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
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
"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).
@@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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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!
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.
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
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.
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)
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,
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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)
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Kings and Generals made a video of the Shimabara Rebellion where Japan brutally suppress Japanese Catholics encouraging them more towards isolation from foreign influence.
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.
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.
7:45 They do. Anime/manga influence is growing around the globe. Anime are even shown in cinemas, something that was pretty much nonexistent outside Japan.
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.
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
Another reason Japan might be called 'Sunrise land' is because some people believe the Emperor is descended from Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess of Shinto and daughter of Izanagi, their Patron Creator God who made the islands of Japan in their mythology.
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
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.
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.
I recommend Understanding Japanese Society by Joy Hendry if you're interested in Japanese culture/history. I'm preparing for a 10-week internship in Inyuama Aichi, Japan and this book is our assigned reading. It definitely inspires me to fall down the rabbit hole.
Fun fact: Nobunaga's line (Oda clan) is still alive to this day and spread out throughout Japan. One of his descendents is a famous ice skater in Japan named Nobunari Oda.
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.
Well, some of the ones I would recommend: Extra History - End of the Samurai Addendum to this is the Shinsengumi - Let's Ask Shogo has a couple videos, but he is not a history channel Cool History Bros - Three Unifiers of Sengoku Japan Extra History - Sengoku Jidai (Japan) Extra History - The Three Kingdoms (China) Extra History - Sun Yat Sen (China)
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 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.
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
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
I'm sure you know, but there was also a land bridge between the British Isles and the rest of Europe called Doggerland. Lots of cool archaeological finds there. It's cool to think about what could have happened or what kind of people used to live in a place that's completely underwater now
He did glance over how samurai came around. Basically there were bandits in the north who were causing problems like Wild West and they needed something to deal with and that was the samurai. They are little different from Men at arms. As they are not formed by the lord or king but they themselves train become samurai and showcase their skill then get enlisted into service. Which is like a major story point in ghost of tusima. Then there are ronin which are samurai without a lord. Yeah basically it’s like going to college and job interviews, instead of enlisted first then direct training. Which is why muskets cause so much trouble cause anyone can be a musketeer and doesn’t require years of training and job interviews. But rather enlist and get trained
My favorite band, Rush, wrote a song called "Manhattan Project" about, well, the Manhattan Project. It's good stuff, wonder if you'd ever give a reaction on a song. They also wrote a song called Bastille Day. "The big bang took and shook the world, shot down the rising sun. The end was begun, it would hit everyone when the chain reaction was done. The big shots try to hold it back, and fools try to wish it away. A hopeful depend on a world without end, whatever the hopeless may say." Which is as much about wishing Japan wasn't bombed, as it is about how the development of the nuclear bomb caused adversaries to go cold I think. Thus, in its own way, the development of the bomb became a "hopeful depend" in that we depend on adversaries having equal enough strength to hope no one will use it. Kind of a positive spin on the old "Mutually Assured Destruction" bit.
Speaking of Japan I know Extra Credit had a pretty good series of videos on that civil war period (I can't spell it right). But you should really look into it, it would be a pretty good series to wach.
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 😁
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
One of the other reasons for the difference in shape between the two bombs was the style of the reaction. Little Boy had what's called a "pistol" configuration where it launched a portion of the bomb core into the rest down a barrel in a similar fashion to a gun in a criticality via simple kinetic energy. Fat Man had the spherical explosive configuration to set up the implosion reaction. Part of the idea was to validate the difference between internal geometries and their efficiency. With a spherical configuration, you have a better chance of complete fuel use in the chain reaction and ensuing detonation.
Yeah, definitely surprised about the lack of Russo-Japanese War info. Even with America getting involved as a mediator with Theodore Roosevelt winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906.
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!
On the subject of Japanese surrender Potential History has a video where it argues the same as you, VTH, that both events are responsible, and it's pretty interesting in the detail. And just in general, Potential History makes cool videos, it would be nice to see more reaction his stuff.
The Manhattan Project started out of concern regarding Germany, but Japan seemed to have been made the target of the bombs all the way back in 1943. General Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project, is on record having stated "The target is and was always expected to be Japan" and a discussion of target selection from 1943 includes "The point of use of the first bomb was discussed and the general view appeared to be that its best point of use would be on a Japanese fleet [...] The Japanese were selected as they would not be so apt to secure knowledge from it as would the Germans."
