History of Japan

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...

13 Mar 33min

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 m...

6 Mar 36min

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,...

27 Feb 39min

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 recog...

20 Feb 33min

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...

13 Feb 34min

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 fr...

6 Feb 37min

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 relat...

31 Jan 35min

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...

23 Jan 35min