Tag - edo-period

 
 

EDO PERIOD

Chojuro Kawarasaki plays Kuranosuke Ooishi in Kenji Mizoguchi’s 1941 film “Genroku Chushingura” (The 47 Ronin). The story, sometimes told with 46 retainers, has fascinated Japanese audiences since first being performed as a puppet play in 1748. 
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
Mar 15, 2024
Edo samurai spirit: From the battlefield to the stage
Life under the Tokugawa shogunate wasn't exactly freedom but neither was it constant war. The Japanese instead sated their bloodlust with theater.
Masahide Miyasaka, a visiting professor at Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University, says he appreciates the ordinary world painted by Kawahara Keiga.
CULTURE / Art
Mar 4, 2024
Renewed attention on Edo-era artist offers window into Japan's past
The ordinary world painted by Kawahara Keiga, in a Dutch-influenced style, serves to capture life in Japan around 200 years ago.
“True View of Mount Asama” by Ike Taiga
CULTURE
Mar 1, 2024
Ike Taiga's revolutionary act of capturing natural beauty
Idemitsu Museum of Arts showcases the Edo Period painter's realistic landscapes at the first retrospective of his work in Tokyo in 13 years.
Eleven portraits of Ainu chieftains, completed in 1790, are now held by the Museum of Fine Arts and Archaeology in Besancon, France. There were originally 12 paintings in the original set, collectively known as the “Ishu Retsuzo,” but one has disappeared.
JAPAN / History / Regional Voices: Hokkaido
Feb 26, 2024
The ongoing mystery of the Ainu portraits in France
A former Hokkaido journalist is hoping to find out how portraits of Ainu chieftains from 1790 made it to Europe.
Toranosuke Katayama is a photographer who's photo assignments lead him to become a soba researcher with 70 publications on the cuisine.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Dec 22, 2023
Toranosuke Katayama: ‘Soba is about saving history and identity’
A photographer who chose to document soba for a book soon found himself drawn into the deeper world of the buckwheat noodle.
There are no villains in Saikaku's stories … just people caught more or less helplessly in life's vortex.
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
Dec 17, 2023
Tales of a Closed Country: Part 3
There are no truly evil villains in Ihara Saikaku's stories, just people caught helplessly in life's vortex.
Many moods come and go, inspiring our art. Though love could be fleeting, it proved the most inspirational of all.
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
Nov 27, 2023
Tales of a Closed Country: Part 2
Even Japan's "sakoku" policies couldn't deter the lovers, artists and poets from their muses. After all, we humans tend to look for beauty where we can.
Was Japan's "sakoku" a prison? What else, when rulers were absolute, and law a weapon in the hands of high against low.
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
Nov 24, 2023
Tales of a Closed Country: Part 1
Long before COVID-19 was known, the gates to Japan slammed shut. It was an era of "sakoku," the closed country, but was it a prison?
In 'Ooku: The Inner Chambers,' a secretly female shogun rules Japan and is attended to by a group of male concubines.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Aug 17, 2023
'Ooku: The Inner Chambers': Alternative history explores gender norms
The Netflix anime tells a complex love story in an alternate-reality Edo Japan in which an illness upends gender roles.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 28, 2023
Rakugo master and Cambridge professor revive tales from the Edo Period
The pair have helped to revive the colorful quack doctor Chikusai, who enjoyed great popularity between the 17th and 19th centuries.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
May 23, 2023
Hell is a crab cannery ship in industrial Japan. The way out? Russia.
Stories of brutality from the era of industrialization are testament to the sacrifice of former generations, sacrifices that resulted in what we take for granted today.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 8, 2023
‘A Kamigata Anthology’: Everyday enjoyments of everyday people
The collection chronicles the rise of the “commoner arts" through genres like travelogs, poetry and easy-reading books that entertained the masses during the Edo Period (1603-1867).
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Jan 22, 2023
The Heian and Edo periods couldn't have been more different, which is why it's odd they ended in such a similar way
The transition from Heian Period peace to the war-prone Kamakura Period was a rough one. Surprisingly, the transition from conflict to the boardrooms of modern Japan were just as rough.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Dec 18, 2022
A musical history told through centuries of Japanese literature
The modern ear, tuned to the aesthetics of a different timbre, may find that one era's beauty is another's cacophony.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Nov 21, 2021
Loyalty before love in the tales of Saikaku’s samurai
A group of travelers comes to a river and must decide whether or not to cross. Scornful of danger, the young lord among them proceeds u2026 and samurai politics soon come into play.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Oct 17, 2021
Saikaku pens five tales to inspire lovers in the Edo Period
Born in the mid-17th century, during the earlier days of the Edo Period, novelist Ihara Saikaku explored love in "Five Women Who Loved Love."
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jun 20, 2021
One era’s eccentrics are another’s model citizens
Would an outcast from the Heian Period feel more at home in the Edo Period? Or are there general characteristics that unites any societyu2019s eccentrics?
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Nov 16, 2020
A charm offensive in the Yoshiwara pleasure district
Life in the pleasure district was fun, if you were capable of mustering up the right amount of charm.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Apr 18, 2020
The dogs have their day in old Edo
The Laws of Compassion that Tokugawa Tsunayoshi issued trickled down to the lowest rungs of Edo Period (1603-1868) Japan, which included the capital's many feral dogs.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Mar 14, 2020
The Edo Period: An era of utter weirdness
The Edo Period (1603-1868) was a bizarre time that visitors to Japan could not help but comment on u2014 the countless laws, the brutal punishments ... and the dogs.

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A statue of "Dragon Ball" character Goku stands outside the offices of Bandai Namco in Tokyo. The figure is now as recognizable as such characters as Mickey Mouse and Spider-Man.
Akira Toriyama's gift to the world