Extra History did an interesting series on the Sengoku Jidai (Warring States) period of Japan. I can't speak to the accuracy as a very casul history fan, but it could be a fun starting point
9:30 here is a fun fact on the topic: in Kingdom of Serbia/Kingdom of Yugoslavia during late 19th and early 20th century there were three groups of people called "Namesništvo" who would rule over the country until the underaged heir would be of legal age to be a king, which actually never took over the control over the country. But i suppose it is because of being close to todays age/time, which would be much more resentufl towards those people if they actually took over. If it was in Medieval ages, i think it would be a much different story. Its still weird it happened thrice without any troubles.
My history teacher played this when we were about to start our Japan unit and apparently one of his previous students was related to the guy that opened japan in 1853
My 2024 goals are - Work Out more - Do more Meteorological studies and try to write a paper - Do some Storm chases - Read the first five books of the old testaments -Go to church
You or Bill could have said that some Japanese in the small isolated Islands either didn't hear or didn't believe the surrender so when treaty and new governments and locals came back, they sometimes had patriotic Japanese bands in the jungles, shooting robbing raiding and running them for decades. One band fought to its late man, who only surrendered in 1974 when they managed to figure out who he was, and a superior he knew agreed to come and try to accept his surrender.
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
@@universefight2193I wasn't hired as a zoori holder, it's just one episode to get promoted.
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.
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
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!
"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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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)
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,
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
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
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
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)
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Kings and Generals made a video of the Shimabara Rebellion where Japan brutally suppress Japanese Catholics encouraging them more towards isolation from foreign influence.
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!
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.
7:45 They do. Anime/manga influence is growing around the globe. Anime are even shown in cinemas, something that was pretty much nonexistent outside Japan.
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.
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
I swear I've seen this video a million times, and it never gets old.
As an anglophile, you should look into doggerland. The land that was once settled between the UK and mainland Europe
I took Japanese History 1 and 2 in university. He's basically going through all of that very quickly.
Wow when it zooms in and you can see the topography, most of Japan is mountains.
Happy New Year Chris! Tons of awesome content as always, and here's to all the more to come!
Another reason Japan might be called 'Sunrise land' is because some people believe the Emperor is descended from Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess of Shinto and daughter of Izanagi, their Patron Creator God who made the islands of Japan in their mythology.
I'd love to see more east asian content! Linfamy does great videos about early- medieval Japanese history, I highly recommend him
Extra History’s Sengoku Jidai series is a great one to check out since you already enjoy their channel
Dan Carlin’s supernova of the east is amazing. So much info on that.
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
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.
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.
Happy new year brother, I’m sure the content will be as good as ever and grow even more.
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
I recommend Understanding Japanese Society by Joy Hendry if you're interested in Japanese culture/history. I'm preparing for a 10-week internship in Inyuama Aichi, Japan and this book is our assigned reading. It definitely inspires me to fall down the rabbit hole.
Fun fact: Nobunaga's line (Oda clan) is still alive to this day and spread out throughout Japan. One of his descendents is a famous ice skater in Japan named Nobunari Oda.
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.
Well, some of the ones I would recommend:
Extra History - End of the Samurai
Addendum to this is the Shinsengumi - Let's Ask Shogo has a couple videos, but he is not a history channel
Cool History Bros - Three Unifiers of Sengoku Japan
Extra History - Sengoku Jidai (Japan)
Extra History - The Three Kingdoms (China)
Extra History - Sun Yat Sen (China)
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 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.
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
A classic. This is a good starter kit for Japanese history. I look forward to your learning journey about Japan.
Also- greetings from Tokyo 🎉
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
Off topic VTH, but Denmark just had a monarch change, outlied in the Queen’s new years speech
Of course this is a gross understatement, so i do encourage anyone Reading this to look it up themselves
I saw that, though, technically they haven’t had a monarch change yet. I think she steps down on the 14th.
I'm sure you know, but there was also a land bridge between the British Isles and the rest of Europe called Doggerland. Lots of cool archaeological finds there. It's cool to think about what could have happened or what kind of people used to live in a place that's completely underwater now
He did glance over how samurai came around. Basically there were bandits in the north who were causing problems like Wild West and they needed something to deal with and that was the samurai.
They are little different from Men at arms. As they are not formed by the lord or king but they themselves train become samurai and showcase their skill then get enlisted into service. Which is like a major story point in ghost of tusima.
Then there are ronin which are samurai without a lord.
Yeah basically it’s like going to college and job interviews, instead of enlisted first then direct training. Which is why muskets cause so much trouble cause anyone can be a musketeer and doesn’t require years of training and job interviews. But rather enlist and get trained
My favorite band, Rush, wrote a song called "Manhattan Project" about, well, the Manhattan Project. It's good stuff, wonder if you'd ever give a reaction on a song. They also wrote a song called Bastille Day.
