I usually sign up for a full year when I enroll at Crunchyroll. Unlike Netflix and Hidive, Crunchyroll acquires new anime titles at a prodigious enough rate to keep me engaged, especially after taking a short break to watch everything worth watching on Hidive and Netflix.

Plus an annual subscription saves around sixteen bucks over the monthly rate.

Though then I recalled that my last annual subscription ran out a few days earlier than I expected it to. A little research confirmed that, according to Crunchyroll itself,

Our subscription services are billed on a 30-day cycle (or 90 days, or 360 days), not a fixed rate. Since all months do not have exactly 30 days, the billing date can fluctuate, which can result in these changes.

Ah, now it makes sense. With the more typical month-to-month payment systems, we don't mind getting screwed over in February because the seven 31-day months will make up for it. The whole system is still more irrational than it needs to be.

If I ruled the world, I'd create a calendar of twelve 30-day months with four one-day festival days for the equinoxes and solstices, plus an extra day for the New Year. Then I'd shift the year forward ten days so that the Winter Solstice fell on New Year's Eve.

In ancient times, kings and emperors issued debt relief decrees on special occasions to win the loyalty of the masses. Given the complexities of modern economies, that wouldn't work today without creating all sorts of moral hazards.

I would stipulate that no rents or interest could be charged during those five festival days. This rule would not apply to all the common per diem expenses, only to rolling monthly and yearly accrued charges.

I'm sure it would take no time at all for retailers to come up with all sorts of "Interest free!" sales.

Oh, and I would get rid of Daylight Saving Time too.

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Labels: business, crunchyroll, geography, hidive, netflix, politics, science, streaming, technology

If you needed a reason to get a Crunchyroll premium subscription, Spy x Family is it.

If nothing else, Spy x Family is a great homage to classic spy series from the Cold War era like Get Smart, It Takes a Thief, Mission: Impossible, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Spy, and The Saint (in which Roger Moore plays a better James Bond than when he was cast as James Bond).

You know, back in the good old days when we could safely assume that democracies were superior to autocracies and the good guys acted on behalf of the greater good.

In Spy x Family, the European setting is roughly based on East and West Germany during the 1960s, though this East Germany is economically freer and more politically turbulent than that East Germany. A better comparison might be Taiwan and post-1997 Hong Kong.

Operating under the code name Twilight, super spy Lloyd Forger has been tasked with establishing a diplomatic back channel with reclusive party leader Donovan Desmond. Desmond's sons attend Eden Academy, so Forger's handlers conclude that the best cover story is for Forger to enroll his child at the academy.

To do that he will need a child. And a wife. And a dog. A family, in other words.

He rescues Anya from a shady orphanage and arranges a paper marriage with Yor Briar, who has reasons of her own to shed her single status. What Forger doesn't know is that Anya is a telepath and Yor is a professional assassin. And the dog can see the future, except only Anya can communicate with him.

Because of her psychic powers, Anya is privy to the secret lives of her pretend parents, though this knowledge is filtered through the eyes of a precocious six-year-old child (who is probably five but said she was six because she knew that's what Lloyd wanted and was desperate to get out of the orphanage).

As far as Anya is concerned, her top priority is keeping the family together, as fake as it may be, while helping Lloyd complete his mission. And while Lloyd and Yor are always telling themselves they'll go their separate ways, they find themselves growing increasing comfortable with their artificial family life.

There are additional sitcom complications, such as Yor's younger brother being a member of the State Security Service (the equivalent of the Stasi). While Yuri is aware that a foreign agent named Twilight is in the country, he is is too flustered by Lloyd's marriage to his sister to realize that he's right under his nose.

Yuri is equally unaware of his sister's sinister side job. Undoubtedly one of those siloed need-to-know things.

Directors Kazuhiro Furuhashi and Takahiro Harada deftly walk a thin line, keeping the tone of the story simultaneously smart and silly without being stupid. Lloyd's side missions are quite thrilling in their own right too.

If we could go back in time, the perfect cast for a live-action version would be Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore as Rob and Laura Petrie from The Dick Van Dyke Show. I'd love to seem them play against type and switch on a dime from normal (if somewhat goofy) middle-class parents to steely-eyed operatives.

The difference between the two leads is that Yor naturally defaults to Laura Petrie mode. For her, assassin really is just a side gig. Switching out of full-time spy mode is more difficult for Lloyd.

The second half of the second season reverses the roles. Yor is sent on a mission that constantly throws her into precarious situations that call on her talents as a cool and competent cutthroat killer. In her absence, Lloyd has to figure out how to be a full-time father figure.

In the universe of secret superheroes, the controlling half of the dual personality—Clark Kent or Superman, Bruce Wayne or Batman—will ultimately determine the direction of the narrative. For Bruce Banner and the Hulk, the conflict arises out of the irradicable nature of the struggle.

This is the question that Lloyd will ultimately have to answer. The decision would end the show in its current form, but given such wonderful characters, I would very much like to see how our family of spies adapts after the Berlin Wall falls.

Spy x Family is a well-crafted series where the long arc of the show can be stretched out without frustrating the audience, allowing the writer and director to get creative with one-and-done episodic plots. Exactly what former network executive Paul Chato identifies as the recipe for a successful television series.

Crunchyroll has both seasons of Spy x Family and Spy x Family: Code White. Tubi has five seasons of The Dick Van Dyke Show and six seasons of The Saint.

Labels: anime, anime reviews, business, crunchyroll, geography, politics, streaming, television reviews

The human species has been going places ever since our ancestors learned to walk upright. With our restless feet taking us to every corner of the planet, it was only a matter of time before we started telling stories about how we got there, who we met, what we saw, and the interesting stuff that happened along the way.

And thus was born the road trip genre.

Convergent literary evolution consequently produced epic road trips as far-flung as The Odyssey from the western tradition and Journey to the West from the eastern tradition. The theme established here and elsewhere is that getting there isn't so much half the fun as it is pretty much the entire point.

So it comes as no surprise that, at the end of the story, there is no there there, no end of the line, no actual destination in mind. Just the journey. Consider the rootless gunman from classic American westerns, epitomized by Shane and Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars.

They're going someplace. We don't know where and they don't either. They'll know where they're going when they get there.

The Man with No Name was inspired by Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, a ronin wandering across Edo period Japan. He had plenty of company. In fact, at one point in the Zatoichi series, he crosses swords with the blind masseur, who is also always on the road in search of a good dice game and a righteous cause.

In the world of narrative fiction, the eternal road trip is a neat device to keep the writer from telling the same story in the same place.

Written in the 16th century, Journey to the West follows the legendary pilgrimage of the Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who traveled from China to Central Asia and India to obtain sacred Buddhist texts. The story and characters have inspired countless adaptations, Dragon Ball perhaps being the most famous.

More recent examples of the road trip include Kino's Journey and Spice and Wolf. The road trip can show up as an arc in a longer series, as when Yuuta bikes off to the northern tip of Hokkaido in Honey and Clover. And often turns into a heroic journey, as in Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.

