The haiku magazine “Yuki" which based its origins in Hototogisu haiku magazine had many Brazilian Nikkei literary members. One of them was Goga Masuda, who was active in both Japanese haiku and Portuguese haikai in Brazil. Although seasonal words are often not emphasized in foreign language haikus, Goga Masuda adopted the idea from Kyoshi Takahama and tried to incorporate the idea of emphasizing seasonal words into Brazilian haikai. In this paper, I will examine how Masuda's philosophy of seasonal words was formed, and how “Yuki" was involved and influenced in the process. In “Yuki", there are about 180 articles written by Goga Masuda, and from his reports on his haikai activities in Brazil and his letters to Koka Muramatsu, the leader of “Yuki", we can trace his haikai activities in Brazil and the process of forming his philosophy of seasonal words. As a result of analyzing them, I found that Masuda stopped adopting Kyoshi's idea of emphasizing seasonal words as it was and made changes to reflect his way of thinking about seasonal words with more predominant representation of Brazilian nature. In the process, Muramatsu's comments in “Yuki", his visit to Brazil, and the international character of “Yuki" may have influenced Goga Masuda. The transcultural development of international haiku with seasonal words and nature poetry, mediated by Nikkei or Japanese, opens up new possibilities for international haiku.

Haruo Satō's short novel, Okinu and Her Brothers, was initially published in Chūō Kōron's November issue (1918). Haruo Satō claimed that Okinu and Her Brothers was based entirely on fact; however, when compared to the brief biography of Kaneko Kinu, on whom Okin is modeled, the novel showed some contradictions to the biography, which implies the novel might not be purely nonfictional. And also, Satō's plot, characterization, and writing style in Okinu and Her Brothers were strikingly similar to a traditional Chinese story, The Oil-Peddler Wins the Queen of Flowers. Satō was famously known to be an enthusiast of traditional Chinese literature, so it is possible that he noticed the commonalities between Kaneko Kinu's experiences and the Chinese story, and combined them in Okinu and Her Brothers. Under the cover of its realistic folktale style, Okinu and Her Brothers is still based on Haruo Satō's art for art's sake thinking. Like Melancholy in the Country and The House of a Spanish Dog, Okinu and Her Brothers is also distinctly influenced by foreign literature. From this point of view, we can say that this novel is in fact a very typical creation among Haruo Satō's early works.

This study examines the influence of Christina Rossetti's works on the early poems of Japanese tanka poet and translator Hiroko Katayama (1878–1957). Particularly, it focuses on the poems of Hiroko that depict the longing for death as a form of rest.

When she was around 30, Hiroko wrote tanka poems that expressed a desire for death. It is thought that she considered death as a perfect state of peace or rest that contrasted with the difficult situation of the world. This is also the leading theme in Christina Rossetti's works. In Hiroko's series of 10 tanka poems titled Yume-no-kuni (Dream Land), there are a few lines that associate sleep or dreams with death and suggest that death is a form of rest in the afterlife. It is believed that these tanka poems were inspired by Rossetti's works, such as ‘Dream Land' and ‘Ghost Petition'.

Rossetti was a devout Christian, and she contemplated the intermediate state of the soul̶also called ‘Soul Sleep'̶after death. Conversely, she also displayed an interest in the supernatural and wrote poems related to spectrality. Although Hiroko was educated in a mission school and knew about the spiritual insights of the Christian religion, she was never baptised. She had wide-ranging interests in the spiritual world―for instance, she wrote tanka poems related to reincarnation and ghosts and translated Irish fairy tales into Japanese. Hiroko was attracted to and inspired by Rossetti's work that contained both devotional and supernatural aspects.

Friedrich Nietzsche's name occasionally appears in Natsume Sōseki's oeuvre. It is important to interpret this reference since it is always associated with the problem of individualism, which grabbed Sōseki's attention throughout his life. Sōseki owned a copy of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which contained his own comments and markings. Judging from these notes, he did not appear to think much of Nietzsche. It has been said that this evaluation of Nietzsche is solely Sōseki's, but this paper contends that Degeneration by Max Nordau, a Hungarian-French writer, influenced Sōseki's understanding of Nietzsche.

Sōseki explains Nietzsche's ethical theory in his Theory of Literature (Bugakuron). In Sōseki's notebook, there is a reference to Degeneration for interpreting Nietzsche's theory; Sōseki's explanation is based on Nordau's. Furthermore, the character called Tendo Kohei in I am a Cat (Wagahai wa Neko de Aru) turns out to be a lunatic. It has been said this character's model was Nietzsche, but it was, in fact, Nordau's Nietzsche whom Sōseki had in mind. Sōseki's interpretation of Nietzsche was clearly influenced by Degeneration.

Therefore, in turn, Nordau's Nietzsche was important for Sōseki's explorations on the problem of individualism. In addition, considering the extent of his commitment to Degeneration, the relationship between Sōseki and Nordau must be further examined.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the significance and characteristics of Tokutomi Roka (1868-1927)'s short story, a ‘Translation,' “Shosetsu no Shosetsu" (1896), which appeared in Kokumin-shimbun, an influential Japanese newspaper in the Meiji period.

No reference has been given in the field of academic research so far to Roka's “Shosetsu no Shosetsu", and identification of the original source of the text has yet to be made.

This fictional piece deals with the process of production and acceptance of a story, from the creative work of an author through the publication by the press, and to the reading activities of the reader. The text consists of two different structures; that is, description for information on process of a publication of a work was carried a supplement to an illustrated magazine and discourses of fictional narrative related to the reader's incidents. It is worthy as a highly unique text that demonstrates the feature of a story as media.

The work refers to the sense of “shosetsu no shosetsu" in a cultural context and the process of an acceptance of ‘short story' itself. This article presents the meaning of social and cultural background acceptance within contemporary Japanese media. It is shown that the production of the story corresponds to the spread of new media, especially within the printing industry, in the 20's of the Meiji period in Japan.

Through analysis of the text, the problems of the emerging media and of the then newly established reading public that enjoyed the narratives and production of different interpretations are explored. That is to say, this report illuminates how each narrative can be produced by ways of reading, and of readers by focusing on media. Each of readers gave a different version of the work readers event.

Therefore, this study was presented in regards to the disputing problems of the media on various levels.