Last two times we explored the history of Yasukuni shrine from its establishment to the modern day. Today we are going to take a peek at the belief system that was cultivated by the Yasukuni Shrine establishment, the Japanese Army and the The National/Imperial Government. To Dream of Dreams (Book) David M. O'Brien and Yasuo Ōgoshi Yasukuni Shrine (Book) Dr. Akiko Takenaka A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine https://escholarship.org/content/qt7zb9f29b/qt7zb9f29b.pdf?t=n4oxsc In Credible Discourse Website Music Credits: New Intro: http://shw.in/sozai/japan.php Tsuzdumi Japan 3 Closing: Escaping_like_Indiana_Jones by Komiku

In Credible Discourse Shorts! These are little fun Fact sized tid-bit mini-sodes. Today we deal with the economic production and consequences of war in the Pacific. We will see how the war time effort did not and could not have helped the Japanese economy and how the best for the prosperity of people throughout the Japanese Empire was peace. InCredibleDiscourse.com https://incrediblediscourse.com/economic-cost-of-war-japan-20th-century-japan/

The post war period is the first time that the Japanese government was forced to separate from religion, not for selfless reasons but according to its own laws and to preserve the existence of the Japanese State. Today we are going to explore how Yasukuni and its branches navigated the post war separation of State and Religion. We are going to look at some of the Legal cases that set precedent and how the vast majority of the government has tried to ignore those rulings. Further Reading: To Dream of Dreams (Book) David M. O'Brien and Yasuo Ōgoshi Yasukuni Shrine (Book) Dr. Akiko Takenaka A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine https://escholarship.org/content/qt7zb9f29b/qt7zb9f29b.pdf?t=n4oxsc In Credible Discourse Website Music Credits: New Intro: http://shw.in/sozai/japan.php Tsuzdumi Japan 3 Closing: Escaping_like_Indiana_Jones by Komiku

What is Yasukuni? Simply put it is a shrine dedicated to peace and the soldiers of Japan. It’s name translates to Peaceful Land Shrine (Yasukuni Jinja) and despite the name it is the most controversial Shinto Shrine there is.    This is because is has continuously been at the center of post war / post Japanese colonization politics.

What is Shinto? What is Shinto? The Native religion of Japan? The Native traditions of Japan? Shinto is an amalgamation of traditions that were brought into and developed in the Japanese archipelago and fermented there along the strong flavoring of Buddhism, the needs of the Imperial House and the convenience of the ruling governments.

The Tengu, there are few folk creatures as iconic in Japan as the Tengu. Seen throughout Art, film, comics and Television the Tengu is as characteristic to Japan as Leprechauns are to Ireland. But I want to take a deeper look into what Tengu are and where they came from? Tengu are creatures of folklore and that means what they are is fluid and decentralized, always open to the particularities of each instance of them. But we have to start somewhere so we will be focusing on two points in time. The earliest forms on Tengu that appear in the Late Heian Period and Early Kamakura period and their use in late 19th early 20th century Kokugaku rhetoric. Today, we’re doing it all. History, Buddhism, Japanese Nationalism and at the center of it all, Tengu the bird people of Japan.

Welcome to Season 2 of In Credible Discourse! Today we are going to be tackling the following topics: 1) Intellectual Discourse in the Early Medieval Period. 2) Jianzhen in Japan

Today we're going to be talking about Archaeology, economics, history, Japan and Money. At the heart of today's topic is economics and the kinds of money that have been made possible by the division of labor in the Japanese islands throughout time.

When it comes to exploring the economies of the Japanese islands there are few better ways to begin than with the Shoen estate (荘園) systems. The estate systems lasted for roughly 800 years and represented the primary ways in which the Yamato court touched the lives of people throughout the islands. Beginning in the 8th century the history of Shoen would come to become the largest legally recognized producers of wealth in Japan as well as the primary target of wealth redistribution.

The relationship that Economics has with Archaeology and the fields of historical inquiry is a strained one. In the halls of Academia most university departments see no strong connection between economics and the study of the past. As an extension of this, in the general world view of most people there is no substantial relationship between archaeology and economics because most people don’t understand either one of them. This has created numerous problems within academia and more so with how people understand the past.

