Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast, episode 613. I am a cat.

I don't know about you, but after the last few weeks, I could use a break from the heavy

stuff, so let's have a nice, relaxed time, and just talk about a book. So if you went to Japan

any time between the 1980s and 2007, you probably had to take out at least some cash. Even today,

Japan's not quite as cashless as other places I've been. And certainly two decades ago, most

things still had to be bought the old-fashioned way. In turn, you probably had a lot of 1,000 yen notes

on you, the equivalent of about ten bucks in the U.S.

And up until 2007, the Series D version of the 1,000 yen note, one of the most common bank notes in Japan, had on its reverse side a portrait of a handsome man with a mustache and

some very nice hair.

His name was Natsume Solseki, and as you might guess, given his

rather prestigious spot on the nation's currency, he's kind of a big deal. As a side note, his bank

note, the series D is no longer in circulation. The series E and F notes that are now in circulation

show Noguchi Hideo and Kitasato Shibasaburo, respectively.

The former helped determine the bacteriological cause of syphilis, leading to our modern ability

to treat it, the latter, almost simultaneously with Alexander Yerson, discovered the bacteria

behind bubonic plague, so both kind of a big deal too.

Anyway, Natsume Soseki specifically is certainly one of the most famous writers in modern Japanese history.

I am not an expert on literary history, but in terms of both domestic and international renown,

my sense is that really the only other people in the same ballpark are Japan's two

noble laureates, Kawabata Yasunari, and Oa Kanzabro, plus the master of horror Akutagawa

Ryunosuke, and probably today Murakami Haruki. Maybe you could put Mishima Yukio up there, too, though

in my experience, he tends to be more famous for how he died than what he wrote.

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