Episode 598 – Koume’s World, Part 5

October 10, 2025

This week, we’re finishing our time with Kawai Koume by looking at how life in Wakayama had changed by the mid-1870s. Feudalism is no more, Confucianism is a historical relic, and the samurai class are in the midst of being consigned to the dustbin of history; so what is Koume thinking and doing as she’s watching the world she grew up with vanish in the final years of her life?

Sources

Partner, Simon. Koume’s World: The Life and Work of a Samurai Woman Before and After the Meiji Restoration

Jansen, Marius. The Making of Modern Japan

Images

An elementary primer from the 30th year of Meiji (1897). Even this level of textbook standardization would have been unusual in the days Kawai Yusuke was a teacher.
One of the surviving sections of Koume’s diary, with some of her caricature style sketches beneath.
The gates of Wakayama Castle in the mid-1870s. Like most castles, it was taken over by the Imperial Japanese Army for a couple of decades after the restoration and used as a base.
Tokugawa Mochitsugu in his finest Meiji drip (as the kids say).
This marker was set up a few years ago at Koume’s grave in Wakayama.
An example of Koume’s more traditional painting style.