What do Nara Buddhsim and Postmodernism have in common? Well the core ideas of postmodernism that give the impression of being new and uniquely contemporary have actually been in use since at least 8th century Japan. This break in the intellectual heritage and traditions touches on what will be one of our running themes and that is: Forgotten Knowledge of the Past.

Early State formation is often taken as a natural progression of Social Complexity. Today we are going to take a closer look at what exactly a state is, the mechanisms through which they develop and how we can see these changes happening in the Japanese Archipelago in the 1st millennium AD

Today we are exploring Mordern Japan. Heisei and Reiwa. These are the most recent eras and least likely to be a history textbook. Saddly, I am more of a Historian than a modern Japan Scholar so I will keep this to major events, significant people and an anacdote here and there. The Lost Decade Fukushima New Emperor And a few More!

The war period brought about incomprehensible suffering and death throughout the world. It ended with the surrender aboard the USS Missouri in 1945. The US would then seize control of the Japanese islands and begin to rebuild Japan, not so much as to help the people of Japan but to contain the spread of communism. The US policy towards Japan was sold as a way of helping to rebuild a defeated enemy but in reality, was used as a pawn to advance US political interests and the financial interests of individual politicians and military officers. The post-war period was a time when the Japanese public suffered a crisis of identity. The economic and social challenges from the war only compounded the terrible human cost of the war but Japan would experience a rise through the ashes to become a world superpower within only a few decades (theme here). This wave of growth and progress came to a halt when the economic consequences of Japanese monetary policy came home to roost in the 1990’s. Today we will explore The post-war period and the Economic miracle on ICD.

Japan’s wars in the 20th century began with conflict with China and Russia, and the occupation of many colonies. We will be focusing on the quagmire of a war the Japanese conducted in China and the mistakes in the Pasific culminating with the Atomic Bombs and the unconditional surrender of Japan to the Allied forces.

The periods we will explore today will stretch from the Meiji restoration until the Manchurian Incident in 1931. The Meiji Period saw the rise of the emperor to power and Japan becoming an Empire once again. The Taisho period saw the rule by a sickly emperor and the widespread democratization of the Japanese government. These periods saw the modernization of Japan, transforming from a medieval society to an Imperial Nation-State in the style of A Euro-American empire. The problems that the Japanese EMpire would face were the same that all colonizing powers do, internal turmoil brought about by over expansion.

We are well on our way to reaching modern Japan, but we have not yet left Medieval Japan. There were three great Shogunates: the Kamakura, the Ashikaga and the Tokugawa. WE saw how the Kamakura and Ashikaga rose to power and fell from internal conflict and turmoil. We surveyed the Sengoku period and now have arrived at Edo, the largest city in the world which became Tokyo, the largest city in the world today. The Edo period is when Japan closed itself off to the world, the seeds of Nationalism took root and the cultures we associate with traditional Japan solidified.

The Sengoku period begins with a civil war that would tear the Ashikaga Clan asunder and end when the Tokugawa shogunate established itself as the undisputed ruler of the Japanese Archipelago. The Sengoku period is often the setting for Japanese folktales, legends, Dramas, Cartoons, and Film. The period lends itself to storytelling due to the decentralized nature and the way it is romanticized in Japanese culture.

The Kamakura Period saw a continued march into the mawls of war for the political centers of Japan and this warfare spread further throughout the islands than in previous periods. The Shoen system that had first been established in the Nara period grew stronger and now existed as semi autonomous states. These became nodes in a network of land and population control That resulted in greater parts of the islands to be influenced by the events of the capital and abroad. With the growth of these states, there was also a continued development of Buddhism law and culture. The forms of Buddhism that became widespread among the people reflected the needs and attitudes of the time. (PureLand and Zen) At the end of the Kamakura period we do not see an end to the Conflict but only the next chapter in the turmoil

The Heian period is the End of Ancient Japan and opens the doors to Classical Japan. The Heian Period saw the Capital move to Heian-Kyo and the nature of power and government change as well. The way that Emperors ruled and the power they held shifted throughout the period with the Fujiwara clan learning to rule through intermarriage. The period saw the blossoming of Japanese art, culture, and civilization that laid the foundation for traditional Japanese culture and aesthetics. Eventually, the emperor’s power declined to the point where a military dictatorship was able to rise and functionally rule the Japanese Islands from Kamakura. When the Heian period ends, The Kamakura Shogunate begins.