History of Japan

Episodet

• Bonus episode - The Chishima Incident 05.06.2026 1h 3min

  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.  
• Episode 629 - Flowering Fortunes, Part 4 29.05.2026 36min

  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. 
• Episode 628 - Flowering Fortunes, Part 3 22.05.2026 34min

  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. 
• Episode 627 - Flowering Fortunes, Part 2 15.05.2026 35min

  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. 
• Episode 626 - Flowering Fortunes, Part 1 08.05.2026 33min

  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. 
• Episode 625 - An Ocean Between Us, Part 3 01.05.2026 36min

  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.  
• Episode 625 - An Ocean Between Us, Part 2 24.04.2026 35min

  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. 
• Episode 624 - An Ocean Between Us, Part 1 17.04.2026 34min

  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. 
• Episode 623 - The Great Peace, Part 2 10.04.2026 35min

  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.
• Episode 622 - The Great Peace, Part 1 03.04.2026 36min

  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.  
• Episode 621 - The Manga Revolution, Part 3 27.03.2026 32min

  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. 
• Episode 620 - The Manga Revolution, Part 2 20.03.2026 32min

  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. 
• Episode 619 - The Manga Revolution, Part 1 13.03.2026 33min

  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. 
• Episode 618 - Live by the Sword 06.03.2026 36min

  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.     
• Episode 617 - I am Legend, Part 4 27.02.2026 39min

  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.
• Episode 616 - I am Legend, Part 3 20.02.2026 33min

  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.   
• Episode 615 - I am Legend, Part 2 13.02.2026 34min

  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. 
• Episode 614 - I am Legend, Part 1 06.02.2026 37min

  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. 
• Episode 613 - I am a Cat 31.01.2026 35min

  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. 
• Episode 612 - The Final Frontier, Part 8 23.01.2026 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 about the nature of empire from a long, in-depth look at Manchuria? Show notes here.