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| | Sinister Designs: Yoshitoshi Tsukioka |
 | | In the Nihonshoki, Japan's earliest written history, (8th century), Yamato Takeru is a son of the twelfth Emperor, Keiko (reigned 71-130 AD), responsible for expanding Yamato territory at the expense of the aboriginal Ainu. |
 | | One night, as the Emperor was on his way to visit his favourite consort, he and his retinue were disconcerted to see in the gloom a shining figure with spikes growing out of its head, standing beside a chapel. |
 | | Kiyomori was undisputed master of Japan, but, despite lavishing money on temples to avert divine retribution, by 1180, he was paranoid and delusional, seeing the ghosts of his Minamoto victims everywhere, a situation Yoshitoshi portrayed in his New Forms of Thirty-six Ghosts series. |
| www.sinister-designs.com /graphicarts/generals.html (2695 words) |
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