Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchEpisode 575 - The Kings of the Ring, Part 2
This week: Taiho begins his grand sumo career, and quickly proves to be one of the best ever to do it. We'll use his career to discuss: what does greatness look like in a sport like sumo? What were t…
Published on 4 months, 3 weeks ago
Episode 574 - The Kings of the Ring, Part 1
This week, we're beginning a new miniseries on the legends of Japan's most ancient sport: sumo. What can we learn about Japan and Japanese identity by looking at the lives of some of the most famous …
Published on 5 months ago
Episode 573 - The Revolutionary, Part 8
For our final episode of this miniseries: Miyazaki Manabu faces down with the National Police Agency as he finds himself the prime suspect in Japan's highest profile criminal case of the 1980s. After…
Published on 5 months, 1 week ago
Episode 572 - The Revolutionary, Part 7
In our penultimate episode for this miniseries: Miyazaki Manabu narrowly escapes doing prison time, only to end up back in the underworld first of Osaka, and then Tokyo. And from there, he ends up sq…
Published on 5 months, 2 weeks ago
Episode 571 - The Revolutionary, Part 6
This week: Miyazaki's time as a politics reporter, the end of his reporting career, and his return to the family business. How did he go, in the span of five years, from a successful reporter to a wa…
Published on 5 months, 3 weeks ago
Episode 570 - The Revolutionary, Part 5
This week: Miyazaki Manabu's dramatic departure from the Communist Party, as his faith in the revolution wanes. What does a wannabe college revolutionary with no prospects turn to when the revolution…
Published on 5 months, 4 weeks ago
Episode 569 - The Revolutionary, Part 4
This week: Miyazaki Manabu goes from the Sodai struggle at Waseda to an active participant in the violent clashes of the late 1960s student movement, as a part of the "action corps" of the Communist …
Published on 6 months ago
Episode 568 - The Revolutionary, Part 3
This week on the podcast: Miyazaki Manabu faces his first battle as a college activist with the administration of his own school at Waseda University. It...does not go well.
Published on 6 months ago
Episode 567 - The Revolutionary, Part 2
This week: Miyazaki Manabu completes his transformation from son of a yakuza boss to a committed member of the Communist party. After all, it turns out those two groups have a surprising amount in co…
Published on 6 months, 3 weeks ago
Episode 566 - The Revolutionary, Part 1
This week: the start of a multi-part "modernized biography" intended to help us explore postwar Japan through the lens of a single, fascinating life. This episode is mostly focused on introducing our…
Published on 6 months, 4 weeks ago