Journey Across the Moon and Underground Explorations

A hammer tapping at a country road, a hillside pierced with excavation pits, a vessel emerging from the earth: Emi Suiin turns archaeological collecting into a lively personal adventure. His companions compete for finds, trade jokes, and carry their enthusiasm into encounters with farmers, priests, workers, and spectators.

Seven selected accounts lead through sites around Tokyo and Kanagawa, including the famous Ōmori shell mound and a burial chamber that draws crowds of worshippers. Enthusiasm does not guarantee success. Empty digs, dangerous arguments, grief for lost friends, and a child’s affection give these explorations their distinctive human texture.

The final story carries that same appetite for discovery into an imagined lunar expedition. Two scientists, their assistants, and two schoolboys survive a wrecked airship, cross silent seas and towering mountains, and search for a way home. Its exuberant period science belongs to an early age of Japanese adventure fiction.