Books on Japan’s Underwater World

Japan rewards the curious diver. The same waters that carry hammerheads past Yonaguni and sperm whales off Ogasawara also carry centuries of island history, settlement and natural science. This is a short, honest reading list — books we’ve found genuinely useful for understanding what you see underwater and the places you surface into. Some are in Japanese, but several are picture-led enough to reward you even without the language.

If a title points you toward a region you’d like to dive, browse our destinations to plan the trip. Spotted a book we should add? Tell us on the contact page.

Marine life & identification

• Fishes of Japan, with Pictorial Keys to the Species (English edition), edited by Tetsuji Nakabo (Tokai University Press). The standard scholarly reference to Japan’s marine and freshwater fishes — thousands of species across hundreds of families, with illustrated identification keys. Reference-desk rather than dive-bag, but unmatched when you want to put a name to what you saw.
• Coral Reefs of Japan, by the Ministry of the Environment and the Japanese Coral Reef Society. A comprehensive English overview of Japan’s reef ecosystems, region by region, with strong context on where the reefs are and how they’re protected. Useful background before diving the southern islands.
• 西表島の海 / Iriomotejima Tropical Under-Water, by Korechika Yano. A photographic dive into the subtropical waters of Iriomote in the Yaeyama group — reef life, color and texture from one of Japan’s wildest islands. Image-led, so it travels well across the language barrier.

Diving Japan

• 海底の旅 日本の海 流氷からサンゴ礁まで (A Diving Essay: Japanese Seas, from Drift Ice to Coral Reef), by Hiroshi Takeuchi (Nautilus Books, first published 1985). A diver’s photographic journey the length of the country — Hokkaido’s drift ice, the Izu Peninsula and Izu Islands, the volcanic chain south, Ogasawara and Okinawa. Heavily illustrated in color; even without Japanese you get a vivid sense of what Japanese diving feels like across its climate range.
• マッコウの海・小笠原 (Sperm Whales of Ogasawara), by Takashi Uzu (1998). A close look at the sperm whales that gather in the deep water off Ogasawara, from one of the few places in Japan where whale encounters define the marine experience. Essential reading if the Bonin Islands are on your list.

Islands, history & culture

Ogasawara — the Bonin Islands — has one of the strangest settlement histories in the Pacific, and the reading below explains how a remote Japanese archipelago came to have an Anglo-Pacific island culture at its core.

• The History of the Bonin Islands from the Year 1827 to the Year 1876, by Lionel Berners Cholmondeley (1915). The first English-language history of the islands, centered on early settler Nathaniel Savory, written by an Anglican priest who visited many times. A primary-source classic, now widely available as a reprint.
• English on the Bonin (Ogasawara) Islands, by Daniel Long (Duke University Press / American Dialect Society, 2007). A scholarly but readable account of how an English-Japanese mixed speech grew out of the islands’ multilingual settler population. The clearest window into why Ogasawara’s culture feels unlike anywhere else in Japan.
• Journey to Ogasawara, by Michael Craig (2012). A first-person English account of travel to the Bonins — a lighter, more personal companion to the histories above for readers planning the long boat trip south.

Tip: many of these are easiest to find through Japanese booksellers or as library reference copies rather than mainstream English retailers — worth the hunt before a trip rather than after.

Ready to turn the reading into a dive? Start with our destinations guide, and if you know a book that belongs here, drop us a line via contact.