This week, something a bit different: the start of a history of conspiracy theories in Japan. This first episode is mostly framing: what is conspiracism as a mindset, and how is it different from actual conspiracies? Show notes here .
This week: we take a look at the genre of the yakuza movie, or ninkyo eiga, which started off as a branch of the samurai film genre before becoming very much its own thing--and, for a decade or so in the 1960s and 1970s, dominating the Japanese box office. Show notes here .
This week: we take a look at postwar samurai film/jidaigeki in order to understand better the trajectory of the most influential genre in the history of Japanese film. Why did jidaigeki, a staple of pre-1945 film, storm back with a vengeance to the big screen after the end of World War II? What makes post-1945 samurai films distinctive or unique? And what about their relationship to another archetype of international film: the American Western? Show notes here ....
This week, we're starting a history of the most famous genre in the history of Japanese film: the jidaigeki, and its related genre of the ninkyo eiga. This week: what do we know about early jidaigeki, and how do they fit into the wider history of early Japanese film? Show notes here .
This week: we wrap up the miniseries with the end of Akebono's career, as the first gaijin yokozuna takes his post-dohyo trajectory in a very different direction from the other yokozuna before him (or at least, from most of the other yokozuna before him). Plus some final thoughts on sumo today. Show notes here .
This week: Akebono becomes a yokozuna, and finds himself burdened with new expectations on and off the dohyo. Plus, a brief foray into pay and compensation for rikishi, and a final section on one of the most infamous moments of the 64th yokozuna's career. Show notes here .
This week: in the span of just a few years, Akebono goes from a rookie in sumo to one of its most prominent names, and alongside Konishiki one of the Americans dominating in the top division. But unlike Konishiki, he has the potential to go one step further. So, how does a guy from Waimanalo become the first non-Japanese citizen ever to claim the title of yokozuna? Show notes here .
This week: Chad Rowan, who will be the first non-Japanese yokozuna in history, is the subject for the rest of our episodes. How did he come to sumo? What was his early career like? And how did he come to be known by the name Akebono-the rising sun? Show notes here .
This week: after Taiho, the floodgates open as more non-Japanese rikishi begin to enter the sport. One of them, Takamiyama, has a good but not great career. But two of the rikishi he recruits to train under him after retirement--Konishiki Yasokichi and Akebono Taro--will change sumo forever. Show notes here .
This week: Taiho begins his grand sumo career, and quickly proves to be one of the best ever to do it. We'll use his career to discuss: what does greatness look like in a sport like sumo? What were the highlights of one of the greatest careers in sumo history? And what were the small number of cases where Taiho didn't prove able to come out on top? Show notes here .
This week, we're beginning a new miniseries on the legends of Japan's most ancient sport: sumo. What can we learn about Japan and Japanese identity by looking at the lives of some of the most famous competitors in the national sport? We'll begin investigating that question with a look at the life of one of the greatest ever to enter the ring: Taiho Koki. Show notes here .
For our final episode of this miniseries: Miyazaki Manabu faces down with the National Police Agency as he finds himself the prime suspect in Japan's highest profile criminal case of the 1980s. After he comes out on top, where does he go next? Why, the natural place for any high profile criminal suspect: into media, and then politics! Show notes here .
In our penultimate episode for this miniseries: Miyazaki Manabu narrowly escapes doing prison time, only to end up back in the underworld first of Osaka, and then Tokyo. And from there, he ends up square in the crosshairs of the police once again--this time as a suspect in one of the most infamous criminal cases in postwar history. Show notes here .
This week: Miyazaki's time as a politics reporter, the end of his reporting career, and his return to the family business. How did he go, in the span of five years, from a successful reporter to a wanted criminal facing police prosecution? Show notes here .
This week: Miyazaki Manabu's dramatic departure from the Communist Party, as his faith in the revolution wanes. What does a wannabe college revolutionary with no prospects turn to when the revolution fails to materialize? Show notes here .
This week: Miyazaki Manabu goes from the Sodai struggle at Waseda to an active participant in the violent clashes of the late 1960s student movement, as a part of the "action corps" of the Communist Party. We'll take an up close and personal look to see: what was it like to be a radical student in the 1960s? Show notes here .
This week on the podcast: Miyazaki Manabu faces his first battle as a college activist with the administration of his own school at Waseda University. It...does not go well.
This episode delves into the early political development of Miyazaki Manabu, from his surprising family connections to his immersion in left-wing thought and activism. It explores post-war Japanese society, student movements, and the impact of the Vietnam War on radicalization. The episode sets the stage for escalating violence within student activism as Miyazaki finds his place in the movement.
This week: the start of a multi-part "modernized biography" intended to help us explore postwar Japan through the lens of a single, fascinating life. This episode is mostly focused on introducing our subject--Miyazaki Manabu--and his unique and fascinating circumstances as the scion of a small yakuza family. Show notes here .
This week: what do we know about women and the wrong end of the law during the Tokugawa Period? Given the male-dominated nature of the feudal social order and the historical written record, what can we figure out? And what are the limits of that knowledge? Show notes here .
This week: outside of big urban riots, how did violence figure into the daily life of the Edo period? To answer this question, we'll take a look at one particularly well-documented example: youth gangs in the area surrounding Sensoji in the shogun's capital of Edo. Show notes here .
This week, we cover the second and third of Edo's three great riots in 1787 and 1866. How did samurai and commoners talk about these acts of mass violence? How was all this a manifestation of a sense of "street justice" among the masses? And what's with the handsome young guy everyone keeps swearing was secretly behind the whole thing? Show notes here .
This week: the first of three episodes on urban rioting in Tokugawa period Japan. This week, we're covering the first two urban riots in the history of the shogun's capital city. What drove the people of Edo to riot, and how did the shogunate respond to those challenges to its authority? Show notes here .
In the final episode of this series: how did "otaku culture" spread overseas when it was so stigmatized at home, and what can all this tell us about Japan in the post-bubble era? Show notes here .
For our first episode of 2025: "otaku culture" as a phenomenon began to emerge, in part, as a reaction against the crass commercialism of postwar Japan. Yet now, it is entirely a part of the fabric of that commercialism. How did that happen? We'll explore it by looking at two fascinating phenomena: the dojin market known as Comiket and the transformation of Tokyo's neighborhood of Akihabara. Show notes here ....
Our last episode of 2024 is also the first episode in a series on one of Japan's most distinctive cultural phenomenons: otaku culture. This week: is the idea of being an "otaku" older than we think? Show notes here .
This week, the story of an Edo period writer whose primary claim to fame was producing decent ripoffs of people far more famous and talented than him. What does a career like that tell us about the book market in premodern Japan--and more importantly about what we as people tend to look for in the things we read? Show notes here .
This week: Taiwan was the first overseas territory annexed by Japan with a large existing population. So how did the government's policies on religion--and especially Shinto--help shape the nature of Japanese colonial rule there? And how did those policies evolve as Taiwan's own place in the empire changed? Show notes here .
This week: how does the history of Shinto intersect with the colonization of Hokkaido? What role does Shinto's transition from religion to "cultural institution" play in the process that has made that island indisputably a part of Japan itself? Show notes here .
What even is religion, when you get down to it? Why do we treat religion the way that we do? And when our modern notions of religion came up against an empire whose very legitimacy was based on a religious myth, how did those tensions play out? Show notes here .
