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Hiroto Uehara
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Tanesato Castle (種里城 Tanesato-jō) was a mountain castle (山城 yamajiro) built in the western part of Ajigasawa, Aomori, upstream of the Akaishi River (赤石川). The site was designated a National Historic Site in 2002. Tsugaru Tamenobu (津軽為信), the progenitor of the Tsugaru clan, is a man of...
Bio Ota Dokan
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4 min read
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The Father of Edo Castle Ōta Sukenaga (太田資長, 1432-1486), better known under his Buddhist name Ōta Dōkan (太田道灌), was a daimyō in Musashi Province and the eldest son of Ōta Sukekiyo (太田資清, 1411-1493) who served the Ōgigayatsu Uesugi as major-domo (執事 shitsuji). When Sukekiyo was defeated in the...
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Gōtokuji (豪徳寺), officially Daikeizan Gōtokuji, is a Sōtō Zen Buddhist temple located in Setagaya in western Tōkyō. It is the ancestral temple of the Ii family; some 300 of their clan members, including Ii Naosuke, are buried there. Legend has it that Gōtokuji is also the alleged birthplace of...
JREF
4 min read
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83
Kawahara Keiga (川原慶賀, 1786-1860) was an Edo-era painter of Western-style pictures who sometimes signed his works in Roman letters "Tojosky," a Westernisation of his given name Toyosuke. Most of his works are exhibited in the Netherlands, while a tenth of his paintings can be found in Japan...
Culture Sumo
JREF
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20 min read
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36,006
Sumō (相撲) is a unique form of wrestling with a 2,000-year-old history that easily qualifies as Japan's national sport. Sumō became a professional sport almost 300 years ago in the early part of the Edo Period (1600-1868). Although it is practised today by clubs in high schools, colleges, and...
JREF
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4 min read
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Itō Jakuchū (伊藤若冲, 1716-1800) was a painter known for his almost surrealist, detailed depictions of exotic birds and fowl. He painted traditional Japanese motifs, experimenting with perspectives and other modern stylistic elements. He was the eldest of the three Edo-era "eccentrics" and...
Hiroto Uehara
1 min read
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Karakawa Castle (唐川城) was a mountain castle built about three kilometres north as a branch castle of Fukushima Castle on the north shore of Lake Jūsan (十三湖). It is thought that it served as a lookout tower as it overlooks both the lake and the Sea of Japan. While visiting Fukushima Castle, I...
Culture Hina Matsuri
JREF
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3 min read
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6,984
Hinamatsuri (雛祭り) is a festival for girls held on March 3. Tiered platforms for hina ningyō (雛人形, hina dolls) are set up at home. Families celebrate with a meal, eating hishimochi (菱餅), sweet diamond-shaped rice cakes in pink, white, and green layers, hina-arare (雛あられ), small crisps flavoured...
JREF
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4 min read
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10,394
Romaji (ローマ字 rōmaji) means "Roman letters" in Japanese and refers to the romanisation of the Japanese language, the application of Roman letters to write Japanese. Romaji is commonly employed in Japanese texts aimed at non-Japanese speakers who cannot read kanji or kana (in road and train...
JREF
2 min read
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Tokugawa Ienobu (徳川 家宣, 1662-1712) was the sixth shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate and ruled for just three years, from 1709 to 1712. Ienobu was the eldest son of Tokugawa Tsunashige (徳川綱重, 1644-1678), the daimyō of the Kōfu domain (present-day Yamanashi Prefecture). Tsunashige was the brother...
JREF
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Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (1646-1709) was the fifth shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate (ruled 1680-1709), the fourth son of Tokugawa Iemitsu, and known by the moniker "dog shogun". Born to Iemitsu, the third shōgun, Tsunayoshi (徳川綱吉, 1646-1709) spent most of his childhood under the supervision of his...
Hiroto Uehara
3 min read
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160
Fukushima Castle (福島城 Fukushima-jō) is a medieval castle built on a hill at an altitude of 20 to 30 meters facing the north shore of Lake Jūsan (十三湖 Jūsanko) in the western part of the Tsugaru Peninsula, Aomori Prefecture. The castle consisted of an inner wall (内郭 naikaku) and an outer wall...
JREF
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14 min read
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67,342
The Japanese language uses a broad array of honorific suffixes for addressing or referring to people, for example, -san, as in Davey-san. These honorifics are gender-neutral (can be used for males and females). However, some are more used for men or women (-kun is primarily used for men, while...
JREF
3 min read
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265
Akechi Mitsuhide (明智光秀, 1528-1582), also known under the title Koretō Hyūga no Kami (惟任日向守), was one of the principal captains of hegemon Oda Nobunaga and his assassin. A man of obscure origins, Mitsuhide was said to have been born into the Toki-Akechi family of the Toki clan (土岐氏) and sided...
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