History of Japan

Not many have heard of the Matagi, the hunters who live in northern Honshu. What do we know of their origins and history, and how do they fit into our knowledge of premodern Japan?

Show notes here.

This week: the Cowra breakout seemed, to those who lived through it, like it came out of nowhere. But nothing does, so what factors led to it? How did the breakout itself play out? And what are its legacies, both in terms of Australia-Japan relations and the wider question of Japanese "fanaticism" in WWII?

Show notes here.

In a wide-ranging episode intended just to be the introduction to the largest mass prisoner breakout of WWII, we first have to tackle...the history of Japan-Australia relations all the way up to 1940 and the role Australia played in Japanese militarist thought. Show notes here.

At long last, the fight over how to reconstruct Tokyo is done. But what did rebuilding the imperial capital actually look like?

Show notes here.

After Tokyo was burned to the ground, the battle over how to rebuild it began almost immediately. The man leading the charge--one of Japan's foremost bureaucrats--would become so frustrated with the experience that it would crush him completely. In the process, the fight would reveal some deep divisions over the importance of the capital and the nature of the postwar state itself.

Show notes here.

Why did so many greet the destruction of Tokyo not with consternation, but seeming joy? The answer has to do with one of the most complex phenomenon in the history of modern urbanism, and with the history of Edo's transformation into Tokyo and all the modern vices that came with it.

Show notes here.

This week: the Great Kanto Earthquake was also the backdrop for one of the most famous murders of 1920s Japan, one that set the stage for a seismic shift within the nation's political sphere. This week: who was Ito Noe, and how did her murder in a time of national emergency reflect a shift in Japan's political discourse?

Show notes here.

This week: in the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake, thousands of Koreans living in Tokyo were massacred by angry mobs as well as policemen and soldiers. What animated the survivors to engage in such horrific violence, and how does it reflect both the wider history of the Japan-Korea relationship and the mindset many of us carry into our darkest moments?

Note: no new episode next week, as I'm traveling in Japan.

Show notes here.

The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 was one of the most devastating catastrophes in modern Japanese history, but in English scholarship it's often overshadowed by the destruction of the Second World War. This week we'll kick off a multipart series on the quake and its legacy with a simple question: what do we know about the immediate aftermath?

Show notes here.

This week: the question of whether Hirohito would remain emperor of Japan or be replaced with "Emperor Kumazawa" was, in fact, decided before the Southern Court claimant had ever gone public. So why was the idea of removing Hirohito never taken seriously, and what did Kumazawa do once it became clear he was never going to sit on the Crysanthemum Throne? And how, strangely, does this all tie back to a Geocities era webpage about alternative medicine? Show notes here.

In January, 1946, a man came to the headquarters of the American occupation government of Japan and claimed to be Japan's true emperor. Who was he, why did he do this, and how does his story connect to an obscure figure from a civil war that happened more than 500 years earlier?

Show notes here.

First thing's first: I made a numbering error a few weeks back, and so to get us back on the correct count we're just going to skip episode 630!

This week, I'm very lucky to be joined by journalist and writer (and Pulitzer Prize winner) Evelyn Iritani to talk about her new book Safe Passage (and a bit about her old book An Ocean Between Us). Check the book out here for a look into an underexplored moment in the history of US-Japan relations.

Show notes here.

We're coming up on the end of the school year here in the US and will have to briefly interrupt our normal programming. To tide you over, here's a bonus episode from my old podcast Criminal Records. We'll be back on June 12!

Show notes here.

Fate twists once again in Fujiwara no Michinaga's favor as an unfortunate accident of birth sees him solidify his grip on power. This week: the final steps of Michinaga's rise, his legacy, and that of Eiga Monogatari.

Show notes here.

Fujiwara no Michinaga is on top of the world, but there's one final hurdle to overcome. His deceased brother's daughter is still the leader of the emperor's harem, and his closest confidant in the world. Without a grandson to make crown prince, he'll be finished. What is to be done? And how will his strategy accidentally promote a rivalry between two of the most famous women in all of Japanese history?

Show notes here.

This week: Fujiwara no Kaneie is a name we've encountered once before on the podcast. But now we get to see him in his element as a wheeler and dealer who lays out a perfect blueprint for assuming political power from an older sibling. And we'll get to see Kaneie's sons fight a very similar battle--leading to the rise of the man who would take the Fujiwara to the zenith of their power, Fujiwara no Michinaga.

Show notes here.

