History of Japan - Bill Wurtz Reaction
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 ธ.ค. 2023
- See the original video here - • history of japan
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#history #reaction
8:40 So the thing about Hideyoshi. He was what was known as a "peasant samurai" he'd started out as the guy who brought Nobunaga his sandals. But because he was competent and just so happened to serve one of the only men in all of Japan who gave promotions out based on merit, not just blood. He quickly rose through the ranks until he was in the position to avenge Nobunaga and take over. So it makes sense he shut the door behind him with his laws.
Lol, I was going to mention that because I remember Extra Credits's series on the Sengoku Jidai and they talked about this part of Hideyoshi's life; he started as a sandal-bearer for Nobunaga but because of his talents he rose through the ranks in Nobunaga's army and eventually took the role of Shogun after eliminating the guy who eliminated Nobunaga
Cambrian Chronicles would be a really interesting channel for you to look at, he goes deep into a lot of Welsh and English history
Cambrian chronicles could make me watch a 5 hour docu about a typo in a wikipedia page of ancient walish kingdoms, and I would enjoy every second of it hahahaha
Cambrian Chronicles is incredible!!!
I love how he covers people who may or may not have existed. It’s interesting to see how many people who were believed to be real people, end up more than likely just being a bunch of folk stories personified into a person in popular stories.
Oh yeah he is amazing
Yes he is so good!
If you wanna learn more about Japanese history, The Shogunate has a really good, detailed series on Japan's warring states period and is currently making videos on the events that happen after.
i had hope he’d check out the shogunate but i gave that up a while ago
I also recommend Linfamy for history, but also culture and mythology
Thumbs up and a comment so VTH will look at The Shogunate. I binge watched that channel this time last year, amazing work. I would love VTH to reaction to it.
"The Last Samurai" is inspired not by the rebellion that let to the Meji Restoration, the Boshin War, but by the Satsuma Rebellion against the new government a few years later. Basically, the guys who overthrew the Tokugawa shogunat began to argue, and that escalated. But yes, in both wars both sides used guns. There were tradinionally armed soldiers involved, too, but for other reaons then honor: They didn't have enough modern weapons...
And the guy played by Tom Cruise is apparently inspired by two historical people: a french Guy that fought in the Satsuma Rebellion (the only difference is that he wasn't a "samurai") and an english guy from the 16th century that became a Samurai in Japan (with title of nobility and all).
I heard that movie mixed up the events and incoporates things from both the Boshin War and the Satsuma Rebellion.
@@xenotypos Based on Jules Brunet, he actually did fight in the Boshin War, specifically the establishment of the short lived "pro-shogunate" Ezo Republic in Hokkaido.
VTH seeing you react to Japanese history is awesome! Even if your don't know much about asian history compared to your knowledge of western history, you're never to old to learn something new. Feudal Japan something I adore studying and made a paper about it. Always try new stuff VTH good job!
He needs to watch about Nobunaga, Nobunaga was such a lad
5:02: Hi, Chris. Let me explain to you what a samurai is. It is not your fault. Like you, I am an American and I also thought that the samurai were Japanese Knights. However, after taking a class focusing on East Asia, I learned that samurai are actually NOT Knights. In fact, they are more analogous to mercenaries. The daimyo in Japan were similar to the barons of Europe, and the samurai served them. The word samurai means "servant," in Japanese, and a warrior (bushi in Japanese) doesn't have to be a samurai. It is similar as to how every square is a rectangle, but not every rectangle is a square. Furthermore, the descendents of the samurai have become more focused on their ancestors rather than on what their parents or grandparents did during the Second Sino-Japanese War (the Asian/Pacific Theater of WWII).
Fun fact: “knight” (“cniht” in Old English) also used to mean “servant”. It’s related to Modern German “Knecht”.
Also throughout history, the Samurai were often horse riders who mostly fought with bows and naginatas, while the iconic Katana was a sidearm for close quarters. After the Samurai became a class of their own during the Tokugawa Shogunate, they were allowed to walk around with a katana at their side for self defense and as a sign of their status.
This is also when most of the famous literature and performances about them (and Ninjas/Shinobi) were written, about events that happened centuries ago or were entirely fictional. Since historical accuracy was not a priority over artistic liberty or widely known then, most writers and people assumed the katana was their only weapon, creating the misconception about how they acted and fought to this day.
So Samurai were basically Witchers?
