This portrait details how painter and garden designer Alfred William Parsons (1847-1920) played a catalytic role in the growth of watercolour painting in Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, considering the development of notions such as 'nature' and 'landscape'.

The composer Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) was only in Japan for twelve days, in 1956, but his exposure to Japanese culture had a powerful impact on his music, resulting in his opera Curlew River.

Carmen Blacker (1924-2009) became one of Britain's most original and perceptive scholars of Japan, and this account charts the development of her love for the country and the impact this had upon her choice and pursuit of a career in academia.

Carmen Blacker visited Japan in 1952 on a post-graduate studentship granted by HM Treasury, to study the 19th century scholar Yukichi Fukuzawa. While there she was invited to summer with the novelist Jiro Osaragi, during which time she began her work on Japanese religion and spent a week at the famous temple of Engakuji at Kamakura.

Elizabeth Gordon (1851-1925) contributed towards a better understanding of Japanese and Western religious culture. This essay details her life and studies of Buddhism both in Britain and Japan.

Scottish Doctor who lived in Japan treating Ainu communities. An amateur archaeologist and anthropologist who discovered evidence of the prehistoric people of Japan.

This essay charts the literary and translation efforts of Honma Hisao (1886-1981), particularly in regard to Oscar Wilde; how he looked outward at English literature, inward at Meiji era literature and then combined the two in the comparative study of world literature.

This essay details the scholarly and journalistic efforts of J.W. Robertson-Scott (1866-1962), who wrote on Japanese foreign affairs, rural communities and agriculture during the First World War.

Even though John Batchelor (1855-1945) was not an expert in linguistics, ethnology or folklore, his contributions to the understanding of the Ainu people is nonetheless significant. This essay details his missionary career and a life devoted to the Ainu people.

Anthropologist Joy Hendry describes her time conducting fieldwork, studying family life in rural Japan.

This essay provides an account of sociologist Keith Thurley's (1931-92) lifelong commitment to industrial cooperation between Europe and Asia, and to the study of contemporary Japan.

The outstanding Western interpreter of Meiji Japan, Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904), provides the subject for this portrait; his time in America, Japan, and his relationships to his contemporaries.

This essay considers the remarkable scholarly career of the brilliant but eccentric polymath Minakata Kumagusu (1867-1941), an expert in natural history, folklore and classicism, as well as an assessment of the significance of his time in London to his work.

Ōtsuka Hisao (1907-1996) was a pioneering scholar of Western economic and political history and a celebrated intellectual in post-war Japan.

Saitō Takeshi (1887-1982) contributed significantly to the development of English Studies in Japan, as well as inspiring the field of 'British [Cultural] Studies', and this portrait outlines his impact on academia in Japan.

Sidney (1859-1947) and Beatrice Webb (1858-1943) were political activists devoted to the labour movement in Britian. Between 1911-1912 they embarked on a world tour, visiting Japan and writing an account of their journey.