Edo period

at that period, this battle during late Heian-period, and this battle is meaningful for the late of history of Japan, because when this battle finished, the Family of “Taira” is destroyed by the family of “Minamoto” and the family of “Minamoto” established the first Bakufu system, called the “Kamakura bakufu”, this…

derivative of the popular Ukiyo-e print genre, Nagasaki-e prints were mainly created as souvenirs for the Japanese middle class. Background The Edo Period (1769 - 1868) saw the end of ancient feudal wars and a country united under the Tokagawa Shogunate who moved the new capital to Edo (Tokyo). On July 24, 1641, during a period of self-imposed Japanese seclusion (approximately 1639-1854), the Dutch settlement was moved to Deshima. Deshima was a small artificial island…

and was first published in 1686. These different novels have been around for 330 years now and has since been a very popular book as age increased. Ihara was able to really understand the modern world. He was a writer during the Genroku period, which was the Edo era and known as the golden age. Saikaku born in 1642 and is a son of a wealthy merchant in Osaka. He had a wife and three kids, one of which is blind. He learned how to do haikai poetry and comics, but it was not until his wife…

minutest physical characteristics, like hair color, can give reason for this baseless prejudice. Early records in japan indicate an “untouchable” social class that occupied undesirable jobs like tending to the dead and butchery. Since the Japanese Edo Period from 1600 to 1867, there has existed a strict social hierarchy. In the lowest rung of this hierarchy are burakumin, which translates to “village people”. The offensiveness of this designation is not apparent until it is…

Protest activity, prompted by prolonged inequality, arises from the frustrations of men who feel socio-economically disadvantaged and are displeased with the government’s approach towards society’s issues. The Tokugawa and Meiji periods encountered several instances of uprising amongst the peasantry—most notably those led by Oshio Heihachiro, Tanaka Shozo, and Sakura Sogoro. The story of Sakura Sogoro—a protest in which an archetypal heroic peasant martyr appealed directly to the elites in…

The Edo period consisted of a variety of different heroes. Samurai class were the typical heroes in the Edo Period. When samurai leaders were defeated in battle, they would perform a ritual called sudoku. These samurai were always to be loyal to their master. Heroes during Edo period were mostly male, strategic and fierce in battle. Heroes were smart and fool-proof. Musashi was a young boy whose mother died and had a father that abandoned him. He was left in a monastery to be taught…

Saigō Takamori was born on on 1827/12/7 in the Castletown of Kagoshima, an isolated area within the Satsuma domain under the control of the Shimazu clan which had established themselves as the oldest living clan in Japan at the time of his birth. The Shimazu clan were of notable prestige in that they were the only clan that received foreign ambassadors in a time when, under the orders of the Tokugawa Shogunate (the shogunate was a council of military commanders led primarily by a single domain),…

Absolutism means that the sovereign power or ultimate authority in the state rested in the hands of a king who claimed to rule by divine right the idea that kings received their power from God and were responsible to no one but God. Catherine The Great and Tokugawa Ieyasu were both known as prominent absolute rulers but, Ieyasu was a more effective absolutist ruler. Tokugawa controlled his country by reasonable means that wouldn’t cause uprisings and distrust while still being the only one to…

Musui’s Story The Bushido code can be witnessed in Musui’s Story, which is an autobiography of Tokugawa Samurai. This autobiography documents the life of Katsu Kokichi, who was a samurai in Japan’s late Tokugawa period. This story gives excellent examples of how Katsu Kokichi broke and disrespected the Bushido code along with disrespecting himself from early childhood till his death. Some of the behavior that Kokichi did to disrespect the Bushido code was lying, cheating, and stealing. For…

Oku no hosomichi, is the story of a Buddhist man’s travels throughout Japan during the Kamakura Period. The book has many names in English, but here it will be referred to by the name contained with the reading: The Narrow Road to a Far Provence. The tale is but one example of many Buddhist themed stories during the Japan’s Kamakura period. Japan was one of the only countries to incorporate Buddhism into the already standing religion: Shintoism. This offers a unique look into Japan and the…