If you’ve ever even had a passing interest in the subject of feudal Japan, the Sengoku period (a time of almost constant civil war lasting over 100 years) and eventual unification under a single Shogun you want to watch this series.
I started to investigate this period of history related to the study of martial arts around 1979 / 1980 and this may be the best “series” I have ever seen on the subject. Things like the tv series “Shogun” presented a mostly accurate environment but when it came to the “details” they were a lot like “The Patriot” with mix and match facts and names.
The absolute best thing about the series is the participation of those like Stephen Turnbull who demystifies events and people and provides a less romanticized assessment. The historical events are simply related in a coherent timeline with the nature and relationship of events simply explained in context.
Esoteric ideas and cultural considerations unique to people, places and persons are simply defined rather than made a source of wonder. The first three episodes conveyed more “easily understood” critical people and events information than some entire semesters of Japanese history classes I have participated in. Many people who have studied parts of this time but don’t feel 100% about their understanding of this and that will watch in and go “Oh…that is what that idiot kept trying to talk about.”
There is a tendency among teachers of Japanese history, and the samurai in particular, to spend more time trying to impress students and peers with their command of Japanese language (but usually it is just words they know) and known nuances unique to both than to try and convey any of this information in a way that can be grasped, understood and remembered by westerners.
It’s time well spent and so far I haven’t caught a single error, only points of contention where more than one POV is possible. They even delved into the “many kinds of samurai” can of worms pretty competently as what a samurai was changed over time and could be unique from location to location, it really wasn’t until after the unification that the conventional model of “what is a samurai” was really defined.
And yeah, a lot of time is spent discussing the role of firearms in nearly every conflict of the Sengoku period and how those who discovered how to employ them in a practical way were usually the victor, even when greatly outnumbered.
But best of all, there is coherence among all of the historical experts and it’s not like an episode of Crossfire where this guy suggest this happened and another expert disagrees with him and promotes and completely alternate point of view.
Thanks for the write up. I saw this was coming out and set a notification for when it was released. Just saw the notification pop on my phone yesterday that it came out
The whole going around and ceasing commoners’ weapons so they can’t resist the warrior-elite minority seems to be a common thing amongst leaders with tyrannical leanings…
Yeah. And no doubt Nobunaga was a vicious, shitbag who lived at the expense of everyone else. This is made worse by the fact that Yoritomo established a military government in 1185 (the Kamakura bakufu) which meant military (samurai families) leaders ran the whole show. Worked “ok” until the Minamoto dynasty came to an end and things eventually went up for grabs.
But Japan was an ongoing lesson in “tyranny” through most of her history. Not many “golden ages” marked by prosperity and freedom. Even with the modernization after Meiji, they simply transitioned from a military government run by Shoguns to an Imperial government that was quickly taken over by modern “pro military” members of government complete with their own “Night of Long Knives” for liberals leaders who wanted more general freedoms. This culminated in Hideki Tojo becoming Prime Minister and those who advocated for an expansionist empire of domination of the Pacific.
There is some merit to the argument that as a participant in “democracy” and an ally in World War I they learned the lesson that nobody is gonna take them seriously or reward their good deeds with colonies comparable to those enjoyed by European powers before and after World War I. But Japan didn’t simply wage a war to secure their piece of the pie to have the raw goods necessary to sustain independence of others. They waged a brutal war of atrocity almost from the start and showed “modern” Japan was capable of incredible acts of cruelty against men, women and children that even some Samurai of old would have considered unthinkable, except of course for Nobunaga who really was a Class A POS who would have stabbed babies with sticks and roasted them like marshmallows over a fire if the idea had ever occurred to him.
As cool a culture as Japan has, and it has many great aspects of it. People tend to forget how brutal they could be…except the Chinese…I don’t think they’ll ever forget. They made the Holocaust look almost acceptable (not saying it was).
Yep, martial artists also have a tendency to glorify them in. Every time I hear a kendo student remark along the lines of “man I wish I could have lived back then, it must have been awesome to be a samurai” and I have to remind them “you mean you wish you could live your life in servitude to a lord of the land and have virtually no say in your destiny and stand ready to kill anyone including your family or yourself without explanation if so ordered?”