A small thing: In japan, they don't separate it so much as "north/south," they separate it as "east/west." Like Tokyo and Sendai are in "eastern" Japan, whereas Kyoto and Osaka are in "western" Japan. I don't know why they do it that way, but I got corrected many times when I lived there. Maybe because "northern" Japan makes people assume you're talking about Hokkaido.
Yeah, I guess because of the Kyoto/Edo distinction, and some other big cities. Northern Japan back in the day wasn't as important as far as I know.
From a Japanese POV(I'm Japanese BTW), northern Japan usually indicates the Sea of Japan-side, southern Japan indicates the Pacific side.
And south Japan is the austronesian islands
it kinda makes sense given the most "important" cities/locations in Japan's history kind form a horizontal line from Tokyo to the west. If im not mistaken northern p[refectures did not have the same influence
10:53
China was extremely close to starting a Industrial Revolution in the 12th-13th century under the Song dynasty.
While there isn’t a concrete singular reason as to why they never did, it creates a nice ‘what if’ scenario as you described.
I majored in East Asian History and love your channel! Great to see that your intentionally broadening your history scope!
If the Koreas ever unified theyd be hella strong economically and militarily
@@blackjack90631 but when it comes to demographics, oh boy, they've a long way to go :/
@@blackjack90631 who would they unify under? Not a sarcastic comment just curious
eyyy fellow EAH major wahoo
@@archiesussex7754 It would NEVER happen. But I have a personal conspiracy :p wishful thinking that if North Korea had won the Korean War, then Kim Il-Sung would have eventually been assassinated/dethroned before the turn of the century. North Koreans have tried coups in the past (see 6th Division Coup) but failed, for various reasons. I don't think cutting the manpower to overthrow tyrants in half helped, and its easier to maintain control over a smaller landmass//less places for rebels to hide. South Korea on the other hand has been fairly successful at removing their despotic leaders (KCIA assassination of President Park...as well as a plethora of impeachments) It would never happen, but my pipe dream theory, is that if the Koreas were able to unify under the North (under whatever pretenses) their power to eventually overthrow the corrupt gov would increase and we'd see a fall of the NK Kim regime.
The hardcore history podcast has a few episodes (several hours each) going into lots of the historic context of the Japanese in the 1800s (and earlier) helping to explain the causes of Japan in WW2
Was about to mention this. Those episodes are really good
You should absolutely check out Extra History's series on the Sengoku Jidai, The Warring States period of Japan's history.
I would suggest The Shogunate instead when it comes to the Sengoku Era, lot more detailed and better explained than Extra History.
A little tid-bit of history for you, Chris. Remember the Admiral Yi series by Extra History which you reacted to two years ago? That invasion of Korea happened during the reign of Toyotomi Hideyoshi (the guy who wanted to conquer Korea and China), who took control of the government after Oda Nobunaga died. Extra History did another series involving him, that is the Sengoku Jidai or the Warring States period. If you liked the Admiral Yi series, you will definitely love that one! Hope you cover it soon!
If you're interested in Japanese and Asian history, you could always try doing a react on Extra History's Sengoku Jidai series.
Extra History in general is good at a lot of Asian history.
One of my favorite series from them.
Robert Rath, the lead writer for extra history post 2018 or so is a Hawaiian who lives in Hong Kong, so I figure that's why the Asian stuff is so juicy. rob also writes some of the best black library 40k novels imo
Agreed
Another good Asian series of theirs is their Sun Yat-sen series, which I recently finished. My favorite one
Happy new years to you too! Thank you so much for providing amazing content last year and I hope to see more this year!
honestly not surprised he skipped the Russo Japanese War that quickly. The Sengoku Jidai (Warring States Period) also got relatively little coverage. Kinda expected as he covers the entire history of Japan in 9 minutes though. Anyways great reaction. If you want to learn more about japanese history you should take a look at the Sengoku Jidai series by Extra History. A fascinating era that rivals the chinese civil wars in pure chaos
4:03 what's more interesting, Japan put China in center of the world in that time. In the letter to Tang court, where Nihon were firstly used by Japanese, emperor of Japan named himself "emperor of the kingdom of the sunrise" (aka emperor of the sunrise land) and Chinese emperor as a "emperor of the central kingdom" (aka emperor of the middle land) (there is potential for Lord of the rings joke, that i will miss)
It was really cool to see your perspective on these things as to what you know and also what you learn throughout the video, would love to see more videos on Japan!
