Manicmo; an excellent book (though not up to date) is Japanese Film Directors, by Audie Bock; it covers 10 major directors -Mizoguchi, Ozu, Naruse, Kurosawa, Kinoshita, Ichikawa, Kobayashi, Imamura, Oshima, Shinoda- in turn and in greater depth than most, up to the mid/ late eighties. 