But Girls' Last Tour may present us with the road trip in its purest form.

The story begins in medias res with no explanations, no backstory. Chito and Yuuri are driving a halftrack through a huge and desolate industrial complex, looking for a way out. They finally emerge into a gray winter day. The whole world is gray. All around them are the remains of an apocalyptic military conflict.

They are apparently the only survivors of an unnamed military organization that fell apart through sheer entropy. Their uniforms and helmets place them in the first half of the 20th century.

Chito's halftrack is based on the Kleines Kettenkraftrad HK 101. Yuuri carries a bolt-action rifle and has what appears to be a Balkenkreuz on her helmet. Early on, they stumble across a graveyard of military equipment, including the wreckage of a Cold War era Tupolev Tu-95.

The remnants of every war ever fought everywhere. From there they venture into a ruined and depopulated megalopolis built by a highly advanced civilization. They are wandering through the decline and fall of a 22nd century Roman Empire that has so far regressed to the early 20th century and will certainly fall further.

And maybe that's not such a bad thing. Rather than with a bang or a whimper (T.S. Eliot), or with fire or ice (Robert Frost), this is a world destined to simply fade away. Hopefully to be reborn again another day.

Related links

Girls' Last Tour
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
Honey and Clover
Kino's Journey (2017)
Spice and Wolf (2024)

Labels: anime, anime lists, anime reviews, apocalyptic fiction, geography, history, japanese culture, manga, politics, thinking about writing

If it is possible to quantify any aspect of Japanese society, an official body in Japan is bound to do it. That includes the time of day. Not only the clock time but the general divisions of the day in colloquial terms. We need only turn to the "Daily Time Subdivision Map" as defined by the Japan Meteorological Agency.

Midnight 3:00 AM 6:00 AM 9:00 AM Noon (正午)  3:00 PM 6:00 PM 9:00 PM

–  –  –  –  –  –  –  –

3:00 AM 6:00 AM 9:00 AM Noon (正午)  3:00 PM 6:00 PM 9:00 PM Midnight

Predawn Dawn Morning Before Noon Afternoon Evening Early Night Late Night

Whoa, 3:00 AM counts as dawn and 3:00 PM counts as evening? Well, in Japan, yes. Given the geography, this actually makes sense. The time zone for Japan is UTC +9:00. That's for the entire country, from Okinawa to Hokkaido. Moreover, Tokyo sits on the eastern edge of the meridian at 35 degrees north.

To that bit of geography, consider as well that Japan does not go on Summer Time (サマータイム). As a result, even in the middle of the summer, the sun rises over Tokyo as early as 4:30 AM and sets no later than 7:00 PM. In the middle of the winter, the sun rises before 7:00 AM and sets no earlier than 4:30 PM.

But 7:00 PM is pretty early in the evening compared to Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City is in the middle of the Mountain Time Zone at 40 degrees north and goes on Summer Time (MDT). At the height of the summer, the sun sets at a whopping 9:00 PM. Yet another reason I'm not a big fan of Daylight Saving Time.

Back during the go-go 1980s, when drinking with the boys after hours was de rigueur for every company man in Tokyo (and to a certain extent still is), a popular anecdote claimed that the typical salaryman preferred doing so under cover of the night. That was why Japan resisted going on Summer Time.

Related posts

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Daylight Saving (waste of) Time

Labels: geography, japan, japanese culture, politics, science, technology

Starting perhaps with the Sakura Wars franchise, the two decades from the end of the Russo-Japanese War through the Taisho era (1905–1926) have come to encompass Japan's steampunk period.

Also known as the Taisho Democracy, a flowering of democratic ideals leading to a short-lived parliamentary system, it is the setting for My Happy Marriage, Otome Youkai Zakuro, Demon Slayer, Golden Kamuy, Taisho Otome Fairy Tale, Taisho Baseball Girls, and many others.

My Happy Marriage and Otome Youkai Zakuro also share a similar premise. Though the modern age is upon them, they still live in a demon-haunted world and those demons have to be dealt with.

In My Happy Marriage, Kiyoka Kudou is the stoic leader of the Special Anti-Grotesquerie Unit, while in Otome Youkai Zakuro, Kei Agemaki is the stoic second lieutenant in the Ministry of Spirits.

Kudou's team pacifies rampaging youkai while Agemaki (aided by two fellow officers and three youkai allies) is tasked with dispatching the worst of the lot while reaching negotiated settlements with the rest.

Though as the title suggests, My Happy Marriage primarily concerns itself with the relationship between Kudou and Miyo Saimori and the complications that ensue. As a result, he ends up spending more of his time fighting other human magic wielders than actual youkai.

Miyo Saimori is the Japanese Cinderella in this story and Kudou is her prince charming, except he is not at all charming when they first meet. He's more like Fitzwilliam Darcy on a bad day and his reputation precedes him.

Even during the Taisho era, the aristocracy used marriage to conduct business and politics. Kudou, for one, is tired of the gold diggers and opportunists showing up on his doorstep and assumes the worst of Miyo as well. Once he realizes that all she wants is to be nowhere near her stepmother and stepsister, he begins to warm to her presence.

I was wary at first about My Happy Marriage for fear of being drenched in Miyo's misery. But the worst of it is over by the end of episode one, with the evil step-people making a return visit in episode five.

Convinced that Miyo had no supernatural powers, Miyo's father was eager at first to get rid of her and was surprised when Kudou accepted. A little genealogical research later, it becomes apparent that Miyo is a descendant of the powerful Usuba bloodline on her mother's side. Even if she has no powers now, they are likely to manifest later.

So now they want her back. But in the meantime, Kudou has grown quite fond of her. He is not about to give up this diamond in the rough without a fight. You really don't want to get Kudou mad and have him go all Hulk Smash! on you.

A big difference with Otome Youkai Zakuro is that we don't actually see Kudou doing his job until the second half. In the first half of the series, he's got his hands full dealing with his in-laws. In the second half, Miyo's connection to the Usuba clan has caught the attention of the powers that be, who fear she will upset the status quo.

My Happy Marriage concludes with the Taisho emperor (Yoshihito in our world) going off the rails (which he did in our world too) and Takaihito (Hirohito) stepping in as regent. Miyo is safe and the situation has stabilized for the time being. But hardly permanently. So a second season is in the works.

My Happy Marriage is streaming on Netflix.

Labels: anime, anime reviews, fantasy, history, japanese culture, netflix, politics

Why do western audiences like anime? One reason is precisely because anime doesn't pander to western audiences. Or rather, anime in general does not make a concerted effort to appeal to modern audiences outside Japan.

The Critical Drinker deserves the credit for turning that expression into a pejorative. To be sure, any trending social and political movement will inevitably show up in Japanese popular culture (often using the same English terminology). But in almost every case, it is an ephemeral surf that leaves the deeper societal currents undisturbed.

