This week: Miyazaki Manabu completes his transformation from son of a yakuza boss to a committed member of the Communist party. After all, it turns out those two groups have a surprising amount in common… Sources Miyazaki, Manabu. Toppamono: Outlaw,, Radical, Suspect. My Life in Japan’s Underworld. Trans. Robert Whiting. Images A recruiting poster for Minsei, the youth league of the Communist Party, from the early 1950s. Yamamoto Senji, the prewar communist whom Miyazaki Kiyochika had been friendly with. He was assassinated in 1929. Taniguchi Zentaro, the communist party leader who recruited Miyazaki into the party. This is from 1969, about a decade after Miyazaki began expressing interest.…

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. Sources Miyazaki, Manabu. Toppamono: Outlaw,, Radical, Suspect. My Life in Japan’s Underworld. Trans. Robert Whiting. Images Aerial view of Fushimi in August, 1945. You can see the amount of bomb damage from the American air raids clearly. The southern section of Fushimi in the aftermath of WWII. A member of the Sanson Kosakutai is arrested by the police, c. 1955.…

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? Sources Walthall, Anne. “Devoted Wives/Unruly Women: Invisible Presence in the History of Japanese Social Protest.” Signs 20, no. 1 (1994) Bix, Herbert P. “Miura Meisuke, or Peasant Rebellion under the Banner of ‘Distress'”. Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 10, No 2 (2019) Sakura Sogoro departs his family, by Utagawa Kunisada Utagawa Kunichika depicting the kabuki actor Ichikawa Sadanji as Otsuta, the woman who volunteers to die for her husband.…

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. Sources Takeuchi, Makoto, “Festivals and Fights: The Law and the People of Edo” and Anne Walthall, “Edo Riots” in Edo and Paris: Urban Life and the State in the Early Modern Era. Eds. James L. McClain, John M. Merriman, and Ugawa Kaoru. Images Depiction of Sensoji during the Edo period. The Kaminarimon and the main market area (now Nakamisedori) are to the right. Depiction of the Sanja Matsuri of 1838. You can see the mikoshi being boated around on the Sumida river. Artist’s rendering of the 1820 Sanja Matsuri. Nishinomiya Inari Shrine. Big parts of the shrine were built with “donations” that were “solicited” by youth gangs.…

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? Sources Takeuchi, Makoto, “Festivals and Fights: The Law and the People of Edo” and Anne Walthall, “Edo Riots” in Edo and Paris: Urban Life and the State in the Early Modern Era. Eds. James L. McClain, John M. Merriman, and Ugawa Kaoru. Walthall, Anne. “Devoted Wives/Unruly Women: Invisible Presence in the History of Japanese Social Protest.” Signs 20, no. 1 (1994) Images Depiction of a soup kitchen set up for charity in 1866. Measures like this provided temporary relief but couldn’t fix the shogunate’s core issues. Rioting in Edo as depicted by kawaraban in 1866. Ichikawa Danjuro VIII playing the aragoto-style lead of the kabuki play Shibaraku. Could roles like this have inspired all the talk of mysterious handsome youths leading the rioters? Ransacking of a rice warehouse in 1866.…

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? Farmers appealing to a magistrate for tax relief–following the proper channels. A type of circular petition known as a karakasa renpanjou, or “umbrella circular.” The name comes from the circular signatures, intended to prevent one particular person from being singled out as an instigator or conspirator and punished for “riling up” the people. A chart of known riots or disturbances in the Edo period. White are protests by farmers; black in the cities. The mixed dots are full blown rioting. A map of Edo showing the location of Takama Denbei’s home (the red star). It’s right next to Edobashi; Nihonbashi is on the left side of the map. Depiction of the rioting in Edo in 1866. Unfortunately, because of strict censorship rules, we have no contemporary depictions of the earlier riots, which could not legally be discussed publicly. Sources Takeuchi, Makoto, “Festivals and Fights: The Law and the People of Edo” and Anne Walthall, “Edo Riots” in Edo and Paris: Urban Life and the State in the Early Modern Era. Eds. James L. McClain, John M. Merriman, and Ugawa Kaoru. Walthall, Anne. “Devoted Wives/Unruly Women: Invisible Presence in the History of Japanese Social Protest.” Signs 20, no. 1 (1994) Images…

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? Sources Kinsella, Sharon. “Japanese Subculture in the 1990s: Otaku and the Amateur Manga Movement.” Journal of Japanese Studies 24, No 2 (Summer 1998) Eng, Lawrence, “Strategies of Engagement: Discovering, Defining, and Describing Otaku Culture in the United States” and “Anime and Manga Fandom as Networked Culture” in Fandom Unbound: Otaku Culture in a Connected World. Ed. Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe, and Izumi Tsuji. Images Miyazaki Tsutomu’s mugshot from 1989. Promo poster for the original Yamatocon in 1983. Title image for Robotech; shows like this helped popularize anime to a much wider audience than had been the case in the 1970s. Roof shot from Anime Expo 2004 in Los Angeles.…

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. Sources Azuma, Hiroki. Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals. Trans. Jonathan E. Abel and Shion Kono. Tamagawa, Hiroaki, “Comic Market as Space for Self-Expression in Otaku Culture” and Kaichiro Morikawa “Otaku and the City: The Rebirth of Akihabara” in Fandom Unbound: Otaku Culture in a Connected World. Ed. Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe, and Izumi Tsuji. Images Meikyu, the dojin circle that founded Comiket, in 1978. Attendees at one of the early Comikets. Cosplayers from Space Battleship Yamato at Comiket 8. The entrance line for Comiket in 2016. Comiket in 2023;. Akihabara in the early postwar (either late 1950s or early 1960s, I think). Akihabara in 1971 Akihabara in 2023.…

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? Sources Azuma, Hiroki. Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals. Trans. Jonathan E. Abel and Shion Kono. Ito, Mizuko. “Introduction” and Izumi Tsuji, “Why Study Train Otaku? A Social History of Imagination” in Fandom Unbound: Otaku Culture in a Connected World. Ed. Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe, and Izumi Tsuji. Images An issue of the magazine “Kagaku Kurabu/Science Club” from 1949. A blue “sleeper” train on the Tokaido train line. A Japanese train fan takes a photo of a Shinkansen train passing in front of Mt. Fuji. All it’s missing is a rising sun in the background! A 1980 model train fan magazine. A JR steam locomotive, c. late 1970s.…

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? Sources Hibbett, Howard S. “Ejima Kiseki (1667-1736) and His Katagi-Mono.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 14, No. 3/4 (December, 1951) Fox, Charles E. “Old Stories, New Mode: Ejima Kiseki’s Ukiyo Oyaji Katagi.” Monumenta Nipponica 43, No 1 ( Spring, 1988) Johnson, Jeffrey. “Saikaku and the Narrative Turnabout.” Journal of Japanese Studies 27, no. 2 (2001) Hibbett, Howard S. “Saikaku and Burlesque Fiction.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 20, no. 1/2 (1957) Aston, W.G. A History of Japanese Literature. London: William Heinemann, 1899. Images Page from Seken Musuko Katagi depicting wastrel young men partying. Theoretically, by the rules of kanzen choaku, they should be punished for this–Ejima didn’t always stick to that rule in his writing, though. Detail image from Yakusha Kuchijamisen, Ejima’s first published work. Page from Keisei Kintanki, the scandalous dialogue about the merits of heterosexuality and homosexuality that was so successful it blew up Ando and Ejima’s relationship.…