The samurai as a culture can be completely fascinating but not all of them were honor bound, dutiful individuals with an impressive grasp of right action. And as you noted, this manifested itself in terrible ways when the mindset found it’s way to Nanking. If you can throw a baby in the air so it can be caught on a bayonet and everyone involved things it’s a special skill or at least entertaining…you need to completely reevaluate yourself as a human being.
Most Asians know very well what the Japanese are capable of. Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans, Vietnamese…the list is a long one. A couple of Japanese soldiers in WWII thought it was good fun to force a woman in the 8th month of her pregnancy to bow 100 times to them. That woman was my grandmother.
Yup…brutal af. Even the way they tested their swords for quality. it would have to cut clean diagonally through a prisoners collar bone, rib cage, spine and then hip bone. If it got stuck, it was a low quality reject…cue next prisoner for the next sword.
I tell you what…if Japan had the resources and wasn’t island bound. History would have been a lot different from feudal Japan on.
That was mostly the result of their last true Emperor, and I don’t mean Hirohito, I mean MacArthur. It’s really his only notable contribution to the way, the complete pacification of postwar Japan. They needed an angry god so we sent them one.
Make no mistake though. The “common” people were never the brutal ones to begin with. That is what is being seen today. Look deeper and see the yakuza and the brutality is very much still alive. It is just on the back burner due to circumstance.
Yes and no. Sure the commoners suffered under the yoke of the samurai but the common folk were also “good little nazi’s” who went along with anything and everything Tojo did including sending their children to report for bamboo spear training so they could meet the invaders on the beach and fight to the death.
There is also a “right below the surface” level of accepted racism that would blow your mind and more people go right along with it than correct it. I have Japanese friends who grew up here that are always shocked by what they see and hear in “polite company” when they go home from time to time. People don’t put portraits of Mishima on their walls because they are huge book fans. Seems every other generation goes ball deep with a neo patriotism movement.
Anyone who has been on bases in Japan or Okinawa long enough has seen them protested, although Okinawan’s are typically more tolerant.
That racism is widespread too. Unlike the Germans who own up to the evils they committed during the Nazi-era, the Japanese to this day still deny, minimize, and gloss over the atrocities they committed during WWII. Atrocities made easier by the belief that the Yamato race is superior to everyone else, including other Japanese like Okinawans or the Ainu.
Sadly. Now I know hundreds of more modern Japanese folks who are also appalled by the pervasive racism that seems to be everywhere, among all classes high and low but that’s mostly because I won’t maintain friendly relations with those who see themselves as “racially superior” to all asians and most other men. So while it isn’t necessarily the norm, it isn’t uncommon either.
At the end of the war the Japanese civies weren’t force marched through Manchurian “work camps” or made to clean up at Unit 731, but sadly our country was complicit in the half hearted prosecution of Japanese war criminals and acts of protectionism that made things like Operation Paperclip look like a 15 minute time out for bad behavior. That we rewarded some Japanese war criminals with positions of prominence on the post war government was in itself a war crime on some level.
Our willingness to exchange immunity for data with Unit 731 which engaged in live testing on humans of biological warfare methods was one of our most shameful acts as a nation. I understand that on some level we just wanted to end the war and move on, but the Japanese really did get a cultural pass that the Germans and some of her allies never dreamed of.
And the fact that we were already moving onto Stalin and the Soviet Union as the next major threat with Japan being strategically located probably also meant we looked the other way on a lot of things. If all of Japan was forced to learn the actual history of their military actions during the Pacific War I think the demands that we apologize for Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be dramatically lessened.
While I always feel sympathy for any innocent victimized during war, Japan really did earn their Hiroshima and Nagasaki events. But as is often the case, the worse offenders still seemed to go unpunished.
I agree. The “good little nazi’s” are this polite way now because that is what is expected of them and they as a culture aim to please. Take away that doctrine and brutal can come back just as easy. Human beings are basically the same…no matter where you go. Thinking otherwise is pure fantasy.
I agree, most people engage in some form of tribalism whether they realize it or not, even if it’s in opposition to their stated belief system. Another common human trait is while expressing a desire for freedom is the wish to have somebody else be in charge so we aren’t all 100% responsible for all the bad shit that happens in life. We would rather appoint a leader that we could blame even if it means surrendering a lot of personal freedom.
Very few people are equipped to accept responsibility for everything in their life and be the one who decides everything for better or worse. For even the best people, that is a lot of burden to accept. Many people don’t even want to know the truth of things let alone be the one to try and fix things.