History of Japan

This week, we discuss the career of Japan's most legendary director, Kurosawa Akira. From humble, middle class beginnings, our story will take us through some of his most notable films, and include detours into the lives of Mifune Toshiro, George Lucas, and even Francis Ford Coppola!

This week: the story of a relatively unimportant man who appears briefly and dies spectacularly, and the long chain of events that led to those moments. Politics, betrayal, war, and a dog -- what's not to love?

Note: Since this week we're talking about the sex trade, I've taken the precaution of giving this episode an explicit tag. However, it does not include any more language than usual; it's just a precaution because iTunes can get pretty finicky about this stuff. So with that in mind, let's get down and dirty into the world of prostitution!

This week, we tackle the history of the Burakumin. Where did this outcast group come from? Why does discrimination against them remain an issue? What steps has the government taken to protect them, and what steps have they taken to get organized and push back? AMA link here.

This week, we spend an entire history podcast talking about someone who may not even have actually existed -- the legendary thief Ishikawa Goemon. The live link for the AMA is: https://whatpods.com/ama/history-of-japan/.

This week, we wrap up the life of Japan's 124th Emperor. What, in the end, did it all mean?

How does a man raised to be a military autocrat become a democratic emperor in just a few short years? Or is that even possible?

This week: Hirohito goes to war. What did he know, how much did he direct things himself, and ultimately, how much responsibility does he bear for the greatest cataclysm in the history of East Asia?

This week, we take a look at Hirohito's life before World War II. What kind of ruler was Japan's new emperor when the chips came down?

Young Hirohito goes on trips, serves his first turns in politics, and gets married! Join us as we look at the future emperor's first steps into the life that he never really had a chance to choose for himself.

Today, we dive into the boyhood of Emperor Hirohito. What's it like growing up always knowing that your life is a political tool? How do you process your middle school principal killing himself in a show of loyalty to your grandfather?

This week, we cover a famous caper that probably sent an innocent man to jail for nearly 40 years. There's poisoning, plotting, and conspiracy galore as we discuss the Teigin Incident.

This week, we cover the features of modern Japanese policing, from the friendly face of the koban police boxes to the harsh realities of Japan's rules on interrogation.

This week: how has Japan been policed? Was there really such a thing as a samurai cop? Was their hair as good as the samurai cop from the iconic 1991 film? And how did policework in Japan change after the Meiji Restoration? We will answer all but one of these questions; I leave it to you to guess which one.

This week: was Japan's 5th Tokugawa shogun really as crazy as everybody says? Spoilers: no.

This week, we cover a crime wave that shocked 1980s Japan, and proved that postwar society was perhaps not quite all it was cracked up to be. Also, there's a lot of poisoned candy.

This week, we investigate the great Zen master Dogen, who was something of an eccentric in his own time but remains one of the greatest Buddhist thinkers in Japanese history.

Turns out, getting involved in a land war in Asia really is one of the classic blunders. This week, how did it all pan out?

How did Japan fit into the broader framework of the Allied intervention? What were the Japanese trying to accomplish in Siberia? And who was even in charge of this damned thing? All that and more, this week.

100 Years ago, Japan intervened in Russia to create a buffer state against the new Soviet Union. So how did that work out? We'll start answering that question this week.

This week: why is a military failure worth 7 episodes of our time? The legacy of the Mongol invasions of Japan, explained.

The 1281 invasion is at the gates (or the seawall, I suppose). How will round 2 play out?

This week, we prepare for round two. How are the Japanese getting ready for another invasion, and how does that new invasion begin?

This week, we cover exciting topics like meteorology and internal Mongol family politics! But wait, there's also a bit of Zen theology dashed in to spice things up! It's an eclectic week on the podcast for sure!

This week I promise we'll actually get to the 1274 invasion. But first, how were the samurai who defended Japan organized, and what weapons did they use?

This week: why did Kublai go to Japan? A quick overview of the tensions that led to the first invasion, and a look at the armies of Mongols and Chinese that would fight it.

This week: where did the Mongol Empire come from, and who was in charge when they decided to come after Japan? Also, why is the Kamakura shogunate the most convoluted form of government in a history of convoluted governments?

Today, we wrap our look at immigrants from Japan with a brief discussion of Nikkei communities in the Philippines and China, and with a look at Japan's own attempts to have Nikkei return "home."

This week: why did the American government think it was necessary to round up Nikkei on the West Coast? And what did that policy mean for the people who actually lived it?

This week, we're headed south to take a look at Nikkei communities in Brazil and Peru.

This week, we take a closer look at early communities of Nikkeijin -- people of Japanese descent -- in the United States and Hawaii.

This week, we begin a new series on the Japanese diaspora!

This week we tackle the question of Japanese fascism by looking at one of Japan's foremost fascists, the authoritarian scholar Kita Ikki.

This week: one of Japan's most famous Buddhist masters, Kukai, takes center stage!

Today we discuss Japan's greatest artistic genius, Katsushika Hokusai!

This week: Japan's a pretty verdant place, but how did it stay that way when so many other places were ravaged by human development?

All you could ever want to know about podcast recording, UW's graduate program, and why the Japanese definitely are not part of the 10 lost tribes of Israel! That and more! Thank you all for 200 great episodes!

In which we bring things to a close by considering the fall of the Butokukai, the spread of budo beyond Japan, the role of martial arts in the African-American community, the question of Olympic sport status, and the challenge of the UFC. It's gonna be a busy week.

This week: can a martial art be a philosophy of life? Can it rise to the level of a religion?

This week: karate comes to mainland Japan (and gets a rebrand in the process), and the Butokukai's attempts to militarize the martial arts backfire when the Americans come to town.

This week: the rise of judo and of the modern budo, and karate strikes back!

This week: who wants to swing a sword when you can just shoot a gun?

This week: where do Japan's traditional martial arts come from?

This week: what are three educated women to do in a society that doesn't value their education?

This week: the beginning of a two parter on Japan's first ever female exchange students.

This week: what, in the end, did the Occupation mean -- for both the occupied and the occupier?

This week: what was it like to live through the Occupation? How did people get by? And why is Kurosawa Akira objectively the greatest director ever?

This week: the social reforms of the Occupation. Economic policy, education policy: it's like our very own C-SPAN screening!

This week, we talk about what it took to make a peace on paper a peace in fact. With millions of Japanese civilians and soldiers scattered across Asia, what would it take to get them all home again?

This week, we discuss the course of the Tokyo War Crimes Trials and their legacy in Japan. How did they go from a vision of international optimism to despised by people on both sides of the political spectrum?