1and 2" Topic

Has anybody obtained these books; if so are they any good? The appear to have Japanese and English text and loads of illustrations, but are a bit pricey.

Any reviews?

Perhaps if you gave us the author and the publisher…

I bought these from On Military Matters. They are full of information and a lot of plates. The quality of the drawings are NOT Osprey quality. They are more like line drawings with color. I haven't read them in depth cover-to-cover yet, but they appear to be the most in-depth article on the armour and weaponry of samurai that I've seen, at least from what a wargamer would want. I've seen more esoteric scholarly texts, but they don't really have the pictures that are in these books. They are full of pictures.

They aren't cheap, but if you want a starting place to paint and create a samuari army, this would be my first choice (with hindsight being 20/20). If you want information regarding troop formations, background and fighting techniques, there are better volumes.

Steve
Cavalcade Wargames
cavalcadewargames.com

I have Ritta Nakanishi's book Japanese Military Uniforms 1841-1929. I think its very good. It seems to be thorough in that it contains a large number of color plates as well as black and white drawings. The English text appears to be the same as the Japanese text. I base this on the size of what is written in the two languages and their balanced placement throughout the book. I purchased it because it was a unique source, at least in terms of what I have seen. I have just about all of the Osprey on the Samurai periods, and these two volumes are a good deal cheaper than buying all of those. But if I were to buy the Nakanishi History of Japanese Armor Vol. 1 & 2, I would have no regrets about owning the Osprey as well. Thanks for making me aware of these volumes. Richard

Oo, they look nice. Thanks for posting the pics – I think I shall get a set.

If you can find it for a reasonable price, the Bottomley book is quite good. Wish I'd bought a handful when they were dirt cheap from Hamilton booksellers.

Doug

The "pre-samurai" stuff in volume 1 looks interesting, but the hlj link suggests it is out of stock. Does anyone know of a UK stockist who might have it? Amazon and Caliver don't list it.

cheers,
Duncan

Note that when HLJ says 'out of stock', they only mean that HLJ doesn't have any in the warehouse. It's still in print.