Documentaries

Around the time that the coronavirus pandemic began, I started making short video documentaries. My objective was to discuss the history and folklore of Wakayama, where I lived at the time, focusing on subjects that had not been written about in English before. I created more than fifty videos over the course of two and a half years. They start out a little rough, and in truth, stay that way. I learned quite a lot about video editing over the course of the journey, though.

A few favorites include:

Chujo-hime: The Making of a Buddhist Fairy-Tale is a pretty standard example of my goals on this project: it describes a fairy-tale and then asks why it's like that. In this case, the story of Chujo-hime was written and revised just as Buddhism was becoming the religion of the elite, so it's one of the first to incorporate Buddhist themes and iconography.

Vengeance Outfoxed: The Murderous Origins of Kirime-ouji Shrine is a rather scatological tale that explains why some pilgrims once painted their faces white when visiting a specific shrine.

The Kishu War series (Kishu War, Part 1: The Skilled Gunners of the Saika-ikki; Kishu War, Part 2: The Battle for Koyasan; Kishu War, Part 3: The Conquest of Wakayama; Kishu War, Part 4: War Stories) documents how Japan's warlords absorbed Wakayama, then called Kishu, back into Japan after the country was fractured during the Warring States period. It took a combination of guns, subterfuge, and negotiations on several fronts.

No End to the Fight: The Life of Koyasan's Most Violent Priest is the story of Ougo, a warrior who gave up his ways to become a monk, but was confronted with countless reminders of his old life. I came across Ougo as I was research the Kishu War series, and as far as I can tell, my video is the sole English language resource about him.

Chosokabe Motochika: The Little Princess Who Won (and Lost) Shikoku is all about the titular warlord who did what it says on the tin. It also explores a common theme in many of my historical videos: the ephemeral victory. The late 1500s, the end of a long period of civil war, are full of local warlords conquering great swathes of land. But when the war is over, they're all subsumed into a single nation. And several of them will lose their possessions after picking the losing side at the Battle of Sekigahara. Nothing remains for long.

Japan's Other Emperors: The Strange, Sad Tale of the Later Southern Court's Would Be Rulers. This one requires more than a little bit of setup, which I explored somewhat ineptly in an earlier video (Anti-Emperor Go-Daigo's Adventures in Yoshino and Kitayama). In brief, in the 1300s, the shogun grew dissatisfied with the reigning emperor and deposed him, elevating a cousin to the throne in his place. Both emperors continued acting as though they were the only one for half a century until the situation was resolved. However, the descendants of the deposed emperor continued their own splinter line, the Southern Court, recognized by increasing tiny numbers of people. This is a story I dived into expecting it to be wacky, and it was, for a while, with the so-called Later Southern Court's claims on the throne growing ever more and more ludicrous. But as I toured the historical sites on a chilly January morning, it all seemed quite a lot more tragic to me, with hundreds of lives lost fighting over who gets to control a magic stone that says who the Emperor is. (However, a priest told me that the actual magic stone is still held by his family and the one in the Imperial Palace in Tokyo is a fake, so that's neat if true.)

Aridagawa's Dinosaur Land (May 15, 2019)

Awashima Shrine (Wakayama, Japan) (Dec 8, 2019)

The Songs of Iwashiro, Japan (Jan 13, 2020)

Ama-no-iwato Shrine (Jan 20, 2020)

Going to Hell: A Trip to Beppu (Jan 28, 2020)

Hiking the Ruins on Tomogashima (Feb 25, 2020)

The Kappa (or Goura) of Chikatsuyu: A Wakayama Fairy-Tale (Mar 18, 2020)

Boats, Planes, and Bombs: Wakayama at War (Mar 24, 2020)

Sailing the Deathly Shores of Fudarakusan (Apr 8, 2020)

Kirishima's Misty Mountains (Apr 16, 2020)

Unexpected Guests: Three Shipwrecks in Kushimoto (May 1, 2020)

Floating Island, Sinking Girl: The Tale of Shingu's Ukishima (May 7, 2020)