Introduction to Japan
Japan is an island nation situated in the Pacific Ocean with a current population of roughly 126 million people on a landmass of 140,761 square miles. Most Japanese live in urban centers, though a large portion of the country remains rural, particularly the northern and southern islands.
Japan is made up of four main islands; from the north to the south they are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. The capital of Japan is Tokyo, located in eastern Honshu, which is home to some 13.491 million residents as of October 2015.
For centuries, Japan had severe restrictions on international trade and travel, only opening itself up fully to the West after the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. A brief history of the country as written by the Central Intelligence Agency:
In 1603, after decades of civil warfare, the Tokugawa shogunate (a military-led, dynastic government) ushered in a long period of relative political stability and isolation from foreign influence. For more than two centuries this policy enabled Japan to enjoy a flowering of its indigenous culture. Japan opened its ports after signing the Treaty of Kanagawa with the US in 1854 and began to intensively modernize and industrialize. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Japan became a regional power that was able to defeat the forces of both China and Russia. It occupied Korea, Formosa (Taiwan), and southern Sakhalin Island. In 1931-32 Japan occupied Manchuria, and in 1937 it launched a full-scale invasion of China. Japan attacked US forces in 1941 - triggering America's entry into World War II - and soon occupied much of East and Southeast Asia. After its defeat in World War II, Japan recovered to become an economic power and an ally of the US. While the emperor retains his throne as a symbol of national unity, elected politicians hold actual decision-making power. Following three decades of unprecedented growth, Japan's economy experienced a major slowdown starting in the 1990s, but the country remains an economic power. In March 2011, Japan's strongest-ever earthquake, and an accompanying tsunami, devastated the northeast part of Honshu island, killed thousands, and damaged several nuclear power plants. The catastrophe hobbled the country's economy and its energy infrastructure, and tested its ability to deal with humanitarian disasters. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was reelected to office in December 2012, and has since embarked on ambitious economic and security reforms to improve Japan's economy and bolster the country's international standing.
Today, Japan is the world’s fourth largest economy and a major exporter of cars and electronics. However, it is highly dependent on importation, particularly food, which proved to be a factor in its eventual loss in World War II, the impetus of major change in modern Japan.
Japan is a country steeped in tradition yet moving full-steam ahead into the future. It sits at the forefront of technological innovation while at the same time maintaining ancient praxis. The Japanese are the masters of adaptation, effortlessly borrowing from other cultures and transforming the foreign into the native. This process can be seen in everything from their religious practice (Buddhism) to their written language (kanji, Chinese characters).
Even so, Japan experienced incredible tumult following the devastating loss in World War II. The loss, followed swiftly by the Occupation of Western forces, changed the Japanese in ways that are still evident to this day. Japanese popular culture (film, animation, novels, and comics) became the major outlet for expression of postwar anxiety and will be the focus of this module in examining Japan’s search for a new identity in the modern era.