Dating back at least 2500 years, Confucianism is the common cultural cornerstone of the Sinosphere. In particular, China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam share a worldview with deep roots in Confucianism. Especially in South Korea, that worldview "shapes the moral system, the way of life, social relations between old and young, high culture, and much of the legal system."

It's easy to spot an almost identical postmodern veneer around the developed world and assume that all such societies are essentially the same. But no matter how contemporary a society may appear on the surface, the bedrock culture remains. If only for the sake of verisimilitude, it must constitute an inextricable part of any story being told in that context.

The payoff is that understanding and respecting the immutable nature of the culture makes for a reliable source of tension and conflict and narrative depth.

Challenging traditional values is one thing. Eliminating them entirely is quite another. That's what China did during the Cultural Revolution. The result was the wholesale destruction of an entire generation. It comes as no surprise that those very same communists are now hawking the ancient cultural heritage and Confucian teachings they once vilified.

China learned the hard way the value of Chesterton's Fence.

Granted, aside from a handful of trending topics and popular political slogans, most people would have a hard time identifying what those cultural values are. But they do recognize their absence. Like a living organism deprived of a necessary nutrient, though its absence may go unnoticed at first, its loss will inevitably exact a toll.

Regardless of the genre, anime is deeply rooted in Japanese culture. Even when seemingly lost in translation, it shores up the story being told. From the hierarchal language to the education system, to food, fashion, architecture, and a myriad of other customs that are centuries old and very much alive.

A great example of this is Dragon Pilot, that starts at a modern JSDF air force base, and then tosses dragons, miko (Shinto shrine maidens), and ancient religious rites into the mix. Dragon Pilot introduces the shrine maidens in the last third of the story, while Otaku Elf takes place entirely in the shrine maiden genre.

The Japanese title for the latter is Edomae Elf and Elda has been hanging around Takamimi Shrine since the dawn of the Edo period. More recently in the early twentieth century, the Taisho period has become the go-to setting for Japan's fantasy steam punk era, as in My Happy Marriage and Demon Slayer.
In an interview posted on Anime News Network, My Happy Marriage director Takehiro Kubota was asked if he was concerned about how viewers outside Japan would enjoy and interpret the anime.

"Not really," was his reassuring answer.

In fact, I never imagined that it would be seen so widely in so many different countries, so I was grateful when I heard that it had been watched by so many people overseas and had such a positive response. Perhaps due to Miyo's uniquely Japanese character? It's somewhat hard to express the nuance, but Miyo is a quite modest person who clearly doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve. I found it very interesting that her character was accepted in other cultures where being able to assert one's own opinion is a highly valued character trait.

A big part of what draws western audiences to anime is precisely because it is not made for western audiences. The aesthetics of anime create an additional level of remove that paradoxically makes reality all the more real. So as it turns out, then, I do like the isekai genre very much, because watching anime takes me on a voyage to another world.

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Labels: anime lists, anime reviews, culture, japanese culture, japanese tv, jdrama, politics, streaming, thinking about writing

As with Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the title character of A Certain Magical Index, many of the seemingly farfetched religious references in the series are based on actual historical people and events.

For example, Stiyl Magnus and Kaori Kanzaki are members of Necessarius, the Special Forces sorcery squad of the Anglican Church.

Okay, that part is fiction.

Kaori Kanzaki is a former leader of the Amakusa Catholics, descendants of the "Hidden Christians" that preserved the faith after the disaster of the Shimabara Rebellion in 1637.

That last part is not.

Jesuit missionaries arrived in Japan in the 1540s in the company of Portuguese traders. They were followed by Franciscans and Dominicans under the aegis of Spain. During the latter half of the sixteenth century, they enjoyed the patronage of Oda Nobunaga, the first of the Three Great Unifiers of Japan during the Warring States period.

Nobunaga had no interest in Christianity per se, but he was very interested in the firearms provided by the Spanish and Portuguese. Christianity was also a useful political check on the Buddhist factions in Kyoto that were a constant thorn in his side.

Alas, several years after Nobunaga's assassination, Spanish conquistadores were caught saying the quiet part out loud and Christianity quickly fell out of favor with the powers that be. As Hisaki Amano explains,

A Spanish ship en route from the Philippines to Mexico suffered serious damage in a series of typhoons and drifted ashore in Tosa (modern-day Kochi Prefecture). Under interrogation, the ship's crew responded that Spain was a world power that dispatched missionaries to convert the local population before occupying the countries.

Nobunaga's successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, began persecuting Christians with a vengeance, culminating in the martyrdom of twenty-six priests and believers in Nagasaki in 1597. Under the Tokugawa shoguns, Christianity was outlawed. Especially after the Shimabara Rebellion, simply being a Christian was deemed a capital offense.

That legal status was not amended until the late nineteenth century.

The Shimabara Rebellion erupted in 1638 on the island of Kyushu. Nagasaki was once a major Portuguese trading port and Shimabara had the highest percentage of Christians in the country. The rebellion began as a peasant uprising, and was soon joined by Catholic Christians chafing under the heavy hand of local leaders and the shogunate.

Although the rebellion was not without cause and the governor of Shimabara was later executed for misrule and incompetence, such a direct challenge to the legitimacy of the Edo government could not go unanswered.

At the age of seventeen, Amakusa Shiro became the leader of the Japanese Roman Catholics in Shimabara. After a tortuous siege, Shogunate forces overran Hara Castle in 1639 and killed upwards of 37,000 rebels and sympathizers. But the Hidden Christians persevered until the anti-Christian edicts were removed two and a half centuries later.

This is a case where the winners wrote the history books, so Amakusa Shiro was made the villain. He is one of the bad guys in Makai Tensho, a 1967 fantasy novel by Futaro Yamada that has Amakusa Shiro rising from the grave to exact revenge on the shogunate.

Three movies have been made from the book, the most recent in 2003. The best known remains the 1981 version starring Sonny Chiba as Yagyu Jubei, a role he returned to often in samurai action series such as Shogun's Samurai. Overseas releases appended Samurai Reincarnation to the title.

Tubi has a generous selection of Sonny Chiba films and series, including a dubbed version of Samurai Reincarnation and half a season of Shogun's Samurai.

Over the past century, and certainly since 1945, the image of Christianity in Japan has been thoroughly rehabilitated. Christian style weddings (fake pastor included) have become all the rage. Former prime minister Aso Taro is a Catholic. And Christmas (along with Santa Claus) is now one of Japan's most popular unofficial holidays.

Along the way, as evident in series like A Certain Magical Index, Hellsing, and The Ancient Magus Bride, Christianity, and Catholicism in particular, became a rich source of dramatic material. Unconstrained by the usual cultural preoccupations, Japanese writers often push those religious tropes in quite unexpected directions.

Labels: anime, anime reviews, geography, japanese culture, japanese movie reviews, politics, religion

The Japanese may be the most pragmatic people on the planet. Going all-in on half-of-the-world domination and then losing everything knocked the stuffing out of that sort of zealotry. And unlike the Germans, they decided not to dwell on it.

