Was the Meiji Restoration a mistake?

Why did the Americans ruin our glorious Rangaku..?

Poor Ainu, colonized by the evil J*p

>with the Emperor being like a ceremonial figurehead rather than a despot like in Imperial Japan.
hahaha, you're joking right?
the emperor was just as much of a figurehead after the restoration as he was before, except this time he was controlled by a hereditary ruling council instead of just the hereditary shogun

also the shogunate didnt last 500 years, your timeline is way off

Who is this semen demon?

>because Hirohito told them
No, it was because they were brainwashed into thinking that the Americans would torture and rape them all. Also it was only about 1000.
He wasn't involved. Several of the islanders turned themselves over to the Marines and told them that the others jumped because of the reason I stated above.

Anri Okita you pleb.
>half-Jap/half-Anglo perfection
>retired last year

>adopt white culture
>everything into soulless sociopathic shit

>everything into soulless sociopathic shit
what did he mean by this?

Japs don't understand how whites are so forward and open with each other and assume we're either sociopaths or tryhard edgelords.

>we're either sociopaths or tryhard edgelords.
they're not wrong

Lets take a look at your white culture shall we?
>Materialistic
>People work for money
>Family values slowly eroding
>Traditions slowly forgotten as educated people decides to tip their fedoras

>people work for money
What would you rather have it given you cretin?

>retired last year
You had to remind me.

>Famines in 1830's destabilized everything
>Social tensions arising from largely underemployed samurai class, as well as thoroughly disenfranchised urban dwellers.
>No modernization would have turned Japan into a second China, which got fucked by everyone for the next 100 years plus.
>Emperor as a traditionally ceremonial figurehead is a modern myth; nobody gave a damn about the guy for about 800 years before the Meiji Restoration.
>Fascism came about because of assholes trying to shove their warped, nationalist interpretation of "traditional culture" down peoples' throats

>Emperor as a traditionally ceremonial figurehead is a modern myth; nobody gave a damn about the guy for about 800 years before the Meiji Restoration.

What? They fought a war over the imperial succession. Every shogun and wannabe sought imperial recognition to some extent

Meiji Restoration was a plot by the Eternal Anglo. They wanted to trade with Japan and the Shogunate didn't want it.

>we're either sociopaths or tryhard edgelords
Which is pretty accurate.

Yes. Civil war now, gas the Shimazu and raze Satsuma to the ground.

>What? They fought a war over the imperial succession. Every shogun and wannabe sought imperial recognition to some extent
Wrong. The only who wanted Impreial Recognition was Oda "I don't give a fuck about Tradition or Honor" Nobunaga

If the Meiji Restoration hadn't happened, Japan was going to become a protectorate of a Western country.

>desperately tried to marry into imperial lineage for legitimacy
>no one cared
Pick one and only one

>Japs don't understand how whites are so forward and open with each other

Literally had my gf tell me the opposite of this yesterday 'why do I have to tiptoe around white people, they can't take any criticism, Japanese are more forward, etc etc'.

Do yourself a favour and avoid sweeping statements in regards to Japan because you look like an idiot when you're wrong.

That happened anyway.

Sort of. It's a de facto protectorate, but it retains autonomy. Russia and Britain were bucking to turn it into an actual fucking colony.

>they can't take any criticism
Because of sociopathy?

I have a japanese girlfriend too, and clearly, the japanese never say what they truly think. It's actually well known : en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honne_and_tatemae

Pfft maybe yours doesn't, but mine sure as hell does. Would you like some annecdotes?

user you are in Veeky Forums. You don't have a GF

Why dont you ask Qing China how refusing to industrialize works out?

Lets hire a samurai

But we're not talking about individuals, but Japanese in general. Japanese people always try to avoid conflicts, which is why it's useless to talk about politics with them. They will lie too, and it's culturally accepted. Maybe your girlfriend is very americanized, it doesn't matter

I know at least two other girls exactly like her, it could be that she's over 30? I know at least one guy who has never left Japan and is like this as well.

I think the crux here is that Japan is not a place where you can generalise anything as a certainty. I.e. gambling is illegal, except for in those countless exceptions where we know it is not.

open
the country

stop
having it be closed

>retired last year
Damn

The alternative was economic slavery to the West.
Oh wait.

maybe you're talking about sjw'ish stuff, Japanese and Asians in general are pretty straight forward discussing race, etc. considered taboo in the west

>>Tokugawa shogunate had 500 years of peace, no wars

Kek, what the fuck are this bullshit ?

