Alan Booth writes:

Japan is an island nation, to be sure, and so the sea plays a towering role in in its historical and national consciousness. But there are two ways of looking at islands. Islands are either fortresses or dungeons. Among people who are by nature outward-looking and independent-minded, it is the fortress view that dominates, and that sees in the surrounding ocean a source of great strength...

By contrast, throughout most of its history, Japan has taken a dungeon view, a view that combines the habit of gloomy introspection with the feeling of being confined, hedged in, deprived of innumerable benefits. For the Japanese, the sea has been a barrier, moody, cruel and dangerous -- a barrier you sense very clearly in Tsuruga, where the sea is moody, cruel and dangerous.