Well, except when silly westerners try to ratchet up their own virtue signaling by apologizing for beating them.

And unlike the Germans, the ultra-nationalists and their rhetoric aren't banned. Some even get elected to high office. Then there's that whole Yasukuni Shrine business, which prime ministers pretend to be "sensitive" about.

Until the cameras are turned off, that is.

All the paeans to pacifism are pragmatic as well. In a neighborhood full of angry bulls, it's a good idea not run around waving a red flag. But at home, disturb the social order and the kid gloves come off. Japan has the death penalty and uses it.

And they don't pay much real attention to foreigners who complain about such things. Frankly, I think the Japanese government sticks to that whole whale hunting thing (it's for "research," don't you know) because foreigners complain about it.

It's a passive-aggressive way of asserting Japan's sovereignty and national prerogatives.

Japan's eating habits are doing a lot worse to the unagi, but when's the last time you heard anybody campaigning to "Save the eels!"

As Homer Simpson would put it: "Mmmm . . . eels."

Which brings us to the subject of another bunch of virtue-signaling westerners that amuse the Japanese when they're not bemusing them: vegetarians. Long story short: the best way to be a vegetarian in Japan is to not ask about the ingredients.

Eryk points out in his This Japanese Life blog that the

long life expectancy of Japanese people isn't from a vegetarian diet, because none of them are vegetarians. Okinawans are usually singled out—longest life expectancy in the world—but Okinawans actually eat taco rice and chicken.

The same goes for cancer rates. Japan's cancer rates aren't low because they avoid meat. Japan's diet is heavy on meat and soy—tofu, in particular—and soy can lower the risk of certain cancers. But tofu in Japan is usually served alongside meat, not in place of it.

Far from utopian, Japan is one of the least vegetarian-friendly places on Earth.

A vegetarian lifestyle is tough enough. But a vegan diet is almost impossible to strictly adhere to in Japan. Even in vegetable dishes, the dashi (broth) that is a ubiquitous component of Japanese cuisine almost certainly contains pork or fish.

The ingredients that go into dashi.

Laments Anne Lauenroth at GaijinPot, dashi is commonly made from bonito (related to tuna), and it is everywhere,

from sauces, salad dressings and miso soup to udon and soba noodles being boiled in it. Better restaurants pride themselves on making their own dashi, and they will be inclined to cook even their vegetables in this special broth instead of lovely, ordinary water.

But as far as Japanese cooks are concerned, dashi doesn't count as "meat," regardless of what it's made from. If you can't see the meat, there isn't any meat. Warns a site called the Vegetarian Resource Group,

It may be difficult to explain to Japanese people what you cannot have, because the concept of vegetarianism is not widely understood. For example, if you say you are vegetarian, they may offer you beef or chicken soup without meat itself.

Agrees Peter Payne,

One special challenge is being a vegetarian in Japan, since the country generally doesn't understand the lifestyle. One restaurant even advertised "vegetarian" bacon-wrapped asparagus, as if the presence of a vegetable was enough to make it vegetarian.

He advises sticking to shoujin ryouri, the food traditionally eaten by Buddhist priests. Which could be tough for the typical tourist to arrange alone. So the Inside Japan Tours website "will advise all your accommodation of your dietary needs in advance."

 Why? Because it is

decidedly more difficult to be a full vegetarian or vegan in Japan due to the ubiquity of fish in the diet. In fact, it is so rare that many restaurants do not offer any vegetarian dishes at all.

Protecting tourists from vegetarian dishes that aren't really is a great example of what Tyler Cowen calls "Markets in Everything."

Granted, I find actual "travel" utterly unappealing as a hobby, let alone a necessity. (Fun to watch on television, though.) But this strikes me as an odd tourism mentality. It's a kind of reverse cultural appropriation: "Don't do as the Roman do."

Then why go to Rome in the first place?

When it comes joining the culinary globetrotting set, I think Phil Rosenthal has the right idea in I'll Have What Phil's Having and Somebody Feed Phil. He travels the world and eats whatever he is served with great élan and with barely a care about where it came from.

After all, all those other people are eating it and they didn't fall down dead. Yet.

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Labels: environmentalism, food, japan, japanese culture, politics, social studies, television

Japan's most famous kirin watch over Nihonbashi.

The kirin (麒麟) is a Chinese unicorn. In the universe of the Twelve Kingdom, the shapeshifting kirin is born on Mt. Hou and becomes prime minister to the emperor or empress he personally selects.

A kirin has two mandates, choosing the emperor and ensuring the general welfare of the kingdom. The first is a one and done. In order to carry out the second, the kirin serves as chief advisor to the emperor, governor of the capital province, and commander of one half of the Imperial Army.

That last portfolio might seem odd, given the kirin's aversion to blood and violence. This aversion, coupled with the second mandate, the general welfare of the kingdom, is why kirin are known as "creatures of compassion."

Except a kirin is less a pacifist and more a military general directing the action from behind the lines. Adopting a "moral equivalent of war" approach, whereby the ends often justify the means, they can become so focused on their objectives that the fates of ordinary humans escape their attention.

Yari observes that for Taiki, "the fate of Tai always took precedence." This explains why Taiki returned to Kouki. Tai needed saving now. Everything else fell by the wayside, including the search for Gyousou.

When Taiki, Yari, and Kouryou break into the palace prison to rescue Seirai, Taiki can't yet persuade himself to kill the guard. But he has no problem with Yari and Kouryou dispatching a whole platoon basically for having the bad luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Keiki commits half a dozen felonies when he first meets Youko. Kourin can barely bring herself to stab Youko in the hand, yet when ordered by the Imperial Kou, repeatedly dispatches her shirei to kill Youko.

Taiki's willingness to go to any lengths to get the job done is just getting started. Drawing on deep reserves of self-discipline, he forces himself to bow to Asen, even though doing so feels like "a spike driven through his forehead" and makes him literally bleed out of his eyes.

In the climactic scene, Taiki kills a guard and wounds several others. Hence Rousan calling Taiki a "monster" unlike any kirin before him. But as the example of Rokuta makes clear, a kirin has enormous latitude to expand its job description.

The existence of the kirin itself so defied the normal constraints of the world that it was reasonable to conclude that only Heaven could have made them that way. And so it followed that the Divine Will was whatever the kirin said it was.

But even kirin must yield to the supernatural laws that govern a kirin's nature. Like Kourin, Taiki pays a price for warring against that nature. Fortunately for him, unlike the Imperial Kou, who takes Kourin with him to the grave, Gyousou steps forward to tell Taiki that enough is enough.

It will still take Taiki months or even years to recover. When he does, unlike his younger self, this battle-hardened kirin will provide a strong check and balance on Gyousou's actions going forward. And I'm sure that Gyousou can be counted on to return the favor.

Labels: 12 kingdoms, black moon, fantasy, geography, japan, japanese culture, politics

Chapter 10 of The Space Alien (which takes place in 1953) has the following description of a neighborhood in Setagaya ward in the southwest corner of Tokyo:

Less than a mile from Ichiro's house, a concrete storehouse stood alone in the middle of a field. During the war, air raids had destroyed all of the wood-frame houses on the block.

