Anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English,anime refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However,in Japan and Japanese,anime describes all animated works,regardless of style or origin. Many works of animation with a similar style to Japanese animation are also produced outside Japan. Video games sometimes also feature themes and art styles that are sometimes labelled as anime.
Hirohito,posthumously honored as Emperor Shōwa,was the 124th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession,reigning from 1926 until his death in 1989. He was one of the longest-reigning monarchs in the world,with his reign of 62 years being the longest of any Japanese emperor.
Japan is an island country in East Asia. It is in the northwest Pacific Ocean and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan,extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea,Philippine Sea,and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire,and spans an archipelago of 14,125 islands,with the four main islands being Hokkaido,Honshu,Shikoku,and Kyushu. Tokyo is the country's capital and largest city,followed by Yokohama,Osaka,Nagoya,Sapporo,Fukuoka,Kobe,and Kyoto.
Japanese is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people. It has around 120 million speakers,primarily in Japan,the only country where it is the national language,and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide.
Manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century,and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term manga is used in Japan to refer to both comics and cartooning. Outside of Japan,the word is typically used to refer to comics originally published in Japan.
Shinto is a religion originating from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion,its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners Shintoists,although adherents rarely use that term themselves. There is no central authority in control of Shinto,with much diversity of belief and practice evident among practitioners.
Shogun,officially sei-i taishōgun,was the title of the military rulers of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor,shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country,except during part of the Kamakura period and Sengoku period when the shoguns themselves were figureheads,with real power in the hands of the shikken (執権) of the Hōjōclan and kanrei (管領) of the Hosokawa clan. In addition,Taira no Kiyomori and Toyotomi Hideyoshi were leaders of the warrior class who did not hold the position of shogun,the highest office of the warrior class,yet gained the positions of daijō-daijin and kampaku,the highest offices of the aristocratic class. As such,they ran their governments as its de facto rulers.
Tokyo,officially the Tokyo Metropolis,is the capital city of Japan and one of the most populous cities in the world,with a population of over 14 million residents as of 2023. The Greater Tokyo Area,which includes Tokyo and parts of six neighbouring prefectures,is the most-populous metropolitan area in the world,with 40.8 million residents as of 2023.
World War II or the Second World War was a global conflict between two alliances:the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries,including all of the great powers,participated in the conflict,and many invested all available economic,industrial,and scientific capabilities in pursuit of total war,blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role,enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and delivery of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. It was by far the deadliest conflict in history,resulting in 70–85 million fatalities. Millions died due to genocides,including the Holocaust,as well as starvation,massacres,and disease. In the wake of Axis defeat,Germany,Austria,Japan and Korea were occupied,and war crime tribunals were conducted against German and Japanese leaders.
The Russo-Japanese War was fought between the Japanese Empire and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1905 over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major theatres of military operations were in the Liaodong Peninsula and Mukden in Southern Manchuria,the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan.
The Nanjing Massacre or the Rape of Nanjing was the mass murder of Chinese civilians in Nanjing,the capital of the Republic of China,immediately after the Battle of Nanking and the retreat of the National Revolutionary Army in the Second Sino-Japanese War,by the Imperial Japanese Army. Beginning on December 13,1937,the massacre lasted six weeks. The perpetrators also committed other war crimes such as mass rape,looting,torture,and arson. The massacre is considered to be one of the worst wartime atrocities.
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu,Hawaii,in the United States,just before 8:00 a.m. on Sunday,December 7,1941. At the time,the United States was a neutral country in the World War II conflict. The attack on Hawaii and other U.S. territories led the United States to formally enter World War II on the side of the Allies the day following the attack,on December 8,1941. The Japanese military leadership referred to the attack as the Hawaii Operation and Operation AI,and as Operation Z during its planning.
The Second Sino-Japanese War was the war fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from 1937 to 1945 as part of World War II. It is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia. It was the largest Asian war in the 20th century and has been described as "the Asian Holocaust",in reference to the scale of Japanese war crimes against Chinese civilians. It is known in Japan as the Second China–Japan War,and in China as the Chinese War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.
The Empire of Japan,also referred to as the Japanese Empire,Imperial Japan,or simply Japan,was the Japanese nation-state that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the reformed Constitution of Japan in 1947. From 29 August 1910 to 2 September 1945,the Empire of Japan included present-day Japan,Kuril,Karafuto,Korea,and Taiwan. It also ruled colonies such as Kwantung,South Seas,Mantetsu,and concessions. In the closing stages of World War II,with Japan defeated alongside the rest of the Axis,on 2 September 1945 the formalized Japanese Instrument of Surrender was issued in compliance with the Potsdam Declaration of the victorious Allies;and Japanese territory was immediately much reduced when lost Taiwan,Korea,Kuril and Karafuto as it is today.
Unit 731,short for Manchu Detachment 731 and also known as the Kamo Detachment and the Ishii Unit,was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentation and biological weapons manufacturing during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. Estimates vary as to how many were killed. Between 1936 to 1945,roughly 14,000 victims were murdered in Unit 731. An estimate of at least 300,000 individuals are estimated to have died to infectious illnesses caused by the activities of Unit 731 and its affiliated research facilities. It was based in the Pingfang district of Harbin,the largest city in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo and had active branch offices throughout China and Southeast Asia.
The Pacific War,sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War or the Pacific Theater,was the theater of World War II that was fought in eastern Asia,the Pacific Ocean,the Indian Ocean,and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war,including the Pacific Ocean theater,the South West Pacific theater,the Second Sino-Japanese War,and the Soviet–Japanese War in the last few months of the war.
One Piece is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda. It has been serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump since July 1997,with its individual chapters compiled in 108 tankōbon volumes as of March 2024. The story follows the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy and his crew,the Straw Hat Pirates,where he explores the Grand Line in search of the mythical treasure known as the "One Piece" in order to become the next King of the Pirates.
The 2020 Summer Olympics,officially the Games of the XXXII Olympiad and officially branded as Tokyo 2020,were an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo,Japan,with some preliminary events that began on 21 July 2021. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires,Argentina on 7 September 2013.
On 6 and 9 August 1945,the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people,most of whom were civilians,and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict. Japan surrendered to the Allies on 15 August,six days after the bombing of Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan and invasion of Japanese-occupied Manchuria. The Japanese government signed the instrument of surrender on 2 September,effectively ending the war.
The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to the Paleolithic,around 38–39,000 years ago. The Jōmon period,named after its cord-marked pottery,was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC when new inventions were introduced from Asia. During this period,the first known written reference to Japan was recorded in the Chinese Book of Han in the first century AD.
