Peter Goldsbury

Yes, I think that Charles has a point. Since Arikawa Sensei passed away there are no more 'historians' in the Hombu (unless any of the younger shihans have interest or expertise).

My earlier point about Kodansha implied that it is a large commercial publishing house, where questions of cost also count. Japan Publications Trading was not a large company.

I once asked the present Doshu some question about the origins of aikido. He did hot have an answer and added that there were many old documents and archive in the Hombu that no one had looked at, probably due to lack of time or inclination.

I think that publishing the Noma archive in the form in which it was created would be a very difficult undertaking.