The series bears the striking contrast of colors, dramatic embossing, and innovative textural effects that are hallmarks of Maki's prints, bringing his ancient subject matter into a modern print vernacular.
The principal chronicles describing the origins of Japanese history are the Nihon shoki ("Chronicle of Japan") and the Koji-ki ("Record of Ancient Matters").
Most of the surviving Japanese myths are recorded in the Kojiki (compiled 712; "Records of Ancient Matters") and the Nihon shoki (compiled in 720; "Chronicles of Japan").
The Kojiki ("Records of Ancient Matters") and the Nihon-gi, or Nihon shoki ("Chronicles of Japan"), are regarded in a sense as sacred books of Shintō.
(According to the Kojiki, "Records of Ancient Matters," it was another brother, the storm god Susanoo, who was sent on the mission).
The books include the Kojiki ("Records of Ancient Matters"), the Nihon shoki, or Nihon-gi ("Chronicles of Japan"), the Kogoshūi ("Gleanings of Ancient Works"), and the Engi shiki ("Institutes of the Engi Period").
In Japan the 8th-century histories Kojiki ("Records of Ancient Matters") and Nihon shoki ("Chronicles of Japan") are studded with fables, many on the theme of small but intelligent animals getting the better of large and stupid ones.
These family documents were collected at the command of the emperor Temmu (672 686) and were used as basic materials for the compilation of the first national chronicles of Japan, the Kojiki (712; "Records of Ancient Matters") and the Nihon shoki (720; "Chronicles of Japan").
In the oldest extant works, the Kojiki (712; The Kojiki: Records of Ancient Matters) and Nihon shoki, or Nihon-gi (720; Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697), more than 120 songs, some dating back to perhaps the 5th century ce, are given in phonetic transcription, doubtless because the Japanese attached great importance to the sounds themselves.
Both the Records of Ancient Matters (Kojiki) and the Chronicles of Japan (Nihon shoki) open with cosmological narratives accounting for the origins of the world, Japan, and the Japanese people.
