History of Japan

What is feudalism? It's a surprisingly hard question to answer, and one that raises an interesting follow up. Here on the podcast I've been describing medieval Japan as a "feudal state" for a long time, but should I even be doing that? Show notes here.

This week: the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front publishes its manifesto, and spreads beyond its original four members. But after a few months of terror bombings (and one completely botched attempt to assassinate Hirohito), the group is brought low and its members--with a few exceptions--end up in prison.  That story today, plus a question: in the end, what did all this actually accomplish? Show notes here. 

Daidoji Masashi's trajectory from college student to terrorist has a lot to do with the student movement and the New Left in 1960s Tokyo. How did his time at Hōsei University set the idealistic young man on a collision course with the ideologies of "anti-Japanism", and from there to embracing violence as a tool of politics? Show notes here. 

On August 30, 1974, a bomb went off at Mitsubishi corporate HQ in Tokyo's Marunouchi neighborhood. The culprit was a group calling itself the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front - Wolf Cell. This week: how did this radical movement grow out of Japan's 1960s, and what does it have to do with the wider political phenomenon known as the New Left? Show notes here.

How does a matagi hunt actually work, and how has matagi culture evolved over the course of the 20th century? And finally: why is it that so many today seem to think the matagi will be extinct themselves before too long? Show notes here.