"The big bang took and shook the world, shot down the rising sun. The end was begun, it would hit everyone when the chain reaction was done. The big shots try to hold it back, and fools try to wish it away. A hopeful depend on a world without end, whatever the hopeless may say."
Which is as much about wishing Japan wasn't bombed, as it is about how the development of the nuclear bomb caused adversaries to go cold I think. Thus, in its own way, the development of the bomb became a "hopeful depend" in that we depend on adversaries having equal enough strength to hope no one will use it. Kind of a positive spin on the old "Mutually Assured Destruction" bit.
Speaking of Japan I know Extra Credit had a pretty good series of
videos on that civil war period (I can't spell it right). But you should really look into it, it would be a pretty good series to wach.
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 😁
Happy new year! Awesome start🎉🎉🎉🎉❤❤❤
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
"How about ~☀Sunrise Land ☀~ ?" is forever embedded in my mind and plays every time I see see or hear 日本. 😅
I love your reaction videos so much, it's more like getting extra content for the original video!
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 🫶🏽
As someone who claims to know very little about east asian history, you are really spot on about the origin of Kamikaze and Nihon/Nippon name
This is seriously one of the coolest channels on the internet, and you're a fellow Buckeye!!!
One of the other reasons for the difference in shape between the two bombs was the style of the reaction. Little Boy had what's called a "pistol" configuration where it launched a portion of the bomb core into the rest down a barrel in a similar fashion to a gun in a criticality via simple kinetic energy. Fat Man had the spherical explosive configuration to set up the implosion reaction. Part of the idea was to validate the difference between internal geometries and their efficiency. With a spherical configuration, you have a better chance of complete fuel use in the chain reaction and ensuing detonation.
Yeah, definitely surprised about the lack of Russo-Japanese War info. Even with America getting involved as a mediator with Theodore Roosevelt winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906.
Extra Credit History has several series on Japan. I've found them excellent. Far more detailed on the inner workings than other sources.
Happy New Year, wishing you a good one.
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!
“Open the country. Stop having it be closed” 😂
First time tuning it for a while, the mustache is fantastic
Happy New Year Chris!!! Have a wonderful year! God bless! Thanks for all the great videos these last few years!
On the subject of Japanese surrender Potential History has a video where it argues the same as you, VTH, that both events are responsible, and it's pretty interesting in the detail. And just in general, Potential History makes cool videos, it would be nice to see more reaction his stuff.
My 2nd time recommending History Dose, and their video about Mongols vs Samurai, among others.
The Manhattan Project started out of concern regarding Germany, but Japan seemed to have been made the target of the bombs all the way back in 1943.
General Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project, is on record having stated "The target is and was always expected to be Japan" and a discussion of target selection from 1943 includes "The point of use of the first bomb was discussed and the general view appeared to be that its best point of use would be on a Japanese fleet [...] The Japanese were selected as they would not be so apt to secure knowledge from it as would the Germans."
I was literally looking for a video on this yesterday-
Napoleon’s marshals from Epic History TV please 🙏
Happy new years from Sweden!!!
Happy New Years Chris and everone here.
Extra History did an interesting series on the Sengoku Jidai (Warring States) period of Japan. I can't speak to the accuracy as a very casul history fan, but it could be a fun starting point
9:30 here is a fun fact on the topic: in Kingdom of Serbia/Kingdom of Yugoslavia during late 19th and early 20th century there were three groups of people called "Namesništvo" who would rule over the country until the underaged heir would be of legal age to be a king, which actually never took over the control over the country. But i suppose it is because of being close to todays age/time, which would be much more resentufl towards those people if they actually took over. If it was in Medieval ages, i think it would be a much different story.
Its still weird it happened thrice without any troubles.
My history teacher played this when we were about to start our Japan unit and apparently one of his previous students was related to the guy that opened japan in 1853
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 Chris hope you continue making your videos that would be awesome.❤❤❤
Happy New Year, Chris!
I believe edo, Which became tokyo didn't actually become the capital until the end of the shoganate.
My 2024 goals are
- Work Out more
- Do more Meteorological studies and try to write a paper
- Do some Storm chases
- Read the first five books of the old testaments
-Go to church
Love the videos, man. Keep it up!!!
You or Bill could have said that some Japanese in the small isolated Islands either didn't hear or didn't believe the surrender so when treaty and new governments and locals came back, they sometimes had patriotic Japanese bands in the jungles, shooting robbing raiding and running them for decades. One band fought to its late man, who only surrendered in 1974 when they managed to figure out who he was, and a superior he knew agreed to come and try to accept his surrender.
Happy New Year to you