Yamakawa Shuppansha president Takeshi Nozawa holds the publisher’s textbook on Japanese history — used in high schools across Japan — alongside the new English version in Tokyo on May 23. | Francis Tang

As a family-run business with around 50 employees, Yamakawa Shuppansha is like many small and medium-sized enterprises in Japan — a tight-knit team of experts dedicated to executing the craft of their specialty.

What distinguishes the publishing company is history; not only do they have a long history that dates back to the end of World War II, they quite literally publish the nation’s most iconic history textbooks.

Anyone who has gone through the Japanese high school system will immediately recognize the orange and blue textbooks — which cover Japanese and world history, respectively — that Yamakawa Shuppansha has continued to deliver to students across the nation for the past seven decades.

But just because the company cherishes what it has built up over the years does not mean it shies away from challenges that emerge with the times, says its current president, Takeshi Nozawa, a grandson of the founder.

And the publishing company’s newest and possibly toughest challenge yet? Publishing an English language version of its iconic Japanese history textbook.

“To be honest, we initially thought we could produce it pretty easily — maybe within just a year or two,” Nozawa, 45, says in his Chiyoda Ward office.

His team and he ended up eating their own words as production took 10 years of hard labor jumping through the hoops of the language barrier and navigating the untrodden path before them.

Source:https://www.japantimes.co.jp/

Full article: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/08/13/japan/society/yamakawa-shuppansha/