We're starting a new series taking a look at an oft neglected classic of Heian literature: The Eiga Monogatari, or Tale of Flowering Fortunes, which tells the history of the great Fujiwara family at the height of its power. This week: what do we know about Eiga Monogatari and how it fits into the wider literary history of classical Japan?

Show notes here.

This week: in 1988, a Japanese company bought a paper mill in Port Angeles, WA, in a story that basically nobody except one reporter from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer bothered to pay much attention to. But in fact, that story tells us a lot about US-Japan relations.

Show notes here.

This week: rumors swirled around Port Angeles for decades after WWII that a Japanese man, Osasa Masaru, who had lived there from 1930-39 was in fact a Japanese spy who'd been sent to Port Angeles to report on the movements of the American Pacific Fleet. The reality is at once far more interesting and far more mundane.

Show notes here.

This week: what role does a sleepy town in Washington's Olympic Peninsula play in Japan's history? Well, more than you'd think. We'll look at three different connections between Japan and Port Angeles over the next few weeks, starting with the story of some castaways who found themselves adrift nearby almost 200 years ago.

Show notes here.

This week: how does the Taiheiki depict its most famous characters? How does it describe the downfall of the Hojo? And from that, what can we say about the charge that it's purely derivative from a more famous text?

Show notes here.

The Taiheiki is arguably one of the most dismissed works of literature in Japanese history, doomed to always exist solely in comparison to the far more highly regarded Heike Monogatari. But even so, there's a lot to draw the interest of the interested historian. So, what can we learn about medieval Japan from its most famously "eh" work of literature?

Show notes here.

This week: the manga industry during World War II. Plus some thoughts on the development of shojo manga, and finally a look at Tezuka Osamu and the ways in which his work helped create the manga market that exists today.

Show notes here.

Histories of manga tend to skip from the colorful woodblocks of the Edo period directly to the post-WWII industry we'd recognize today. But what do we lose when we do that? And what do we gain when we do investigate the century or so that lies between those two moments?

Show notes here.

This week: manga is today one of the most ubiquitous forms of entertainment in Japan. But the idea of comics as we might understand them has a much longer history. So how did we get from there to here--what, in other words, is the origin of Japanese manga/ We'll look today at the earliest known examples as we try to understand the origins of manga as a form.

Show notes here.

This week, we're tackling the most legendary samurai in Japanese history: Miyamoto Musashi. Why is he so famous, what do we actually know about him, and why is there such a big gap between the story most are familiar with and what our actual sources have to say?

Show notes here.

This week, we cover how the legend of Yoshitsune as told in Gikeiki describes his demise. Which is how his tale ends, unless of course you know the truth: that Yoshitsune actually escaped to Hokkaido, became a god, and then left for the mainland to become Genghis Khan.

Wait, what?

Show notes here.

This week, we come to the text that more than any other helps build the Yoshitsune legend: Gikeiki. Here, at long last, we see the legend of Yoshitsune taking a form that a modern audience might recognize--and in the process, beginning to diverge pretty substantially (though not entirely) from the historical record.

Show notes here.

This week, the Yoshitsune legend finds its legs with Heike Monogatari--one of the most epic works in Japanese history. Except that while Yoshitsune is a bigger deal here than he is in Azuma Kagami, he's still far from the main character....so where does he show up, what changes does Heike make from the Azuma Kagami version, and what's still missing from our hero's story?

Show notes here.

Note: I made a mistake recording this episode but did not have time to go back and fix it. It's episode 614!

This week, we're starting a three-part series on the evolution of Minamoto no Yoshitsune from historical figure to national legend. This week: what do we know for sure about one of the most famous samurai in Japan, and what do our oldest available sources have to say about him?

Show notes here.

This week, we're covering one of the most titanic names in Japanese literature--Natsume Soseki--and the work that propelled him to fame. How did the tale of a sardonic, anonymous cat transform a relatively unknown literature professor into arguably the most famous writer in modern Japanese history?

Show notes here.

This week: Japanese Manchuria comes crashing down as a combination of poorly planned colonial policies and a worsening war situation see imperial power on the mainland collapse. Plus: what do we learn about the nature of empire from a long, in-depth look at Manchuria?

Show notes here.

This week: some reflections on the hollow nature of Manchurian "independence", and on what kept the state going if so few of its own residents believed in its promises.

Show notes here.

This week on the podcast: the Japanese presence in Manchuria was never particularly large, even at its height. So how did Japanese rule in Manchuria last as long as it did? And what of the resistance?

