Japan has long been a popular country to visit and learn about, in terms of its culture, its animation, and its language. It is just as interesting to learn about Japan’s history, especially between 1865 and the end of WWII, with the country seeing a rapid change in its cultural identity, technology, and how its government operated. While we cannot go back and see this in real time, we can see the rapid change through the lens of movies.
The Twilight Samurai DVD Cover. mydramalist.com. September 9, 2025
https://mydramalist.com/photos/X2Weq
This movie takes place a few years before the Meiji restoration, the era in which the rapid change of Japan’s culture, technology, and government occurred. In this movie, you can see what were “traditional” cultural identities, with the main protagonist being part of the samurai class and the burdens that came with it. The clothing and housing depicted is also “traditional” with the characters wearing kimonos and yukata.
Hachiko Monogatari
Hachiko Monogatari poster. wikipedia.org. September 9, 2025
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachik%C5%8D_Monogatari#/media/File:Hachik%C3%B4_Monogatari_Poster.jpg
This movie revolves around a true story about a dog named Hachiko, who waits for his owner Ueno Hidesaburo at the train station even after his unfortunate death. While the movie is about the relationship between Hachiko and Ueno, it also shows us how rapidly Japan had modernized and changed culturally as the movie is set in 1925, only 60 years after The Twilight Samurai takes place. The first thing that is noticeable in the movies is the style of clothing that the characters wear. While in The Twilight Samurai the clothing is traditional in the sense of what we think of as Japanese. In Hachiko Monogatari we see some characters wearing traditional clothing but we also see other characters wear western clothing, with Ueno wearing coats, suits, and hats. The change in technology can also be seen with the use of the trains being prevalent in the movie, a technology that did not exist in Japan during the time of The Twilight Samurai.
The Wind Rises Poster. imdb.com. September 9, 2025
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2013293/?ref_=mv_close
While this movie is an animation from Studio Ghibli that revolves around Jiro Horikoshi and his work in Japan’s aviation industry, it is a period piece which does faithfully show us how rapidly Japanese technology was modernizing. You can see the change in buildings in the movie as well, compared to The Twilight Samurai with many of the main offices for Mitsubishi being western style.
Samuel Vandrey is currently working towards a bachelor’s degree in East Asian Languages and Cultures in Japanese and a teaching certificate for World Languages Japanese with an ENL addition. He is working with Media Services.
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