The other day, I wanted to look something up in the Best Karate books by Nakayama Sensei. But, my set of these essential reference books didn’t make it over to Japan with me. They are still in storage at the family home in England.

So, of course I turned to the internet, and found six of them available to borrow for free on the Internet Archive’s online library. Good enough for my purpose!

These are the ones you can browse for free, ‘borrowing’ them to read in your browser:

#1: Comprehensive
#2: Fundamentals
#3: Kumite 1
#5: Heian, Tekki
#6: Bassai, Kankū
#8: Gankaku, Jion

To borrow a digital copy on the Internet Archive you do need to sign up, but it’s very easy with a Google account. Then you can borrow for 1 hour or 14 days, so long as nobody else has the copy out on loan. There doesn’t seem to be much competition for these books though.

Of course, I recommend anyone serious about Shotokan karate to get the full set for themselves. But this is great for a proper preview, if you’re away from home, or if buying them is outside your means.

The full Best Karate series was re-released not long ago by Kodansha in the USA and Penguin Random House in the UK, so you should be able to get a set somehow!

Now I just have to take my own advice…

And, for those wondering, I was checking up which kata were listed in the first book of the series. And indeed, it mentions all four empty-hand kata that were not kept by the JKA, but are preserved by Keio University Karate Club: Sanchin, Tensho, Seienchin, and Hyakuhachi-ho.