I absolutely love this channel for the knowledge and context you give to history. But a video like this presents something else that I hope you do more: it is so much fun to watch you *learn.* You have so much respect and fascination when it comes to history, I love it, and watching you add to your knowledge is a real treat, even if it's from a silly video like this.
Unironically really loving you drawing comparisons to the history to other regions, really shines a light on how there are common threads between civilizations and politics.
Happy New Year Chris! Tons of awesome content as always, and here's to all the more to come!
Awesome, you actually did this. History of the entire world was the video that brought me to your channel a couple years ago, have loved your content ever since. As much as it disgusts my Michigan heart to say, I wish you a lovely 2024, my friend.
Thanks for reacting to this video. I'm Japanese and what I think this video should've talked about is the "May 15 incident" (五・一五事件) that happened in 1932.
It was a coup where the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the Prime ministers office and killed Inukai Tsuyoshi, the Prime minister of Japan at the time.
This led to the military gaining more power and eventually led to the rise of Japanese militarism.
Kings and Generals made a video of the Shimabara Rebellion where Japan brutally suppress Japanese Catholics encouraging them more towards isolation from foreign influence.
It's pretty cool you got the Satsuma rebellion more right than most retellings of it: Both sides had (for 19th century standards)modern firearms. You could also mention that Imperial Japan went from nicely treating POWs in World War I to being Asian Nazis in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Also that Douglas Macarthur got nicknamed Gaijin Shogun.
The only thing I have a problem with in the Video is that Tokugawa Ieyasu is portrayed as a rich, high-born aristocrat that just decided to take power on a whim or sth. Ieyasu wasn’t born rich or as a noble, he had to work and fight his way up there. Also he started as a servant of the Imagawa clan, slowly rising to power, first under Oda Nobunaga and then under Toyotomi Hideyoshi. He was a warrior and total badass who bid his time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike and seize power. He wasn’t some weird 1500’s Japanese Trump version or anything like that.
Chris I've been hoping for you to do this one for so longg THANK YOU for the New Years gift!!! Happy New Years to you and your wonderful family 🫶🏽
Happy New Year Chris!!! Have a wonderful year! God bless! Thanks for all the great videos these last few years!
It makes me happy that this is your first video of the year as I'm going to Japan for the first time in 2024!
Japan in the late 70s and mid 80s gave birth eastern cyberpunk and had a boat load of fantastic anime such as;
Akira & Ghost in the Shell
(And a one fantastic space western Cowboy Bebop)
Just to name a few, and American cyberpunk like; Hardwired,
Cyberpunk 2013,
Cyberpunk 2077,
Blade Runner,
Neuromancer,
Happy new year brother, I’m sure the content will be as good as ever and grow even more.
Happy new year! Awesome start🎉🎉🎉🎉❤❤❤
A very Happy New Year to you and yours. Thanks for the great content and I look forward to a whole new year of more. 😊
Japanese History is highly interesting, especially the Sengoku Jidai (Warring States Period). There are a ton of great documentaries about this time period from Channels like Extra History, The Shogunate and Kings and Generals. I’d honestly recommend any one of them.
Happy new year to you and everyone who's reading this too 🎉 i wish ya all the best this year from Hungary 🎉 big fan of the channel , been watching since the early days and im really glad how much you grown your channel and i hope you'll keep up the top historic content 💪🤙 keep up the good work and take care 😁
I know you've reacted/are reacting to a number of their series, and I also know I am far from the first person to recommend it to you, but Extra History did a really good series on the Sengoku Jidai period of Japan. It's one of the earliest history series they did but is still fantastic and does a good job of dispelling a few myths about things like samurai and Japanese warfare
I love your reaction videos so much, it's more like getting extra content for the original video!
Love the videos, man. Keep it up!!!
Wooohoooo, let's have a great year!! Also, this video you're reacting to is awesome!
Happy new year Chris hope you continue making your videos that would be awesome.❤❤❤
1:53: There was also a land-bridge between Europe and Britain, and the British call it Doggerland. It's the same thing with Japan and Asia as well as Alaska and Russia.
Happy New Year brother. Love your stuff. Looking forward to another great year of content. 👍
Happy New Year Chris. Glad to see more East Asian history content. If I might make a recommendation in that same vein, remember your reaction to Admiral Yi? You should get to Extra Credits episodes on the Sengoku Jidai period that preceded the Imjin War.
