SOURCE: Kawachi, Yoshiko, ed. “The Merchant of Venice and Japanese Culture.” In Japanese Studies in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, pp. 46-69. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1998.

In the following essay, Kawachi chronicles the reception of Shakespeare's play in Japanese translation.

In the sixteenth century Venice became one of the most prosperous hubs of East-West trade. Trading and commercial activities in the city filled the city's coffers and stimulated a growth in moneylending. Consequently, a Shylock could find eager clients who needed to finance the cost of supplying and manning merchant ships. At that time, traders could reap huge fortunes or lose everything, and merchant ships commonly sailed from Venice to England, Lisbon, Mexico, the Barbary Coast, and India. Only a few ships sailed to Japan, perhaps because of the distance.

William Adams, a contemporary of Shakespeare's and a pilot of Dutch merchant ship, de Liefde, landed in Japan...