INTRODUCTION Japan is geographically described as having 47 prefectures, with 4 distinct main islands, Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. The distance separating Korea and Kyushu is only 200 km while the distance separating Hokkaido and Sakhalin is only 40 km. The formation of the Japanese civi...

Japan's influence on the west has been nothing short of miraculous, in less than a century and a half they have risen from a small isolated culture to one of the preeminent superpowers of the world. Although most people know a little about modern Japan most people do not know anything about t...