The genesis of these fireproof residential storehouses goes back three centuries.

The Great Meireki Fire (named after the imperial era or gengo) in 1657 destroyed over sixty percent of Edo (now Tokyo) proper and killed upwards of 100,000 people. Halfway around the world and less than a decade later, the Great Fire of London wreaked an equal amount of physical damage.

(Click image to enlarge.)

These two cities responded in quite different ways to these similar disasters. In the latter case, a concerted effort was made to prevent further conflagrations.

The revamped zoning laws and building codes of London specified wider streets and deeper setbacks, and opened access to the wharves along the Thames. Perhaps most importantly, brick and stone were required in the construction of new buildings, resulting in thicker walls and heavier framing.

Famed architect Christopher Wren distinguished himself during this period, rebuilding fifty-two churches along with many secular buildings in London.

These building requirements raised the cost of housing and slowed the overall growth of London, but were effective at preventing further similar disasters until the air raids of the Blitz.

During the rebuilding of Edo, city planners moved the larger estates and many shrines and temples to the outskirts of the city, opening access to the rivers and widening the main thoroughfares. However, in almost every other respect, they took a completely opposite approach to fire prevention.

In short, the point wasn't to prevent fires but to slow fires down and give people time to escape. Fire was treated as a natural disaster, like earthquakes, tsunamis, and typhoons. Survival mattered, not, as George Carlin famously phrased it, saving your "stuff." A very Zen philosophy.

The result of this policy was that, on average, an Edokko could expect his house to burn down at least once during his lifetime. In 1806, the haiku poet Issa Kobayashi wrote of a fire in the Shitaya district where he was living at the time (courtesy David Lanoue, edited for syllable count):

Everything has burned
down to and including the
blameless mosquitoes

Firefighters in Edo (the true action heroes of the era) took pretty much the same approach as hotshot crews in the United States today. The lightweight wood frame row houses that were home to the majority of Edo's population were a key part of the strategy.

When the fire alarms rang, firefighters first collapsed the flimsy row houses in the path of the flames. The "floor" formed by the roof tiles created a firebreak. The row houses were inexpensive to rebuild, and neighborhood mutual insurance organizations covered the costs.

A wealthy family might keep an entire house on layaway at a lumberyard, like the one depicted (at the bottom right) in Hokusai's "Lumberyard on the Takekawa in Honjo." As an inside joke, Hokusai put his publisher's name on the placard.

(Click image to enlarge.)

These firefighting techniques successfully limited widespread loss of life without holding back the economic and population growth of Edo, that by the 18th century was the biggest city in the world. Nevertheless, the frequency of the fires themselves was not significantly curtailed until the twentieth century.

As Edward Seidensticker recounts in Low City, High City,

In a space of fifteen years, from early into middle Meiji, certain parts of Nihombashi were three times destroyed by fire. Much of what remained of the Tokugawa castle burned in 1873, and so the emperor spent more than a third of his reign in the Tokugawa mansion where the Akasaka Palace now stands. There were Yoshiwara fires in 1871, 1873, 1891, and 1911, and of course in 1923.

The devastation of the Great Meireki Fire was not equaled until the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake and the 1945 firebombing of Tokyo at the end of World War II. In both of these cases, fires broke out everywhere all at once, rendering traditional firefighting techniques ineffectual.

To be sure, Buddhist beliefs in the effervescence of life notwithstanding, the denizens of Edo weren't entirely nonchalant about the loss of their "stuff."

Residents of the row houses dug root cellars beneath their apartments, where they could stash their valuables during a fire. Landowners built a stone storehouse in a corner of the property away from the main house. These Edo period storehouses can still be found scattered throughout Japan.

In the NHK serial drama Warotenka, the Fujioka family returns to Osaka at the end of the war to find that only the wrought iron front gate and the storehouse survived the air raids. So they move into the storehouse until they can scrape together enough materials to rebuild the main house.

Labels: history, japan, japanese culture, politics, social studies, space alien, translations, ww2

On March 30, NHK World's foreign-language services and websites reverted to the traditional format for Japanese names. This follows a policy adopted six months ago by the Japanese government to prefer the surname-first style in Latin script documents.

The surname-last name order for Japanese names in Latin script came into fashion during the Meiji era, when Japan aligned itself with the West. After 150 years, the Japanese government decided it wasn't its job to do the orthographic flip-flopping anymore.

Japan is actually catching up to the rest of Asia in this regard, as surname-first in Latin script publications has long been standard practice for Chinese and Korean names. Chinese President Xi Jinping, for example. And South Korean President Moon Jae-in. But not Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo would like that to change. This update to the NHK World style guide is one small step.

Incidentally, when names originally written in Latin script are transliterated into katakana, the surname order is preserved. So "Brad Pitt" is still "Buraddo Pitto" (ブラッド・ピット). Following the cultural conventions of the source material is a good rule. Though this rule can cause confusion.

Hosts and anchors with Japanese names who were not born in Japan or are not Japanese citizens may stick with the surname-last format. On domestic NHK broadcasts, such names would be written in katakana, not kanji, making the distinction clear. But that clue gets lost on NHK World.

So some Japanese names on NHK World are surname-first while others are surname-last, leaving it up to the viewer to guess why.

In my own writing, I'm all over the map. Accustomed to rendering historical names surname-first, that's what I did in Serpent of Time. In the contemporary Fox & Wolf, I reverted to surname-last, as I do in the Boy Detectives Club novels.

It comes down to trying to anticipate what the reader expects, and western readers generally expect surname-last. Then again, it might not be a bad idea to start changing those expectations.

A related style conundrum are long and double vowels. In Serpent of Time and Fox & Wolf, I used Hepburn romanization. In the Boy Detectives Club novels, I don't bother. In the Twelve Kingdoms, I transliterate the vowels as they would be written in hiragana, which is my linguistic preference.

Labels: history, japanese, japanese culture, japanese tv, language, nhk, nhk world, politics, streaming

On Tuesday (Japan time), Naruhito was formally enthroned as the 126th emperor of Japan. He succeeded to the position back on May 1, a day after his father abdicated. As with the gap between elections and inaugurations in the United States, it takes a while to get all the ceremonial ducks in a row.

The question of a female emperor aside (more a 19th century issue), the Imperial Household Agency sinks the roots of these ceremonies as deep as they will go. Forget about the Middle Ages. The accession regalia is based on the best known historical recreations of Heian era (794–1185) court dress.

Empress Masako and her female attendants wore juunihitoe, a twelve-layer robe (the literal meaning of the word) quite different from a kimono. The emperor wore a ryuei-no-kanmuri headpiece and a sokutai.



Unlike kimono, yukata, haori and hakama, which are still worn today (you can probably see all four while watching a sumo tournament), you'll only encounter juunihitoe and sokutai on these rare formal occasions and in historical dramas.

