Akutagawa's Rashomon and Other Stories
Akutagawa essentially invented modern Japanese short fiction. His psychologically complex, formally inventive stories established the tradition that runs through Kawabata, Mishima, and Murakami. "Rashomon" and "In a Grove" (the basis for Kurosawa's 1950 film) are essential.
Some readers stall in the earlier legend-based stories and never finish, one admitting outright “DNF @ 39%” and finding the pieces individually clever but not cumulative as a set. Hell Screen, despite its reputation, drags through the middle before tipping into what one reader calls a “near hysterical ending.” Readers fluent in Japanese argue Jay Rubin's translation leans too colloquial and modern for stories set in the medieval period, trading period flavor for easy readability, and the collection's unrelenting bleakness wears some down in one sitting, story after story of cruelty, starvation, and madness. One reviewer sums up the whole experience with a shrug: “not bad but I just can't muster any real enthusiasm.”
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
