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ThemeStories of the winners and the losers
Choshu and Tosa activists, the Shinsengumi in Kyoto, Ryoma in Nagasaki, and on the other side Aizu and Morioka, the exiles of Shimokita and the lost kingdom of Ryukyu: one era, seen from both sides.
13 articles
AomoriShimokita and Mt OsoreMt Osore and its itako mediums, the hardships of the Tonami domain settled by Aizu exiles, Cape Oma and the Kandachime horses of Shimokita.Read →
MoriokaFrom Rebels to Prime MinisterMorioka's defeat in the Boshin War, the seppuku of Narayama Sado at Hōonji, and the eulogy read fifty years later by Hara Takashi — who took his pen name from an insult against the north.Read →
AizuwakamatsuTsurugajo: The One-Month SiegeThe fight of Nakano Takeko's "Joshitai" (women's corps), and the real reason the castle held out until the very end.Read →
AizuwakamatsuThe Byakkotai, As They Really WereThe sixteen who took their own lives weren't the whole Byakkotai. Was the castle really burning? And how did the one survivor go on to live? Including the relationship with Choshu, we examine the received story.Read →
TokyoFrom Edo to TokyoThe Odaiba forts built against the Black Ships, the Sakuradamon Incident, the bloodless surrender of Edo, the Battle of Ueno and the birth of 'Tokyo' in 1868.Read →
KyotoShinsengumi: Kyoto's Samurai PoliceThe birth of the Shinsengumi in Mibu, the Ikedaya Incident, the Kinmon Rebellion, the assassination of Sakamoto Ryōma and the truth about Teradaya.Read →
NaraTotsukawa and the Kohechi trailThe Totsukawa goshi who rushed to the capital in every crisis: the Tenchugumi, guarding the palace, and the name used by Ryoma's assassins.Read →
HagiRestoration FiguresFrom a castle town of barely thirty thousand people, Japan's first prime minister, one of the "Three Great Nobles of the Restoration," and the elder statesman…Read →
HagiChoshu FiveIn 1863, at a time when discovery of overseas travel meant execution, five retainers of Choshu Domain smuggled themselves out of Yokohama.Read →
KochiLate-Edo PatriotsSakamoto Ryoma, Nakaoka Shintaro, Takechi Hanpeita, Yamauchi Yodo — the Tosa figures who moved history across caste lines.Read →
KochiRyoma's FlightThe mountain route Sakamoto Ryoma took when he fled Tosa domain in 1862, and what leaving without permission actually risked.Read →
NagasakiNagasaki at the End of the ShogunateSakamoto Ryoma's Kameyama Shachu, the merchant Thomas Glover and photography pioneer Ueno Hikoma: how the people and news gathering in Nagasaki moved an era.Read →
OkinawaDual Loyalty and the Ryukyu DispositionThe 1609 Satsuma invasion, dual subordination, the 1871 Miyako shipwreck and 1874 Taiwan Expedition, and the 1879 annexation of the kingdom.Read →
