Japan Flashcards
Until the start of the Meiji period, these feudal lords ruled most of Japan through their hereditary land holdings. They were considered second only to the shoguns (who usually rose from these ranks).
Daimyō 大名 - “large”, “private land”
The title given to the military ruler of Japan from 1185 to 1868. It is shorthand for a longer term that means “Commander-in-Chief of the Expeditionary Force Against the Barbarians.” This role was one of de facto rule, since the Emperor remained ruler of the country de jure.
Shogun 将軍 - “to lead”, “gun/army/troop”
What was the name of the city that served as the political center of the Tokugawa Shogunate beginning in the early 1600s? The city, which gives its name to another term for the Tokugawa period, was renamed Tokyo with the restoration of imperial rule under Meiji in 1868.
Edo
Like the “Iron Throne” in Game of Thrones, this is the name given to the seat of the Emperor of Japan.
Chrysanthemum Throne
Though it means “one who serves”, in medieval Japan it was a property holder who received rent from serfs.
Samurai
A Japanese edict of the 1630s restricted most foreign ships to this port where “Madame Butterfly” is set.
Nagasaki
“Japanese people today think of money, just money. Where is our national spirit today? The Jieitai must be the soul of Japan.”
These are the words of what militiaman and LGBT novelist? In 1970, he led the Tatenokai to rally Japan’s Self-Defense Forces in an attempted coup to restore Imperial Japanese rule, two years after his autobiographical essay Sun and Steel was first published. He committed seppuku after the coup failed.
Yukio Mishima
Tokugawa Yoshinobu, who resigned in 1867, was the last person ever to hold what title?
He was the last shogun of Japan, before the restoration of the emperor.
Japan withdrew its membership in the League of Nations in 1933 after it was deemed the aggressor in its 1931 invasion of a region of China. What is either the name of this Chinese region, or the name of the state Japan established there upon occupation?
Manchuria / Manchukuo
This next period of Japan is expected to begin on May 1st, 2019, when Emperor Akihito’s elder son, Naruhito, is expected to ascend to the throne as the 126th Emperor of Japan.
(Card created April 1st, 2019)
Reiwa period
There are three men regarded historically as the three unifiers of Japan during the Sengoku period. Name any one of the three (either given name or family name is acceptable).
- Oda Nobunaga
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi
- Tokugawa Ieyasu
What Japanese game generates fully 4 percent of the nation’s GDP annually?
(Card created April 21st, 2020)
Pachinko is a $200 billion gambling industry, more than the casinos of Las Vegas and Macao combined.
This is the Japanese name given to a likeness of Jesus or Mary onto which the religious authorities of the Tokugawa shogunate (1603 - 1868) of Japan required suspected Christians to step, in order to demonstrate that they were not members of that outlawed religion.
Fumi-e
This is the name of the era that followed the resignation of the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, in 1867. It is also the posthumously-given name of the emperor who ruled during that period.
Meiji
This Japanese era (during which Hirohito served as emperor) is the longest in Japan’s history, lasting from 1926 - 1989.
Showa
