History of Japan

Latest Episodes:

Episode 575 - The Kings of the Ring, Part 2 Apr 25, 2025

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This week: Taiho begins his grand sumo career, and quickly proves to be one of the best ever to do it. We'll use his career to discuss: what does greatness look like in a sport like sumo? What were the highlights of one of the greatest careers in sumo history? And what were the small number of cases where Taiho didn't prove able to come out on top?

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Episode 574 - The Kings of the Ring, Part 1 Apr 18, 2025

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This week, we're beginning a new miniseries on the legends of Japan's most ancient sport: sumo. What can we learn about Japan and Japanese identity by looking at the lives of some of the most famous competitors in the national sport? We'll begin investigating that question with a look at the life of one of the greatest ever to enter the ring: Taiho Koki.

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Episode 573 - The Revolutionary, Part 8 Apr 11, 2025

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For our final episode of this miniseries: Miyazaki Manabu faces down with the National Police Agency as he finds himself the prime suspect in Japan's highest profile criminal case of the 1980s. After he comes out on top, where does he go next? Why, the natural place for any high profile criminal suspect: into media, and then politics!

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Episode 572 - The Revolutionary, Part 7 Apr 04, 2025

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In our penultimate episode for this miniseries: Miyazaki Manabu narrowly escapes doing prison time, only to end up back in the underworld first of Osaka, and then Tokyo. And from there, he ends up square in the crosshairs of the police once again--this time as a suspect in one of the most infamous criminal cases in postwar history.

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Episode 571 - The Revolutionary, Part 6 Mar 28, 2025

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This week: Miyazaki's time as a politics reporter, the end of his reporting career, and his return to the family business. How did he go, in the span of five years, from a successful reporter to a wanted criminal facing police prosecution?

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Episode 570 - The Revolutionary, Part 5 Mar 21, 2025

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This week: Miyazaki Manabu's dramatic departure from the Communist Party, as his faith in the revolution wanes. What does a wannabe college revolutionary with no prospects turn to when the revolution fails to materialize?

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Episode 569 - The Revolutionary, Part 4 Mar 14, 2025

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This week: Miyazaki Manabu goes from the Sodai struggle at Waseda to an active participant in the violent clashes of the late 1960s student movement, as a part of the "action corps" of the Communist Party. We'll take an up close and personal look to see: what was it like to be a radical student in the 1960s?

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Episode 568 - The Revolutionary, Part 3 Mar 13, 2025

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This week on the podcast: Miyazaki Manabu faces his first battle as a college activist with the administration of his own school at Waseda University. It...does not go well.

Episode 567 - The Revolutionary, Part 2 Feb 28, 2025

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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...

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Episode 566 - The Revolutionary, Part 1 Feb 21, 2025

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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.

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