Show notes here.

In the last episode of 2025: a bomb "mysteriously" goes off just outside Mukden during the evening of September 18, 1931. Less than six months later, Manchuria becomes an "independent country." Japan's government loses complete control over the army, all over the issue of its new "Manchurian Lifeline." And suddenly, for some reason, the last emperor of China is back!

Show notes here.

As Japan enters the 1920s, national policy becomes increasingly liberalized--but Manchuria remains a holdout of extremists who, if anything, begin to take a more aggressive position on the "China Problem." How did that happen--and how did that aggressive position, seemingly overnight, become normalized back in Japan proper?

Show notes here.

This week: Japan's military and civilian leaders find themselves at a crossroads in Manchuria in the 1910s, as views begin to split around what the point of Japan's presence there even is. As Russia and China collapse into civil war, the new liberal post-WWI order will see the beginnings of a very different vision of what Japan's purpose on the Asian mainland even is.

Show notes here.

This week: after the Russo-Japanese War, Japan inherited a rather unusual arrangement in Manchuria, which would become the basis of its empire in the region. But how, exactly, would that new empire function? And why, precisely, did it come attached to a corporation, of all things?

Show notes here.

This week, we're turning our attention to possibly the most unique of Japan's colonial ventures during the imperial era: Manchuria. Most know about Manchuria because of its role in the turbulent politics of the 1930s, but Japanese involvement in the region goes back quite a bit further. But first, what even is Manchuria in the first place?

Show notes here.

For a long time, the bureaucracy--in all its elitist, meritocratic glory--has taken a great deal of the credit for Japan's postwar economic miracle. But how much of that credit does it actually deserve? Plus, some ruminations on the post-1990s fate of the bureaucracy and its general history.

Show notes here.

This week: the Meiji Bureaucracy, in all its glory. How did the system actually work? What sorts of people did it attract? And what happened when the United States tried to reform the system after 1945?

Show notes here.

In America, when we think of bureaucracy, it doesn't conjure the best associations. In Japan, meanwhile, the bureaucracy has a long history as one of the central organs of the state. So, how did that happen, and why has the bureaucracy--rather uniquely among Japanese institutions--survived as long as it has?

Show notes here.

One of the questions I get asked a lot is about grad school: what's it like, who's it for, what applications are like, and so on. But I've been out of academia for almost 10 years, so it's hard to say what things are like today. Fortunately, a listener and friend was willing to hop on and share her far more recent experiences!

Thanks again to Charlotte for sharing her story.

Show notes here.

Here we are again, my friends! It's been two years since our last Q and A, and now it's time for a new one. Thank you all for your questions, and here's to another 100.

Show notes here.

This week, we're talking about one of the oddest moments of the final years of feudalism: a spontaneous outbreak of dancing and religious worship collectively referred to as the "Ee Ja Nai Ka" movement. What was it, what motivated it, and how much can we even answer those questions to begin with?

Show notes here.

This week, we're finishing our time with Kawai Koume by looking at how life in Wakayama had changed by the mid-1870s. Feudalism is no more, Confucianism is a historical relic, and the samurai class are in the midst of being consigned to the dustbin of history; so what is Koume thinking and doing as she's watching the world she grew up with vanish in the final years of her life?

Show notes here.

This week, we'll cover the end of USCAR and the legacies of 27 years of foreign rule over Okinawa Prefecture.

This week, we start off some coverage of the period of American rule over the Ryukyus, and the entwined histories of USCAR - the US Civil Administration for the Ryukyu Islands -- and the GRI, the Government of the Ryukyu Islands. How did this arrangement work? What were the issues between them? And why did so many Okinawans come to despise American rule?

Finally, a long overdue look at one of the most romanticized and exocitized parts of traditional Japanese culture. What are geisha? Where do they come from? Aren't they basically fancy prostitutes? And haven't I learned everything I need to know about them from reading Memoirs of a Geisha?

This week, we take a look at the peasant uprisings in Aizu domain in 1868 to continue our exploration of the question: where were all the peasants in the Meiji Restoration?

What's this? Another cross-posted Criminal Records episode?

That's right! Check it out, and if you like it go to criminalrecordspodcast.com for more.

While the Meiji Restoration was going on, where was everybody else? We'll start trying to answer that question today with a look at an uprising in 1866 in the region of Shindatsu.

It's a shame you can't embed gifs in the episode descriptions, because otherwise this would just be the Ron Paul It's Happening! gif.

