Happy New Year!

Welcome to our 2025 recap. This episode we look back on the past year, but also try to make sure that we prepare for the next year. We’ll cover the big events and then go into some of the major themes that we’ve seen over the year. For that, we’ll also cover some of the previous history that has led up to the start of things this year.

One of the biggest things we’ll do is look at the various forms of power and influence used in the archipelago, based on what we can see in the archaeological record, but also on what we are told by the histories. There is still much that we don’t know, and one of the largest debates between the Chronicles and modern scholarly interpretations of events seems to be just how much control Yamato actually held prior to this period. However, from about the 7th century onwards, there appears to be enough correlation with other events that we have some idea of what was actually happening.

A key fact to remember is that we are in the middle of the 7th century, and the Nihon Shoki’s account ends in 697 CE—about twenty-three years earlier than the date it was published, in 720 CE. So these latter events would have been the ones with the most sources and the most people who probably remembered something about them—or had at least heard stories. In fact, we can imagine that someone who was 80 years old in 720 CE would have been born in 640, and would have been in the prime of their life by 660. So we are now within the period where people actually remembered the events the Chroniclers were writing about.

Isshi Incident and the Taika Era

The majority of this year was focused on the changes that stemmed from the Isshi Incident, which spawned the Taika era—the era of “Great Change.” This is the start of the Ritsuryo era, and the birth of the bureaucratic state that would be used for some time to govern Yamato—and eventually Nihon, aka Japan.

Though it wouldn’t necessarily take a direct path—after building a grand palace in Naniwa, they moved back to Asuka. Still, they had expanded control throughout the archipelago, or so it seemed.

And now here we are: Takara hime is back on the throne, but Prince Naka no Oe is still Crown Prince and still has a lot of influence on the court.

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