Tbh the world would probably had been a better place if Brits had turned Japan into China 2.0 aka a failed state where most of population was addicted to opium.

Do you go to Curtin by any chance?

I'm talking about 'don't put your garbage there you idiot' (and then in private 'fucking white bois so are so stupid') as apposed to 'hey next time could you maybe be more careful where you put your grabage.'

This kind of thing. Tell me that is not in-your-face.

As an aside, when was the last period when the Japanese Emperor had any real power?

I lived with a Korean for 2 years and he would act like we had no problems for months at a time, then throw a temper tantrum over my not wiping the counters in our apartment after making coffee or waking up too early. One time he threw a knife at me because he didn't think I was apologetic enough. Asians are anything but up front, until they are, and then there's no way to reason with them because by the time they let on that there's an issue they're too emotional to analyze their situation rationally.

Probably the Meiji Emperor, although it depends on what your definition of "real power" is.

>20,000 civilians to commit suicide
But it's not an atrocity to the Japanese mindset it's an honourable escape.

That is literally the Meiji restoration.

Ahhh yes, i have experienced this with a korean/taiwanese guy friend as well.

However, this is not taking into account the intricacies of Japanese (specifically) culture where you have heirachy in age, gender, race, etc. Sometimes I get upfront criticism from Japanese people every day. Sometimes I don't. This is Japan imo. It's a duality. That's why I say, the only thing you can say for sure about Japan, is that you can't say anything for sure about Japan.

The reason why those civilians committed suicide was because their government told them that victorious American soldiers would rape their women and eat their babies, and kill them, in no particular order.

Ding dong, it's Europe

>'why do I have to tiptoe around white people, they can't take any criticism, Japanese are more forward, etc etc'.
>Japs don't understand how whites are so forward and open with each other
It's all very complicated in Asia. It's the same with my Chinese girlfriend.

They are incredibly blunt and honest to the point of being mean even though its usually well intended as advice.
But they're also extremely polite and bound by social customs, that showing excess emotion to them is deemed as well, childish and excessive.

See the white people your Japanese criticises won't actually be unable to take it, nor are they probably even mad, but a typical white persons reaction has quite a lot of expressive emotion, whereas a Japanese reaction is far more suppressed, so they deem the more open emotion as uncontrollable emotion when in reality they're both feeling the same one just shows it much more.

Ahh finally, an informed reply. Thank you, I will consider this further.

WW2 unless you believe in MacArthur's Hirohito was a good boy that dindu nuffing wrong-narrative.

>be Japan
>white people discover you
>become degenerate

When will the piggu stop?

Many daimyo had realtions with the court. Kenshin for instance was constainly writing letters to court officals and recieved ranks from the court.

In earlier periods a dispute over the imperial succession on the role of the emperor resulted in not one but two wars, It was like a mini sengoku Jidai for a century or so as the powers realigned

Holy shit OP at least try to learn basic facts before you opine on shit you just make yourself look like a giant moron.

>Tokugawa shogunate had 500 years of peace, no wars
Tokugawa became shogun in the early 1600s, his dynasty lasted roughly 250 years. And while there was no war, it was effectively a police state within Japan. There were still uprisings against the government now and then, and government thugs were free to terrorize people to keep them in line. Peaceful, but not wholly safe.
>large domestic trade sector, agriculture burgeoning, no unemployment
All of which changed starting with the 19th century. A famine hit in the early 1800s, and by that point the population had swollen to such a degree that there was a burgeoning unemployed class of moderate-status people. Samurai with no lands to rule (for every scrap of land was already claimed), no wars to fight. No real purpose.
>large internal trade led to prosperous markets, cities, castle towns across Japan
Again, that pretty much ended in the 19th century as things began stagnating. The country was ripe for a major rebellion at that point.
>Meiji restoration destroys Japanese culture turns it into a fascist state bent on war and leaves Japan in a pile of ashes
lol what. The Meiji Restoration was, overall, one of the most bloodless revolutions in the history of the entire world. Fewer than 10,000 people died in the entire conflict despite it going on for well over a year. The new Japanese government was constitutionally based, modeled after American ideals, and resulted in the rapid industrialization and modernization of the country. In just a few decades Japan became a power to rival European empires, the late Meiji period was arguably one of the most prosperous times in Japan's history.