Thank you all for enjoying the show; it would not be what it is without you.

This week, we cover an obscure bit of samurai history: the Keian Incident, a planned coup against the Tokugawa Shoguns that was foiled by a lucky bit of happenstance. What can we learn from something that, in a certain sense, didn't actually happen?

This week, we profile one of the great Western interpreters of Japan: Lafcadio Hearn. How did some Anglo-Greek kid end up in Japan by way of New Orleans, and why do we still care about him today?

This week, we round out our look at the celebrated women of Heian Japan with two very different careers: that of the celebrated poet Akazome Emon and the recluse known either as Takasue's daughter or Lady Sarashina. Plus some final thoughts on women in the Heian era.

This week: the start of a two-part series on women in Heian Japan. What makes the social position of women in the Heian Era so distinct from later points of Japanese history, and from the East Asian cultural sphere more generally? How do we know what we know about the lives of women? And what can we learn from the story of one particularly badass woman: the poet and "femme fatale" Izumi Shikibu?

This week, we cover the true story of North Korea's abduction of Japanese civilians. Who was taken, and why? What do we know about their lives in the north? And how does their disappearance still affect the relationship between Japan and North Korea today?

This week, the effects of the collapsing asset bubble spread as the extent of the damage caused is revealed; Japan's financial and political leaders scramble to respond, while refusing to admit the scale of the crisis. Plus, the legacies of the bubble era for Japan today.

This week, it all starts to come crumbling down. Japan is plagued by scandals that destroy public confidence at the system right as some begin to look around and say, "hey, does this all seem a bit unsustainable or is it just me?"

It's not just them.

The Plaza Accord was supposed to fix the US-Japan relationship. How did that work out?

This week, we're going to talk about life in the bubble era by looking at three snapshots of that experience: a movie, a book, and a poem.

This week, we turn our attention to the 1980s. Japan and the United States find their relationship wracked by increasing tensions over political and economic relations, and turn to the solution of an agreement designed to ease the pressure of Japan's economic growth. The result? Japan's infamous Bubble Era!

This week, we're going to talk about the impact that the gun had on Sengoku Era Japan, and the ways that it both reinforced and undermined the political trends of the time.

This week, we discuss the history of one of the most important technologies in Japan: the gun. How did it get to Japan and spread around the country so quickly?

This week, we're taking a look at a specific oni tale, and probably the most famous one; the story of the Demon King of Mt. Oe, Shuten Doji. What's his story? How did he get punked by five of Japan's most famous warriors? And why are we still talking about him so many years later?

This week we talk oni, the demons of Japanese folklore and legend. What makes oni different from Western style demons? What are some of the most famous oni stories? And how has the image of the oni changed over time?

This week: how did the Hojo go from the zenith of their power to utter destruction in a single generation? The answer: a difficult neighborhood, dangerous neighbors, and bad decisions.

It's time for a b-b-b-b-bonus, from my other show at criminalrecordspodcast.com. I think you all will enjoy it; if you do, check the show out!

This week, we will talk about the innovations the Latter Hojo used to secure their dominance, and about their long war against one of the great clans of the Kanto, the Ogigayatsu Uesugi.

This week, we start a series on one of the also-rans of the Sengoku period: the Latter Hojo clan. Who were they, and where did they come from, and why is their first leader sometimes considered the first of a new breed of samurai warlord?

This week, we cover one of the most famous tales of revenge in Japanese history: that of the two Soga brothers, Goro and Juro. What do we know of the original story, and how did it morph into one of the most famous tales ever told in Japan?

This week, we cover the remainder of Oda Nobunaga's rise to power: his wars for control of central Japan in 1570, his cleverness as a ruler, his brutal reign, and his eventual death at the hands of one of his most trusted retainers.

Apologies for the delayed publication, all! Slight technical hiccup on my end.

This week, we turn to the life and legacy of the first of Japan's three unifiers: the warlord Oda Nobunaga, who expanded his domains from part of a backwater province to 1/3rd of all Japan in just a few decades. Who were the Oda? Where did they come from? And how did Nobunaga go from a nobody to a major force in Japanese politics in just a few years?

This week, we consider a figure who appears in two stories from the ancient collection of tales known as the Konjaku Monogatari: the bandit chief Hakamadare. What do we know about him? What do the stories say about him? And what can we learn from those tales?

