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Japanese Sherlockians

One of the fringe benefits of being a Sherlockian is having the opportunity to meet interesting people. Many of these encounters are of the face-to-face variety but some are of the correspondence-only type. With the advent of e-mail Sherlockians from around the world can have vast amounts of correspondence without any great expense.

Way back in the mid 1990's, which is equivalent to decades ago in the world of technology, I was lucky enough to have Internet and e-mail at the hospital where I worked. One of the local Sherlockian living in Dallas was working in Japan and came back to Texas and told me about the Japanese love of Sherlock Holmes. At the time I only had 2 Japanese translations in my collection. That proverbial light bulb in my head came on. If I knew a Japanese Sherlockian, we could trade books with each other.

My friend brought me Mr. Takahiko Endo's e-mail address and soon we were e-mailing each other on a regular basis. Takahiko was collecting Higher Criticisms at the time and I was able to find some of the harder to locate editions for him. He returned the favor by sending me practically every Japanese translation available. He has sent me more than one hundred editions over the years. Far more than I was ever able to send him.

Recently, Takahiko began collecting non-English translations of the Canon. Finally, I was able to repay his kindness. I was able to supply him with names and addresses of Sherlockian dealers from around the globe. I have kept good records of those I have dealt with in the past. Soon Takahiko was able to reach 50 languages other than English in his collection.

As time moved forward I once again found myself indebted to Takahiko's book-finding abilities. He located a dealer in Spain who sold Basque editions of Sherlock Holmes. It was also Takahiko who gave me the first clues to the existence of an Inuit edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles (see Hound archives).

Takahiko Endo is just of the many wonderful and generous Sherlockian I have met from Japan. Masamichi (Mitch) Higurashi is another one of those delightful people who just happens to be Sherlockian. Mitch is a translator and many of his Japanese editions line my shelves. Unlike Takahiko, Mitch and I have met face-to-face. We have spent quality time together the past two years in New York City during the Birthday Celebration Weekend.

We also spent a week together in Dartmoor, England celebrating the 100th anniversary of the publication of The Hounds. Along with his wife, Mayumi, there were a total of twelve more Japanese Sherlockians on this trip. Mayumi had a wonderful demonstration of the art of Origami. To the delight everyone there, she created an extraordinary Hound.

Kukuko Harada is a lovely lady I met a couple years ago at the Baskerville Bash in New York City. When I first was introduced to her, she was at the bar, smoking a cigar, wearing a beautiful Kimono and a deerstalker with hound dog-ears attached to it. She was also in Dartmoor with her husband Minouru. He splits his love between the Hound of the Baskervilles and Godzilla. We had several grand chats about those two creatures.

I could go on and on but I will refrain. I feel like I must be preaching to the choir. Any Sherlockian worth his or her salt will already know that the Japanese Sherlockians and serious about Holmes and all aspects of the Canon. They are also extremely fun and interesting people to be around.

These are just a few of the many other friends I have in Japan. I hope know one feels slighted if I did not mention them. I remember .

Happy collecting!