Shinto serves the same approximate function in these ceremonies as the Church of England does in the coronation of British monarchs. The Imperial Household Agency maintains a pro forma separation of church and state by organizing the "private" religion rites independent of the "public" enthronement.

It's all the same taxpayer money and civil servants, of course, but like the rites and rituals themselves, there is a great deal to be said for going through the motions.

The substance of the enthronement mostly came down to Emperor Naruhito accepting the job offer. Here is the official translation by the Imperial Household Agency.

I have hereby succeeded to the Throne pursuant to the Constitution of Japan and the Special Measures Law on the Imperial House Law. When I think about the important responsibility I have assumed, I am filled with a sense of solemnity.

Looking back, His Majesty the Emperor Emeritus, since acceding to the Throne, performed each of his duties in earnest for more than thirty years, while praying for world peace and the happiness of the people, and at all times sharing in the joys and sorrows of the people. He showed profound compassion through his own bearing. I would like to express my heartfelt respect and appreciation of the comportment shown by His Majesty the Emperor Emeritus as the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people of Japan.

In acceding to the Throne, I swear that I will reflect deeply on the course followed by His Majesty the Emperor Emeritus and bear in mind the path trodden by past emperors, and will devote myself to self-improvement. I also swear that I will act according to the Constitution and fulfill my responsibility as the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people of Japan, while always turning my thoughts to the people and standing with them. I sincerely pray for the happiness of the people and the further development of the nation as well as the peace of the world.

Emperor Naruhito is following his father's example of keeping these things short and to the point. Inaugural and State of the Union stemwinders should have a timer that cuts the mic after twenty minutes. No such speech need be any longer than Abraham Lincoln's nonpareil Second Inaugural Address.

Related posts

Happy Reiwa 1!
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Labels: akihito, fashion, history, japan, japanese culture, naruhito, politics, religion

Everybody loves a triumphant underdog. The problem is when the only way for the underdog to end up top dog is to make the bad guys dumber than dirt and the good guys the luckiest in the universe. In other words, the ending of the supremely silly Avatar. And to be honest, the ending of Star Wars dances right on the line.

The suspension of disbelief can only be suspended so far before some semblance of reality must intervene.

Pit the primitive against the modern in head-to-head battlefield combat and the noble savage will—sooner or later, rightly or wrongly, and no matter how noble—get its military butt kicked. As Kate says about the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi, "Yeah, sure, Winnie the Pooh versus lasers. My vote is on the lasers."

In The Last Samurai, Edward Zwick and Tom Cruise do an ironically good job of turning the ruling military class of a defeated dictatorship into underdogs. "Movies can manipulate you to root for just about anyone, anytime," observes David Edelstein. Though Zwick and Cruise do deserve credit for demonstrating why bringing a knife to a gunfight is a bad idea.

Oda Nobunaga figured this out back in 1575 at the Battle of Nagashino, where he deployed arquebusiers in staggered ranks and cut the attacking Takeda cavalry to shreds.

There was no way Saigo Takamori ("Katsumoto" in the The Last Samurai) was going to prevail in the ill-fated Satsuma Rebellion. The soldiers mowing down Katsumoto and his troops were in fact "the good guys," representing the ninety percent of the population finally allowed to fight for a share of the rights and privileges once granted only to a small elite.

The Last Samurai could also be titled, "What the ending of Avatar would really look like."

And that's pretty much what happens in Gate too. Only this time we get to cheer overwhelming military superiority right from the start, with no need to rationalize the backward prerogatives of a decaying feudal order. Besides, they started it.

On a perfectly normal summer day, a sort of Stargate portal opens in the middle of downtown Tokyo. A Roman-era army pours through, accompanied by an "air force" of flying dragons. Chaos ensues. The bewildered Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) finally get their act together and send in a couple of gunships. Invasion over.

Not wanting to turn Tokyo into a battleground, the JSDF sets up a fortified base on the other side of the Gate. The "Special Region" happens to be smack dab in the middle of an empire ruled by Emperor Molt Sol Augustus (there are reasons for the Roman resemblances). The emperor orders his forces to expel the interlopers. They attack and get wiped out. Repeatedly.

However replete the Special Region is with magicians, elves, dragons, and super-powered demigoddesses, as Arthur C. Clarke pointed out, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."


A dramatic illustration of this occurs when a mercenary army attacks a walled city lightly defended by a JSDF recon patrol. They call in an air strike (cue Ride of the Valkyries and a bunch of Apocalypse Now allusions). Just as the mercenaries breach the gates, an AH-1 Cobra hovers inside the walls and does a one-eighty with its Gatling gun, bringing the attack to an abrupt halt.

As it turns out, Emperor Augustus isn't that stupid either. He is cynically using the "invasion" by the JSDF to hobble the military strength of any "allies" that might threaten his reign. His "allies" are aren't happy about being turned into cannon fodder. When a patrol tracks down a badly wounded King Duran of Elbe, he knows who the enemy is, and it isn't them.

The futility of armed conflict leads to an uneasy peace. The story at this point resembles the 1853–1867 Bakumatsu period in Japan, during which both the shogunate and its domestic enemies came to realize that the "Expel the barbarians!" (sonno joi) call to arms was a military impossibility and they had to find ways to deal with the situation politically.

So the diplomatic corps are sent in to negotiate an armistice. Their guide and on-the-ground expert is Yoji Itami. Able to adapt on the fly to unusual situations and get along with the locals, the watchword in the Special Region soon becomes: "What would Itami do?"

Yet Yoji Itami is at heart a die-hard otaku who candidly admits the only reason he works is to support his hobby. A running joke throughout the series is that, unknown to practically everybody, the lackadaisical Itami is actually a highly qualified special forces graduate with little interest in climbing the ranks. Nevertheless, despite his slacker attitude, he can't help rising to every occasion.

He was on a shopping trip to the Ginza when the Gate first opened. Keeping his wits about him, he saved hundred of civilians, thus unwittingly gaining hero status. He is promoted and given command of a recon patrol in the Special Region.

Another running joke is how closely the Special Region resembles the isekai genre otaku are so enamored of. Itami and his sergeant pass the time wondering what stereotypical otherworldly creatures they're going to meet next.

During their first patrol, they encounter their most formidable foe, a Godzilla-sized fire dragon. They manage to drive it off with RPGs (not kill it). Along the way, they rescue Tuka Luna Marceau (an elf), Lelei La Lelena (a magician), and Rory Mercury (a demigoddess with a fondness for goth). These three form the core of Itami's Scooby Gang.

Meanwhile, Molt Sol Augustus finds himself caught between the peace faction, led by Imperial Princess Piña Co Lada, and the war faction, led by Imperial Prince Zorzal.

The hotheaded Zorzal is not nearly as smart as he thinks he is, and his slave, Tyuule (defeated queen of the Warrior Bunny Tribe), makes herself Iago to his Othello, goading him into conflict with the JSDF in hopes that he will destroy himself. Palace coups, embassies under siege, and that pesky fire dragon keep Lieutenant Itami a busy man.

