The entry in the Nihon shoki covering the reign of Emperor Tenmu (r. 673–86) begins—after reciting the emperor's names, and somewhat predictably reporting that he was of majestic appearance at birth and grew into a virile and martial adult—with the surprising opening statement that he “was skilled in astronomy and the art of invisibility.” Tenmu's exceptional importance to early Japanese history is signaled by his receiving more extensive coverage in the Nihon shoki than any of the other thirty-nine monarchs chronicled in that seminal text. Tenmu may have actually been the first Japanese ruler to wield the august imperial title tennō (pp. 46, 49), and it was also roughly around his time that a loosely united Yamato kingdom was finally transformed into a more centralized country that, for the first time, began to call itself Nihon (Japan). Yet, as Herman Ooms observes in this fine new book, Tenmu is “portrayed...
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