There are really a lot of cases like that. On p. 37 the description says "The entrance of Mochizuki’s ninja museum in Iga’s Ueno city, Mie prefecture, private collection." Of course it isn't. On the left pillar it says 甲賀流忍術屋敷 (Kōga-ryū ninjutsu yashiki), so it's in Kōka-shi, Shiga pref. (https://www.kouka-ninjya.com/la_en/). And many more (as you've mentioned).
The overall editing is terrible, including the transcription of Japanese terms. I wonder what you make of note 28 on page 183—how on earth does "hata" become "Hastened"?
I have a hypothesis about the whole thing: In the Acknowledgments, Zoughari thanks a certain Mr. Ray A. Letter. Given the "Mr.", I would guess this person is not involved in Bujinkan, Japanese Studies, or anything related. Maybe he was in charge of the final version. Perhaps Zoughari told him something like, "Find an image of the Yagyū villa here," and the collaborator thought, "OK, seems like we need a picture of some typical traditional Japanese building. Any should work..."—and voilà. Just a conspiracy theory, I know.
That said, the entire work is a terrible advertisement for INALCO graduates' academic integrity, meticulousness, etc. The repeated use of "Dr. Zoughari" everywhere is a clear attempt to establish credibility through academic titles—a weak argument, if you ask me. In effect it casts doubts on other people from INALCO as well. I'm looking forward to your take on Pierre Souyri's work (if you're thinking of it).
Oh yeah, there are plenty of other examples I could have given, but after a while you're just laboring the point. One of my personal favorites is the color plates, which have a bunch of uncredited stills from the 1990 samurai film "Ten to chi to" ('Heaven and Earth').
"Hata" to "hastened" is probably autocorrect plus sloppy to non-existent editing. The transcriptions throughout are dreadful, I agree; you can see in the above 'Yamada Nobuo' print that Hyakunin is mis-rendered as "Haykunin," and that's repeated at least half a dozen times throughout. Nobody with any expertise in Japanese studies looked at this before publication, that much is clear.
I find your 'hypothesis' about the pictures depressingly plausible. It would explain the Todaiji error - possibly whoever was putting the images in just Googled "Japanese temple" and used whatever image came up. That said, Zoughari's name is on the book and he is ultimately responsible for what he puts out under his name.
From my previous interactions with INALCO, I'm going to assume the quality of Zoughari's work is an anomaly and not representative of the general standard, because I know people there and always had a positive impression of the place. Still, as you say, this doesn't look good, especially given the repeated stress on the academic title.
There are really a lot of cases like that. On p. 37 the description says "The entrance of Mochizuki’s ninja museum in Iga’s Ueno city, Mie prefecture, private collection." Of course it isn't. On the left pillar it says 甲賀流忍術屋敷 (Kōga-ryū ninjutsu yashiki), so it's in Kōka-shi, Shiga pref. (https://www.kouka-ninjya.com/la_en/). And many more (as you've mentioned).
The overall editing is terrible, including the transcription of Japanese terms. I wonder what you make of note 28 on page 183—how on earth does "hata" become "Hastened"?
I have a hypothesis about the whole thing: In the Acknowledgments, Zoughari thanks a certain Mr. Ray A. Letter. Given the "Mr.", I would guess this person is not involved in Bujinkan, Japanese Studies, or anything related. Maybe he was in charge of the final version. Perhaps Zoughari told him something like, "Find an image of the Yagyū villa here," and the collaborator thought, "OK, seems like we need a picture of some typical traditional Japanese building. Any should work..."—and voilà. Just a conspiracy theory, I know.
That said, the entire work is a terrible advertisement for INALCO graduates' academic integrity, meticulousness, etc. The repeated use of "Dr. Zoughari" everywhere is a clear attempt to establish credibility through academic titles—a weak argument, if you ask me. In effect it casts doubts on other people from INALCO as well. I'm looking forward to your take on Pierre Souyri's work (if you're thinking of it).
Thanks for all the great work. I'm a big fan.
Oh yeah, there are plenty of other examples I could have given, but after a while you're just laboring the point. One of my personal favorites is the color plates, which have a bunch of uncredited stills from the 1990 samurai film "Ten to chi to" ('Heaven and Earth').
"Hata" to "hastened" is probably autocorrect plus sloppy to non-existent editing. The transcriptions throughout are dreadful, I agree; you can see in the above 'Yamada Nobuo' print that Hyakunin is mis-rendered as "Haykunin," and that's repeated at least half a dozen times throughout. Nobody with any expertise in Japanese studies looked at this before publication, that much is clear.
I find your 'hypothesis' about the pictures depressingly plausible. It would explain the Todaiji error - possibly whoever was putting the images in just Googled "Japanese temple" and used whatever image came up. That said, Zoughari's name is on the book and he is ultimately responsible for what he puts out under his name.
From my previous interactions with INALCO, I'm going to assume the quality of Zoughari's work is an anomaly and not representative of the general standard, because I know people there and always had a positive impression of the place. Still, as you say, this doesn't look good, especially given the repeated stress on the academic title.