Surprised you haven’t reacted to this already, Happy new year!
Love bill wurtz. Great video as always VTH. Would love to seem some more Irish history reactions like maybe the war of independence. Keep up the good work
Excellent as always! I would highly recommend a return to our good friends at Extra History and their series on the Japanese Warring States Period if you want to learn more about Japan.
If you want to learn more about especially Chinese history, I would suggest Xiran Jay Zhao. She is a Chinese author living in Canada and has some awesome videos like a 2 part series on the only female Chinese emperor (the one Extra History just started the series on), how bi the Han dynasty emperors were (surprisingly much), the life of the first emperor and videos covering Chinese inspiration etc in different shows and movies.
But the first 3 topics/4 videos are probably the best ones for this channel
A classic. This is a good starter kit for Japanese history. I look forward to your learning journey about Japan.
Also- greetings from Tokyo 🎉
Happy New Year, wishing you a good one.
Happy New Year, Chris!
Been waiting for you to delve a bit into Japanese history as its my absolute favorite subject to study. You should also consider some videos from The Shogunate's channel as he goes much deeper into specific topics and events covered in Bill Wurtz's video
I honestly like your reaction videos more than the original content lol even epic history tv vids! I feel like you add so much great context to the videos!
Excited for your 2024 proclamation to react to more things you are less familiar with! My favourite reaction you’ve done is the genghis khan EH series and I like learning along with you, always being impressed by how you compare/contrast it to areas you know more about.
great vid. happy new years
Happy new year, Chris!
This is seriously one of the coolest channels on the internet, and you're a fellow Buckeye!!!
Happy new year to you 🎉 , I just hope you accomplish your resolutions 🥳
Happy New Year to you
Two thoughts/inconsistencies in this video from my study of Japanese history. Not all people actually came to Japan by the ice bridge, the people that did come are the Ainu/native population. Later in history, another group of people would come to Japan after the ice bridge had melted and they are known as the Yamato people (the main Japanese ethnicity we know of today). Secondly, the first recorded ruler of Yamato/Wa was not an emperor, it was actually an empress named Himiko. The reason for the inconsistency of rulers is that an emperor is mentioned in the Kojiki (first Japanese recorded history), but in earlier Chinese documents, the first recorded leader is an empress (the Chinese were recording history before the Japanese)
Happy new years from Sweden!!!
happy new year to you chris :)
Happy New Years Chris and everone here.
Happy New Year !! 😃
I have waited for couple of years for this :D
Happy New Year!
I was literally looking for a video on this yesterday-
Happy new year my guy 🎉🎉
Things that could have been mentioned: First is the role of the Satsuma Daimyo had in the fall of the Shogunate. Additional items included the killing of shipwrecked sailors who were not Japanese which was a major beef the Western powers had with Japan prior to the opening, the use of rice as currency and tax assessment, and the instability of the Japanese government between 1920 and WWII.
6:20 This is where the term "Kamikaze" comes from.
It means "godly wind" and the fact that a seemingly miraculous storm saved Japan *twice* caused a massive rise in the power of religious institutions in the country. Many temples and shrines that are still used today were build during that time.
First time tuning it for a while, the mustache is fantastic
Um, quite the timing on this one. Given that a tsunami just literally hit Japan.
Yes. Thankfully it seems to be a minor one. The videos showing how long the earthquake shaking went on for was a bit alarming.
happy new year brother, God bless you
Happy new year!
The unique thing about the different writing systems Kanji, Hiragana, and later Katakana. The Japanese felt Kanji wasn't enough to express their language so the system for Hiragana was created. However Kanji being more complex system was used only by men while Hiragana, the easier of the two systems, was only used by women. This led to Japan having more female authors than male authors. The third writing style Katakana was added in the 9th century as away to translate western words and is still used to write western words to this day with a few exceptions such as the words for Baseball (Yakyuu) and English (eigo).
I'd love to see more east asian content! Linfamy does great videos about early- medieval Japanese history, I highly recommend him
FINALLY! I have been learning japanese for 1 year because of my love of its history, and I'm so glad that your reacting to Japanese history. Its always overshadowed by what happened in ww2, but that should not shroud the thousands of years of the samurai and natives of japan
If you're interested in Japanese history, the new series Shogun (I think on Apple TV+) will debut this year. It tells a semi-fictional story of Japan's most pivotal battle: the battle of Sekigahara. Between the Toyotomi led forces against Tokugawa forces. A certain betrayal mid-battle led to the Tokugawa shogunate and the closing of Japan for 300 yrs.
