History of Japan

This week, we explore the "Christian conspiracies" of Edo Period Japan. Working backwards from the Osaka Incident of 1827, when a group of supposed Christian spirit mediums were uncovered as a part of a fraud investigation, we'll look at how Christianity was transformed from an actual religion into an evil spiritual threat to the foundations of Japan itself. Show notes here [https://isaacmeyer.net/2025/07/episode-585-the-all-seeing-eye-part-3/].

Japan's "Christian Century" is the source of many fascinating aspects of Japanese history, from modern firearms to tenpura. But there's one more way that the century from 1543-1639 shaped Japan--as the source of its first conspiracist moment! Show notes here [https://isaacmeyer.net/2025/07/episode-585-the-all-seeing-eye-part-2/].

This week, something a bit different: the start of a history of conspiracy theories in Japan. This first episode is mostly framing: what is conspiracism as a mindset, and how is it different from actual conspiracies?  Show notes here [https://isaacmeyer.net/2025/06/episode-584-the-all-seeing-eye-part-1/].

This week: we take a look at the genre of the yakuza movie, or ninkyo eiga, which started off as a branch of the samurai film genre before becoming very much its own thing--and, for a decade  or so in the 1960s and 1970s, dominating the Japanese box office. Show notes here [https://isaacmeyer.net/2025/06/episode-583-the-men-of-chivalry-part-3/].

This week: we take a look at postwar samurai film/jidaigeki in order to understand better the trajectory of the most influential genre in the history of Japanese film. Why did jidaigeki, a staple of pre-1945 film, storm back with a vengeance to the big screen after the end of World War II? What makes post-1945 samurai films distinctive or unique? And what about their relationship to another archetype of international film: the American Western? Show notes here [https://isaacmeyer.net/2025/06/episode-582-the-men-of-chivalry-part-2/].