This week we investigate the role of Japan in laying the groundwork for Vietnam's wars against France and the United States. How did Japan's occupation of Indochina create the groundwork for the Viet Minh? And why did some Japanese soldiers, given the choice to return home in defeat or stay behind and fight on behalf of a country other than their own, take up the Vietnamese cause?

This week, we arrive at the end of the Ashikaga. What were the final 100 years of Ashikaga "rule" like, and what can we take away from exploring their time as rulers of Japan?

This week, we do a deep dive on the life of Ashikaga Yoshimasa and the lead up to the Onin War, the conflict that traditionally marks the end of Ashikaga rule over Japan. But how fair is it to point to Onin as a break with the past?

This week we turn away from politics to discuss religion, art, and the economy during the age of the Ashikaga. Why is this era such a moment of societal flourishing despite the constant warfare and instability of Ashikaga rule?

This week: war in the Ashikaga age. Plus; the reign of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu is generally considered the zenith of Ashikaga prestige, but why was his power built on such shaky foundations? Once the Ashikaga had seized control of Japan, how did they go about actually governing it?

This week we start a multipart series on the Muromachi period and the reign of the Ashikaga family. How did they come to power? Why is their government generally described as so weak? And how, despite that weak government, did they win a 60 year war for control of Japan?

This week we cover the life and career of the legendary judge Oka Tadasuke, who rose from minor samurai to the rank of daimyo and a major position in the bakufu -- only to become a legendary figure. Who is he? How did he rise so high? And what can he tell us about the role of judges and bureaucrats in Japanese society more generally?

This week, we cover the fascinating tale of Sei Shonagon and the Makura no Soushi, or Pillow Book. Why is a collection of anecdotes considered to be one of Japan's greatest literary classics? What mkes the Pillow Book so famous? And why does Isaac love it so very much?

This week, we cover the life and work of one of Japan's most famous authors: the 11th century courtier Murasaki Shikibu. Why do we know so little about who she was? What inspired her to write Genji? Why do I dislike her work so viscerally? And how did it become so famous?

This week, we cover the little-known "Chichibu Incident," an uprising against the Meiji government in 1884 that saw several thousand people take up arms against the state. Where did it come from? How did the rebellion fare? And what is its connection to the broader trends of Japanese history?

Today, we cover one of the most unusual stories of WWII: the policy of saving and protecting Jews pursued by some among Japan's military leadership. How did anti-semitic ideas about a global conspiracy convince some in Japan that the Jews could be their allies? How many were saved? And what does it all mean?

This week, we cover poet and political activist Yosano Akiko in her drift from icon of the political left to polemicist for the ultranationalist right. What kind of life trajectory drives a person that way? Why did she follow that path? And why did she write so many poems about breasts?

This week, we take a look at the bizarre history of a single text -- Senkyou Ibun, or Strange Tidings from Another World -- and the two people responsible for creating it: the famous scholar Hirata Atsutane, and a boy named Torakichi who claimed to have lived in Japan's spirit world.

This week, we cover the life of real estate mogul and international gambling sensation Kashiwagi Akio. Who was he? How did he become an internationally famous gambler? Why was he mysteriously murdered? And how the hell does none other than Donald Trump fit into this?

This week, we cover the story and legacy of the great warrior Kusunoki Masashige. Why does he have the unique distinction of a statue on the grounds of the emperor's palace in Tokyo? What do we actually know about him?

As a surprise bonus, here's an episode of my new show Criminal Records on one of Japan's most fascinating criminal cases. Fair warning: this episode includes some graphic content!

This week; Oomoto's zenith and fall from grace. Plus, what have we learned from all this?

This week, we tackled the origin of one of Japan's new religious movements: Oomoto, or The Great Origin. Where did it come from, and how did the unique combination of two very different people with the right set of circumstances lead it to prominence?

This week, we cover postwar Tokyo as it recovers from the devastation of war in remarkable time, and take some time to think about what we've learned from the history of Japan's most central city.

This week: the Great Kanto Earthquake, the firebombing campaign, and Tokyo during the Occupation.

This week, from Edo to Tokyo: how the shogun's city became the emperor's!

This week, we start a look at the history of the city of Tokyo. How did the frontier fishing village of Edo go from backwater nowhere to the heart of the nation in only a few short generations?

This week, we cover the life and legacy of one of the great bridges between Japan and China -- the Christian bookseller of Shanghai, Uchiyama Kanzo.

This week, we take a look at the history of pro wrestling in Japan, and its unlikely progenitor: a Korean-born sumo wrestler named Rikidozan.