In the middle of all this, the Scooby Gang returns to Japan to report to the Diet about What in the World is Going on There. This is the least satisfying arc in the series. While it's fun meeting Itami's ex, the political confrontations are ham-handed and the accompanying Spy vs. Spy antics do nothing to further the plot.

Back in the Special Region, King Duran having granted them passage through his territory, Itami gets approval to put together a small team and go after the fire dragon. This arc reminds me of WWII actioners like Where Eagles Dare and The Dirty Dozen, where everybody but the leads (the Scooby Gang, in this case) gets taken out before the mission is complete.



After a little nick-of-time assistance from a pair of F-4EJ fighter jets, Itami circles his squad around to the capital to rescue Princess Piña Co Lada and Emperor Augustus from the machinations of Prince Zorza. The series concludes with a massive airborne operation.

As you have probably gathered from the names of the characters, we're not asked to take any of this very seriously. Despite the high body count, Gate definitely belongs in the "War is hell but a lot of fun to watch" category. One thing Gate does take seriously are the military details. There is plenty for military otaku to geek out about.

Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution prohibits the armed forces of Japan from engaging in offensive action outside their borders, restrictions Prime Minister Abe would like to amend. For the time being, the JSDF confines itself to peacekeeping missions, disaster relief, and chasing off the Russian patrol planes and Chinese patrol boats that "stray" into Japan's territorial waters.

The full name of the series is Gate: Thus the JSDF Fought. I do not doubt that it was born in part out of a desire to see the JSDF strut their stuff on a larger stage.

Related links

Gate (CR HD)
No way to wage a war
Dances with Samurai
Mononoke vs. Avatar

Labels: anime, anime reviews, history, japan, movies about japan, politics

Japan's first imperial succession from a living emperor in more than two centuries made for a uniquely celebratory atmosphere. In Japan, midnight on April 30 was like New Year's Eve at Times Square. A countdown, fireworks, and great good cheer.

The new era has arrived!

I was working in Japan in January 1989. The mood was gray and somber. Emperor Hirohito had been on his death bed for months. The press macabrely reported every blood transfusion he received. A lot of blood transfusions. Happy times it was not.

The reign of Emperor Akihito commenced on 8 January 1989 and ended on 30 April 2019 in the year Heisei 31. On 1 May 2019, Crown Prince Naruhito inherited the Imperial Regalia and the Office of Emperor, marking the start of the Reiwa era.

Naruhito is Japan's fifth emperor since the 1868 Meiji Restoration moved the capital from Kyoto to Tokyo and restored de jure imperial rule. He is the 126th emperor of Japan, the oldest continuous and hereditary monarchy in the world.

Granted, beginning with Emperor Jimmu (reigned 660–585 BC), a "direct descendant" of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu, the first nine emperors are "presumed legendary." Emperor Kinmei (reigned 539–571 AD) was the first with "historical verifiability."

Mutsuhito (1867) Meiji era
Yoshihito (1912) Taisho era
Hirohito (1926) Showa era
Akihito (1989) Heisei era
Naruhito (2019) Reiwa era

In Japanese, an emperor's given name is not used in public. As a result, imperial references differ depending on whether you are, for example, watching NHK in Japanese or English. In English, Emperor Naruhito is referred to as "Emperor Naruhito."

In Japanese, while alive, the emperor is "Tennou Heika (天皇陛下) or "His Imperial Majesty the Emperor." Emperor Akihito is now Joukou (上皇) or "Emperor Emeritus." Posthumously, an emperor is referred to by his era name.

As with the several months that elapse between the election an American president and the inauguration, the formal enthronement ceremony is scheduled for October. If you're the head of state of a country with formal diplomatic relations with Japan, you're invited.

Since the Meiji era, (male) Japanese politicians have worn the English morning coat on formal occasions.


In a historical first, Satsuki Katayama, a member of Prime Minister Abe's cabinet, became the first woman to attend an enthronement ceremony. She wore a kimono.

Related posts

The last year of Heisei
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Labels: akihito, history, japan, japanese culture, naruhito, nengou, politics

In Japan, the school year and the fiscal year begin on the first day of April. This year saw another first on the first. Shortly before noon, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga announced the era name that will mark the reign of Emperor Naruhito after he is enthroned on 1 May 2019.


The name of the new era is "Reiwa" (令和), pronounced "lay-wah" in Japanese. In a unique step, instead of referencing the Chinese classics, the usage for the kanji was taken from the Man'yoshu. Dating to the 8th century, it is the oldest extant anthology of Japanese poetry. The Japan Times explains,

The Man'yoshu passage that inspired Reiwa was written by poet Otomo no Tabito as an introduction to 32 plum-themed poems penned by his poet friends, according to officials. In the introduction, rei refers to "reigetsu" or "auspicious month," while wa describes the peaceful manner of an early spring breeze.

In contemporary Japanese, rei (令) means "dictate" or "decree." The more common wa is the same "wa" as in "Showa," the era name of Emperor Hirohito. It means "peace" or "harmony." So a literal reading of Reiwa based on modern meanings might be along the lines of "order and peace."

As University of Tokyo historian Kazuto Hongo observes, "The name sounds as if we are ordered to achieve peace, rather than doing so proactively."

The intended meaning based on the context provided by the Man'yoshu is something more like "auspicious harmony." In an effort to counter the "order and peace" interpretation, the Foreign Ministry has since clarified that the "official" English translation of Reiwa is "beautiful harmony."

In a press conference following the presentation by the Chief Cabinet Secretary, Prime Minister Abe waxed poetic.

We have decided the new name to be "Reiwa" in the hope that Japan will be a country where each Japanese person can achieve success with hopes for the future like plum flowers that bloom brilliantly after the severe cold.

As far as that goes, the kanji 麗 (rei) does unambiguously refer to beauty, but it violates the "simple to read and write" rule that a modern gengou must follow. Both 麗 and 令 (especially as a radical) have long been used in names for girls. In the coming years, they will likely become more common.

The proclamation of the era name traditionally follows the death of the emperor. Two years ago, in a national address, Emperor Akihito made clear his desire to retire, citing his age and declining health. A year later, a bill was passed by the Diet creating the necessary legal framework and timeline of events.

Emperor Akihito will formally abdicate on 30 April 2019. His son becomes emperor on 1 May 2019, and the new gengou will begin. So the rest of 2019 will be Reiwa 1 and 2020 will be Reiwa 2.

Unique among Asian nations, the gengou (元号) or nengou (年号) is not simply ceremonial, but is used in all government documents, from currency to birth certificates, and is widely adopted throughout the private sector. Practically any official document will include the gengou and the Gregorian date.

In their day to day activities, especially in years like 2019 with two gengou, Japanese have to be "bilingual" in gengou and Gregorian.

