JA vs other japanese old breeds
Why the JA is so different from other Japanese breed (except the shiba)? I note a big distance. There is a similarity between japanese dogs (excepet tosa inu), but Akita (and shiba) is very different from one shikoku or kishu or hokkaido.
Comments
I read Dog Man by Martha Sherill, it's about Akitas after World War two and redeveloping the breed. I don't know of any other books.
Even in the shikoku, the bottom half of this page has photos of the breed's dogs with a working selection criteria vs the show-attributes selected dogs we are used to seeing: http://www.shikoku-ken.org/about-shikoku-ken/appearance/
They look quite different! Kishu, Kai and Hokkaido haven't yet been bred for show to that degree, and thus look (and behave) more plain and rustic.
Shiba are also highly refined, but there are so many more of them and have a long breeding history that, unlike the Akita, hasn't had to do the significant restoration work to undo the effects of wartime mixing with Western breeds, as well as stylized augmentation of traits that were less refined even in the pre-war Akita. Shiba breeders have many more strong choices for fine tuning the attributes of the next generation, and a lot of work has gone into temperament and workable drive in some very physically sound lines. There are significant numbers of robust shiba achieving in various dog sports, skill events, and all-round stable companion duty.
@jackburton will know the book and I'm sure he can speak to the history.
Basically, the JA's that we have now are a result of selective breeding from one type of Japanese Akita, the Ichinoseki line. The American Akitas were descendents from the Goromaru line. I hope I have this right as I am going from memory. Anyways, that is why we have JA's and AA's, and the way the Akita looked before the selective breeding might have something in between these two. From what I understand, the Shikoku, Kai and Hokkaido did not undergo as much of a selective process, and that could be the difference that you're talking about.
Once they were identified, a breed standard was codified, and the existing dogs classified as one variety or another. During this time it was possible for a foundation dog to be a completely different variety from its parents or siblings, as it was categorized by its traits not its lineage. This is perfectly normal in breeds with varieties all throughout the world. The medium varieties are so similar because they all came out of the same cross-bred foundation stock as recently as the 30's and 40's. The smallest and largest varieties, however, were mostly isolated populations already.
Some individuals took interest in only a certain variety and formed their own clubs apart from NIPPO with a separate breed standard to preserve and refine those dogs as distinct *breeds*. That is how AKIHO, KKA, DOKENHO, etc were founded. [This is actually a little simplified, because at one time there were *five* different breed preservation societies for the largest variety of the Nihon Ken, and over time they folded under or were merged with each other until only AKIHO remained. They had different names for the breed, but in the end Akita Inu won out because that's what AKIHO calls it.]
There is rumor that the Akita Inu was bred to the medium breeds (most likely Hokkaido Ken) in order to reintroduce the red coat color to the breed. This is used to explain how red "suddenly" appeared in the late 60's after being all but non-existant since AKIHO began having shows. The color soared in popularity overnight, causing two other colors (yellow and sesame) to die out. Today probably about 70% of Japanese Akitas are red. But there is nothing to substantiate the claim about mixing to medium breeds to achieve this color. Since all of the native breeds were originally the same land race, it is reasonable that red may have been in the lines all along; it is after all a recessive gene that could be hidden for generations waiting for the right pair to meet. The appearance of red could be attributed to the removal of more dominant color genes that fell out of favor for being "too Western."
* Only six of the varieties survive today.