Anyone writing about the Samurai culture MUST read:
"A Book of Five Rings" (Go Rin No Sho) by Miyamoto Musashi
http://www.samurai.com/5rings/

For another Asian (Chinese) perspective, a good book is Sun Tzu's "The Art of War."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War

And how about GENJI by Lady somethingorother? She was a member of the Japanese court a century or so ago. There are several good English translations.

And go watch loads of good kung fu movies. The multi-part tv series produced in Hong Kong by the Shaw Brothers were some of the finest. Talk about fantasy! Geez!! They had stuff we never get over here these days. A village trying to hide by driving everyone else out with ghosts. Oh, gee, I can't remember all the details, but I used to rent them from the little video store on the corner when I lived in China (Taiwan). And one of my Japanese classmates and I used to trade. She'd rent Japanese fantasy movies and I rent these Shaw Brothers and we'd swap.

I remember one about a sort of Christian vampire who was getting revenge on the emperor and another about a woman who was the sole survivor of her clan and she studied this outre kung fu and did all sort of weird things. I wish I could recall more details but it's been twenty years since I watched these shows. There MUST be some way to find them here in the states.