I will gladly reply to your questions, Littlestone:
"In what way are the people of Kansai different from those of Hokuhokto?"
The people in Kansai are proud of their 'Western' (Nishinihon) character, i am sure you also know about the eternal rivalry between Osaka (Kansai) as opposed to Kanto (Tokyo ). But these two areas are still far to close to each other to notice any real 'racial' difference. You chose Hokuhokto in the far northeast so you make things very easy for me. Women in the region of Akita close by, for instance, are said to be the prettiest in Japan. People all over the northeastern end of Honshu are taller and paler in complexion and the faces of the people east of Niigata (or even there) have always reminded me of some beautiful long lost kingdom in Siberian mythology. They are wilder and more rustic that the usual package tourist. Of course, you tend to find characters like that in Kyushu too but the impression is quite a general one, like a trip around southern and northern France for instance.
"Which war are you referring to?"
The second world war of course. You know the enormous antipathy between the Japanese and the West, and between the Chinese and the Japanese (this last one still goes on). Archaeology has been (and still is in many ways) sadly bound up by politics and nationalism (also in Europe). You see it in the way that the kohun graves in Japan are strictly forbidden excavation just in case FAR too many Korean elements in the skeletons are found in them, suggesting of course that the earlier emperors, stemming from the kohun, were of 'foreign' descent.
>The European fascination with the ainu has always been puzzling for the Japanese.<What is your source for that observation?
Half my family is Japanese. My source is direct from the people I have asked. Me, as a Westerner, have also always suffered since I was a child from an inquisitive desire to know whatever happened to the ainu after reading countless stories in the 70s (bordering on the ridiculously naive) of 'white' people being the first in Japan and later were all (except a few) exterminated. Ask any common Japanese about the ainu and they won't know what you are talking about. They even have a different name for them. Likewise, European fascination with shinto is also puzzling for them. Ask them about shinto and they don't even know that word, cos they use a different one or they JUST DONT use one at all as that nature-worshipping religions is SO ingrained in their small temples galore.
"The East Asian influences on the modern Japanese are well documented. What would you say were some of the South Asian influences? "
I am thinking in far more ancient terms. Some of the Eastern Asians that went along with the Yayoi may have included elements that originally had moved from the south, like the Han Chinese did in their origins, somewhere in Thailand, Vietnam, etc. The Turkik-looking peoples of Siberia, Central Asia or Mongolia are what constitutes the vast element of what we are calling eastern asians.