Im worried that the show wont depict Sekigahara though, because its not in the book or miniseries, just mentioned as a side note.
10:19 from watching a Japanese history teacher react to this, I can say it wasn't only the Dutch, their was 4 ports open to foriqners, each got 1 port and only they could trade from that 1 port. China, Korea and the Nederlands where 3, I can't recall who was the 4th. The Dutch could only trade in Dejima while the Chinese could only trade in Nagasaki (only a part of the city) , and small trade of some outer daimyo with Korea and the Ryukyu Islands to the South West of the home islands.
Pretty sure the 4th one was the English for a short time, all other foreigners where put to death without a trail. I couldn't really find out more, and at 00:02 I'm to tired to search for more.
Whenever someone teaches that the country was "closed" to everyone but the Dutch. It's a lame ethnocentric belief. Basically not acknowledging China and Korea as "someone". It was closed to most European and Western powers but not to everyone but the Dutch.
Hell Yeah! More Japan Reactions! ❤
Great video Chris. It would be awesome if you did a reaction to Extra History's Sengoku Jidai series and Taisho Democracy Series. It's very fascinating which I feel you'd enjoy to learn about.
I swear I've seen this video a million times, and it never gets old.
Extra History’s Sengoku Jidai series is a great one to check out since you already enjoy their channel
Great reaction Chris! My only gripe was when you talked about the Last Samuria because the rebellion that happened in the movie was after the Boshin War. That war was between the Shogun and emperor and led to the reestablishment of imperial authority. Many samurai joined the emperor’s cause, but to modernize the emperor took away some of the samurai’s special privileges. The samurai didn’t like that and felt they were going to be destroyed so many rebelled.
Also I’d love it if u reacted to the Shogunate! He has a great series on the Sengoku period!
I think that you might actually really enjoy learning about the Sengoku Jidai Era. It's touched on briefly here, but there's a lot going on with it. I'd recommend the Extra History series on the Seng9ku Jidai as a starting point.
Happy New Year’s
Netflix has a decent documentary on the Sengoku period, kings and generals covered the Mongol invasions, but few have done EXTENSIVE Japanese history videos. Which is srrange since they have the longest reigning dynastic family known.
“Open the country. Stop having it be closed” 😂
Happy new year 🎉
Happy new year to all
As an anglophile, you should look into doggerland. The land that was once settled between the UK and mainland Europe
For more eastern history you can check out extra history video on british conquest of india
I took Japanese History 1 and 2 in university. He's basically going through all of that very quickly.
My 2nd time recommending History Dose, and their video about Mongols vs Samurai, among others.
I have been waiting eons for you to finally watch this video
20:10 the reason for the implosion device is that the chain reaction for plutonium is more violent then with uranium. So a simpler “gun” type design, where you just smash one piece of the metal into another, and which works for uranium, would blow a plutonium bomb apart early and cause a fizzle.
I highly recommend checking out Knowing Better's "Playing the Victim" to learn more about the nuances that Bill Wurtz doesn't address in his video, especially in regard to WW2 and post WW2 Japan. I'm not sure if you'd be able to make a react video out of it just due to Knowing Better's style, but it's still an informative watch in regards to modern Japan.
Knowing Better had some pretty uninformed takes, haven't watched the video you've mentioned though so maybe that one's an exception. Perhaps he took his channel name to heart. I hope so, considering the seriousness of the subject matter.
@@kphaxx It's definitely one of his better videos.
Dan Carlin’s supernova of the east is amazing. So much info on that.
Wow when it zooms in and you can see the topography, most of Japan is mountains.
Extra credits sengoku jidai and end of the samurai are pretty good on explaining japan before it isolated it self and it’s rapid modernization
9:12
This doesn't get mentioned much, but the part where he goes "...And also died" you hear this little 8-bit sound byte which is supposed to be him dying. That sound byte is actually taken from the 1988 NES game Nobunaga's Ambition, which is about the Warring States period in Japan in the 1500s
Could you cover Ernst Rohm and Night of the Long Knives? It seems interesting yet kind of complicated yet seems like it would be a good event to cover