This week, we cover an obscure bit of samurai history: the Keian Incident, a planned coup against the Tokugawa Shoguns…
This week we cover the life and career of the legendary judge Oka Tadasuke, who rose from minor samurai to…
This week, we start a look at the history of the city of Tokyo. How did the frontier fishing village…
This week: was Japan’s 5th Tokugawa shogun really as crazy as everybody says? Spoilers: no. Listen to the episode here.…
This week: the “short-lived” part of “the short-lived Ezo Republic” comes to fruition, and what is now Meiji Japan begins…
This week, we’ll cover the military campaigns of 1868. Edo will (surprisingly anticlimactically) fall, the north will rebel, and Matsudaira…
In early 1868, the armies of the loyalists and the Tokugawa bakufu will clash outside Kyoto. We’ll discuss the…
This week, we’ll move into the tumultuous events of 1863. Challenges foreign and domestic are going to upset the…
This week, we’ll move into the messy early/mid 1860s and look at the doomed attempt to bridge the gap…
This week, the turbulent politics following the death of Ii Naosuke will result in the rise of one of the…