Nikon and Zeiss, then painstakingly retouched by specialists using the latest digital technology. As a result, the book exudes style and authenticity.
Aesthetically, the book is very beautiful. For example, the full-color endpapers are high definition copies of original woodblock prints from 1879 depicting a market scene in Okinawa. This allowed the population of mainland Japanese to contrast their lifestyle with that of the newly created Japanese prefecture of Okinawa, the old Ryukyu Kingdom, that the Meiji Government had recently annexed.
This is genuinely a limited collectors’ edition produced, printed and bound using the finest materials by the Dragon-Ikemiya International JV. Dragon Associates Inc. has been publishing karate books for more than 40 years and Ikemiya Shokai Ltd is one of the oldest presses in Okinawa and one with close karate ties. Okinawa Karate: The Exquisite Art has never been sold to bookstores or other public retail outlets. It features a hard binding, color dust cover, library sleeve, printed color endpapers, the full text in both English and Japanese, and even a bound -in page marker ribbon.
Postscript:
If you have ever wondered about the origins of your style, or wish to take your knowledge of karate to a higher level, you need a copy of this beautiful hardbound, cased, collectors edition.
OUT OF PRINT!
• A limited, hardback and cased, collector’s edition.
• Printed in English and Japanese.
• Presented on fine art paper with digitally restored images.
• Includes many previously unpublished photographs
• 210 pages in international A4 size (8.27” x 11.69”)
• Prologue by noted Chinese martial arts historian, Stan Henning.
• Hundreds of endnote references in English and Japanese.
• Includes an Okinawan chronology from 1322 AD to the present
FREE STAMPS WHILE STOCKS LAST:
When we ship your copy of this landmark book we will include a sample 3 cent Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa) karate stamp from the series that was published from 1963-65. At this time, Okinawa was still U.S. controlled, hence the “cents” denomination. The models used for the stamp illustrations were members of the Matsubayashi Ryu Dojo of Shoshin Nagamine Sensei. There is no charge for this service. We just felt that these stamps would be do more good and create more interest if they were in the hands of serious karate exponents.
Not long after publication of this book we received a call from Japan Transocean Airways (a subsidiary of the Japanese national airline, Japan Airlines) asking if they could use the cover logo from our book on one of the new Boeing 737s they had just added to their fleet. They told us that our Japanese calligraphy was so beautiful that it would look amazing on the fuselage, and remind them of where karate was born.Of course, we agreed and you can go here to see the commissioning ceremony of the new airliner by the airline executives with our logo, proudly displayed on the fuselage! So now, every time one of these airlines lands the message is clear from our logo: Okinawa: Birthplace of Karate!
Production:
This book was produced by Dragon-Ikemiya Joint Venture Associates (Okinawa) and printed by Ikemiya Shokai Ltd. one of Okinawa’s oldest and most respected publisher of high quality art books. From its design to the printed endpapers, it is an excellent example of the art of fine book publishing.
