History of Japan

This week, conspiracism takes a new twist in Japan, from paranoid worries about Christianity to paranoid beliefs in "Western encirclement". How did this new form of conspiracism help drive Japan's des...

25 Juli 202538min

This week, we explore the "Christian conspiracies" of Edo Period Japan. Working backwards from the Osaka Incident of 1827, when a group of supposed Christian spirit mediums were uncovered as a part of...

11 Juli 202538min

Japan's "Christian Century" is the source of many fascinating aspects of Japanese history, from modern firearms to tenpura. But there's one more way that the century from 1543-1639 shaped Japan--as th...

4 Juli 202538min

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 actu...

27 Juni 202537min

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...

20 Juni 202541min

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 p...

13 Juni 202542min

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,...

6 Juni 202535min

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...

30 Maj 202539min