Young Samurai : Bodybuilders of Japan 1974
Photographs by Tamotsu Yato / Introduction by Yukio Mishima, 1974
New York: Grove Press, 1967. Hardcover with dust jacket in very good condition.
Rare book, especially in hardcover: Photographs of muscular Japanese men.
English Version
Appraised at USD$1000
Japanese photographer Yasushi Yazu’s photo book “Body Path Young Samurai Bodybuilders of Japan”. After working as a male researcher at the Takarazuka Revue, Yasushi Yasushi was affiliated with Nikkatsu and also acted as an actor. Yato is known for shooting Yukio Mishima, but it was Meredith Witherby who was also a partner of Yato who brought the connection with Mishima, and a translator of Mishima’s Shiosai and Masked Confession is. It doesn’t seem clear how Yato started taking pictures, but it seems that it was influenced by the economically rich and culturally well-developed Witherby. Witherby establishes John Weatherhill, Inc., and publishes the arrowhead photo book. Yato died in 1973 at the age of 48, leaving three photo books, “Body Movement”, “Naked Festival” and “OTOKO”. This book is the English version of Yazu’s 1st photo book. This is a photo of Japanese bodybuilders, and also shows the appearance of Yukio Mishima who wrote the preface. This is one of the representative books by Yazu Yasushi, who is also a legendary photographer.
Black and brown buckram boards with debossed Japanese characters to front board; gilt particulars to spine. Pictorial dust jacket protected in mylar. Photogravure plates throughout. Also published in Japanese under the title Taido (Way of the Body). Essay by Hitoshi Tamari; edited by Keizo Aizawa. Translated by M. Weatherby and Paul T. Konya. Dust jacket states: “140 photographic studies in gravure of over 50 of Japan’s most perfectly developed young men–young men who in their single-minded devotion to a rigorous training regimen might even be called Japan’s new breed of samurai.” No previous owners’ names or other markings. Pages bright and clean.
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