This week: the question of whether Hirohito would remain emperor of Japan or be replaced with “Emperor Kumazawa” was, in…
In January, 1946, a man came to the headquarters of the American occupation government of Japan and claimed to be…
First thing’s first: I made a numbering error a few weeks back, and so to get us back on the…
This week: some reflections on the hollow nature of Manchurian “independence”, and on what kept the state going if so…
In the last episode of 2025: a bomb “mysteriously” goes off just outside Mukden during the evening of September 18,…
As Japan enters the 1920s, national policy becomes increasingly liberalized–but Manchuria remains a holdout of extremists who, if anything, begin…
This week, we’re turning our attention to possibly the most unique of Japan’s colonial ventures during the imperial era: Manchuria.…
For a long time, the bureaucracy–in all its elitist, meritocratic glory–has taken a great deal of the credit for Japan’s…
This week: the Meiji Bureaucracy, in all its glory. How did the system actually work? What sorts of people did…
In America, when we think of bureaucracy, it doesn’t conjure the best associations. In Japan, meanwhile, the bureaucracy has a…