"Okiku and the World" is a human drama, a portrait of a society on the cusp of wrenching change, and as an illustration of a "circular...
On National Foundation Day — and amid the Ukraine war and the tensions in East Asia — the Japanese should reflect on their relationship with their...
The Gion Matsuri story crosses many cultural lines. Was Muto-shin really Susanoo-no-Mikoto or a Korean god? And in which country did the Shorai brothers live?
The history of the kami honored at the Gion Festival have intriguing parallels - and differences. The Yasaka Shrine claims they are the same, but are...
In time, the relationship between the British and the Satsuma blossomed into a great friendship. After the Meiji restoration, many members of the Satsuma clan filled...
What happens when a party of foreign tourists is believed to have disrupted the procession of a feudal warlord? A high-action incident, followed by a political...
In the Japanese idiom, ‘the season of politics had given way to ‘the season of economics.’ The political watchwords of 1960s Prime Minister Hayato Ikedawere ‘tolerance...
It is a well-known story that Japan’s transformation from a largely closed nation, sakoku, into a powerful international presence in such a short period...
In this instalment of the series, I cycle from the onsen town of Beppu to the atomic bomb dome in Hiroshima. Beppu is fantastic!!...
About five years ago, I contributed a story titled “Anticipating the Cycle of the 3rd Disruptive Revolution” (Daisan no Garagarapon Kakumei ga Okoru Shuki) to...
This is the first installment in a series on the turbulent era of Bakumatsu Japan and encounters between the British legation and samurai of the Meiji...
In the decades leading up to the Meiji Restoration of 1868, sonno joi (revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians) activists and shogunate adherents, such as...
