Please recommend a IJN reference book

Tony> Hi there, I am new here and I would like to get some Tony> reference material about IJN warships. I searched on ebay Tony> and found a lot of stuff, such as Maru Mechanism Series, Tony> Gakken, Maru Specials, Kojinsha Photo File, SOW Special, Tony> Maru Graphics, IJN Pictorials, etc. Could anyone recommend Tony> one to a newbie like me who cannot read in japanese? Thanks Tony> a lot.
Tony, your best best would be to get a couple of references, not one. The reason is that there are good specialist refs on cruisers (Lacroix and ?), Destroyers (DDs of WW2, forgotten the author), and the Kojinsha reprints of the Maru series.
The Kojinsha hard-cover reprints of the Maru series usually combine about 4 Marus into one new print, lots of nice plans and photos, but text only Japanese. Price is about 4500yen per publication, as opposed to the same amount for one used Maru!
You might also look into Gakken, which feature large-scale models of the subjects, usually one class per publication. Lots of nice photos, text in Japanese. Frankly, you're not going to be happy with the non-Japanese language output: the best other references are in Polish. It may be worht your while to learn Japanese, at least Kanji (get Heisig's 2 books on Remembering the Kanjiu [vol.3 not needed for beginners] and study like crazy: in 7 or 8 months you should be able to read).
Cheers, Gernot

Thanks a lot, Gernot, I am a little confused by which one is the Maru Series you recommended, for example, I did a simple search on ebay and found so many::

Tony> Thanks a lot, Gernot, I am a little confused by which one is Tony> the Maru Series you recommended, for example, I did a simple Tony> search on ebay and found so many::
Well, it's your fault for doing a simple search :-) The good books are compendia of the Maru series, hardcover, smaller than A4 in height but wider, with pale grey cover and dark blue lettering. Publisher is Kojinsha, and I recommend a search in Kinokuniya or Maruzen or some other large bookshop. They are in print, and I reccommend you not waste your monet on some crappy old original Marus with silly artificial colored slides and stuff like that. There are loads of idiots on Ebay flogging these things for ridiculous amounts when you can get three or four compiled into one for the same price, in hard cover to boot.
Cheers, Gernot

got it. but those japanese online bookstore either has none in stock(like Kinokuniya), or charge ridiculous international shipping amount(like amazon.jp), or doesn't have online shopping at all(like Maruzen)...
Gernot Hassenpflug wrote: simple

T >> Tony> Thanks a lot, Gernot, I am a little confused by which one is Tony> the Maru Series you recommended, for example, I did a simple Tony> search on ebay and found so many:: Tony> are Tony> but Tony> got it. but those japanese online bookstore either has none Tony> in stock(like Kinokuniya), or charge ridiculous Tony> international shipping amount(like amazon.jp), or doesn't Tony> have online shopping at all(like Maruzen)...
I've corrected your top-posting!!
Look, a couple of things to do: one, do same search on say yahoo (Japan) auctions, or Rakuten auction website or other some such to see if 2nd hand comes up.
Else, let me know what you want, I'll check at one of the bookstores in Kyoto over the weekend, and tell you what the price is (same as on the web I guess). Books may be hard-cover, so shipping is not cheap, even via surface mail. Now if the govt would remove taxes on books....yeah right, as if.
PS My email is in the X-headers somewhere.
Cheers, Gernot