Japan is an island by the sea filled with volcanoes and it's ♪♫ beautiful ♫♪.
In the year negative a billion, Japan might not have been here. In the year negative forty thousand, it was here, and you could walk to it, and some people walked to it. Then it got warmer, some icebergs melted, it became an island, and now there's lots of ♫ trees ♫. Because it's warmer.
So now there's people on the island; they're basically sort of hanging out in between the mountains eating nuts off trees and using the latest technology. Like stones, and bowls.
Ding dong, it's the outside world, and they have technology from the future. Like really good metal, and ♪ crazy rice farms ♪. Now you can make a lot of rice really really quickly. That means if you own the farm, then you own a lot of food, which is something everybody needs to survvvvive. So that makes you king.
Rice farming and rice kingdoms spread all across the land, all the way to here. The most important kingdoms were here (Hi), here (Chikushi), here (Izumo), here (Kibi), here (Yamato), here (Koshi), and here (Kenu). But this one (Yamato) was the most most important, ruled by a heavenly superperson, or emperor for short.
Knock knock, get the door, it's religion. The new prince wants everyone to try this hot new religion 🎺🎺🎺 (Buddhism) from Baekje.
"Please try this religion," he said.
"No," said everybody.
"Try iiiiit," he said.
"no," said everybody again, quieter this time.
And so the religion was put into place and all the rules that came with it.
Then, the government was taken over by another clique (Taika). And they made some reforms , like making the government govern more, and making the government more like China's government, which is a government that governs more.
"Hi China," they said.
"Hi dipshit (wa, dwarf)," said China.
"Can you call us something else, other than dipshit?" said Japan.
"Like what?" said China.
♫♪"How about sunrise laaand?"♪♫ said Japan.
And they stole China's alphabet and wrote a book. About themselves! And then they made lots of poetry and art and another book about themselves.
Then they stopped moving the capital every time the emperor died and kept it in one place for a while, right here (Kyoto, Heian Palace). And they conquered the north finally, get that squared away.
A rich hipster named Kūkai is bored with modern Buddhism and visits China, learns a better version which is more ♫♪ spiritual ♪♫, comes back, reinvents the alphabet, and causes art and literature to be ♫♪ great ♪♫ for a long time. And the royal palace turned into such a dreamworld of art that they really didn't give a shit about running the country.
So if you live outside the palace, how are you supposed to protect your shit, from criminals? ♫♪ Hire a samurai. ♪♫ Everyone started hiring samurai. Rich important people hired samurai. Poor people who could not afford to hire samurai did not hire samurai. The samurai became organized and powerful, more powerful than the government. So they made their own military government, right here. They let the emperor still be emperor, but the shogun was actually in control.
Breaking news, the Mongols have invaded China.
"W̛e҉'ve i͟nv̕aded ̵Chi͠na̸," said the Mongols, "Pl͘e̶a̷se̵ ͝res͢p̛ȩc̷t u͢s҉,͜ or͜ el̕se w͞e ͟m̛igh͟t ͠i͝nvade͡ ̕y͜o̕u̕ ͡a͡s̕ ̡well̀.̢"
"Okay," said Japan.
So the Mongols came over, ready for war, and died in a tornadotyphoon. But they tried again, and had a nice time fighting with the Japanese, but then died in a tornadotyphoon.
Then the emperor overthrows the shogunate, then the shogunate overthrows him back and moves to Kyoto, and makes a new shogunate. And the emperor can still dress like an emperor if he wants, that's fine.
♫♪ Now there's more art. ♪♫
Like painting with less colors, collaborative poetry, plays, monkey fun, tea parties, gardening, architecture, flowers.