The modern gengou system (since 1868) actually constituted a great improvement. As Donald Keene explains in Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World,

Until the adoption of Meiji as the name for Mutsuhito's entire reign, the nengou was traditionally changed several times during the reign of a single emperor—at two fixed points in the cycle of sixty years, or when a series of natural disasters were attributed to an inauspicious nengou or when some prodigy of nature required recognition in the calendar.

In the modern era, a group of scholars in classical Japanese and Chinese literature and history comes up with a list of era names. Then the Chief Cabinet Secretary gathers input from leading opinion leaders, such as Nobel laureate Shin'ya Yamanaka and Naoki Prize winning writer Mariko Hayashi.

The short list is presented to the leadership of both chambers of the Diet, after which the full Cabinet makes the final selection.

Over the next month, computer programmers will have their hands full updating all of the date-dependent software. Crown Prince Naruhito is a healthy 59 years old, so the Reiwa era should last a good twenty or thirty years, at which point the whole process will begin once again.

Labels: akihito, history, japanese culture, language, naruhito, nengou, politics

In the textbooks, at least, the 1868 Meiji Restoration ended the rule of the shoguns and reestablished the reign of the emperors. The effect, however, was to create a government where the "separation of powers" simply meant that the powers of the government were all separated.

Oh, those powers were, on paper, vested in the emperor. So had they been during the shogunate. It's just that from the 17th century through the early 19th, the Tokugawa shogun unquestionably controlled the emperor. Now nobody controlled the emperor. And the emperor didn't control anything either.

In a deadly game of king of the hill, the years in Japan between the Meiji Restoration and WWII were punctuated by a series of attempted coups. None succeeded, but all had the effect of pushing the government further to the right in hopes of deflecting the next military revolt, until the army was operating without any practical constraints.

Echoes of the first half of the 16th century, when the slow rot of the Ashikaga shogunate ignited battles amongst the military governors that culminated in the Warring States period.

Lacking the checks and balances of civilian oversight, the Japanese army ended up starting a small war in China that grew out of control, basically Vietnam on a continental scale. When the U.S. cut off oil and scrap metal exports to Japan as a response, the military lashed out without considering its capabilities or the military consequences.

Thanks to the military doctrine of Kantai Kessen, meaning a winner-take-all contest between battleships, the Japanese war effort was doomed from the start. Japanese military leaders couldn't stop believing in Kantai Kessen because it had proved so decisive during the Russo-Japanese War.

But by June of 1942 and the Battle of Midway, the battleship was a white elephant. The aircraft carrier ruled the waves. To be sure, the Japanese navy had indeed crushed the Russian fleet at the Battle of Tsushima in 1905, compelling a shaky Russian government to sue for peace.

This "underdog" victory was hailed around the world (even though it began with a "sneak attack"). The Japanese government was quick to believe its own press, forgetting that the land war going on at the same time was about as decisive as the First World War would be, with the Japanese infantry taking as many casualties as the Russians.

Notwithstanding one the greatest diplomatic achievements in history, the victorious Japanese came away from the Treaty of Portsmouth (1905) believing that the western powers had robbed them of their due. This combination of victimhood, aggrievement, and overconfidence set the stage for the next forty years of accumulating disasters.

In Japan, ordinary citizens—already living under draconian rationing and sumptuary laws—took the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor to be a second Tsushima, signaling an end to the conflict.

By the Battle of Okinawa, nobody in the Japanese government believed they could prevail by force of arms alone. But they could convince the Americans that invading the main islands carried too high a cost, essentially Robert E. Lee's strategy in 1864, that might have succeeded except for the fall of Atlanta and Sherman's March to the Sea.

The bitter irony is that in this they succeeded. Thus the atomic bomb. But the atomic bomb probably had a greater influence on Stalin, who, thanks to his spies, knew more about it than Truman. Stalin didn't launch his invasion of Manchuria until after Nagasaki. Once the bomb was dropped, Stalin had to act before Japan surrendered.

One of Stalin's goals was payback for the Russo-Japanese War. The Soviet army reclaimed all of its former territories, plus several islands that had always been part of Japan. From 560,000 to 760,000 Japanese were shipped off to the gulags, where from 10 to 50 percent of them died. This treatment by a former "ally" still rankles in Japan.

There is much talk of "formally" ending the Korean War. The one-week war between the Soviet Union and Japan has never been formally resolved either.

All through the Second World War, Japan and the Soviet Union had a non-aggression pact. Until the bitter end, the Japanese Supreme Council saw the Soviet Union as a "good faith" intermediary while raising arcane and legalistic objections to the Potsdam Declaration. Stalin's abrogation of the non-aggression pact destroyed that illusion.

But a negotiated surrender would not be acceptable to the Allies and certainly not to their citizens. They had been there and done that and suffered the consequences. In July of 1918, Winston Churchill laid out the terms for a lasting armistice with Germany. In the process, he made clear why the "Great War" would not be "the war to end all wars."

Germany must be beaten; Germany must know that she is beaten; Germany must feel that she is beaten. Her defeat must be expressed in terms and facts which will, for all time, deter others from emulating her crime, and will safeguard us against their repetition.

Despite all the treaties signed and reparations extracted at Versailles, between the two world wars, Germany acceded to none of these conditions. But in August of 1945, as John Dower vividly lays out in Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, Japan very much did.

The atomic bomb was considerably less destructive than Curtis LeMay's ongoing firebombing campaigns. But it forced Stalin's hand and that forced the Japanese government to finally face reality. And when he finally did face reality, the atomic bomb gave the emperor a transcendent power to whom he could surrender Japan's wartime ideology.

This time, history would not repeat itself.

Though in a very real sense, history was repeating itself for the fourth time. In 1185, Minamoto Yoritomo destroyed the Taira clan—the power behind the throne—and moved the capital of Japan to Kamakura, inaugurating the rule of the shoguns. On and off for the next 700 years, the emperor reigned as little more than a figurehead.

When Tokugawa Ieyasu consolidated power after the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, the country breathed a sigh of relief and mostly aligned itself with the new regime. Like Ieyasu himself, it was an opportunistic resolution that demanded little in the way of ideological conformity, except to go along to get along, a social compact that worked.

In the mid-1860s, as the Tokugawa regime crumbled around them and the center could no longer hold, this opportunistic ambivalence was expressed in the "Ee ja nai ka" movement, an anarchic yet strangely playful popular uprising that proclaimed, "So what? Why not? Who cares?"


In the late summer of 1945, the population was too exhausted to dance in the streets. But they'd had enough of ideology. Observes John Dower, when General MacArthur arrived in Japan on August 30 of that year,

he easily became a stock figure in the political pageantry of Japan: the new sovereign, the blue-eyed shogun, the paternalistic military dictator, the grandiloquent but excruciatingly sincere Kabuki hero.

Dower wryly concludes, "Indeed, the response of huge numbers of Japanese was that the supreme commander was great, and so was democracy." So it comes as no surprise that they should so readily switch their allegiances to the man who promised them much less torment and a much better future.

Related posts

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Kantai Kessen
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

Labels: books, embracing defeat, history, japan, politics, ww2