JidaigekiJidaigeki is a genre of film, television, video game, and theatre in Japan. Literally meaning "period dramas", they are most often set during the Edo period of Japanese history, from 1603 to 1868. Some are set much earlier—Portrait of Hell, for example, is set during the late Heian period—and the early Meiji era is also a popular setting. Jidaigeki show the lives of the samurai, farmers, craftsmen, and merchants of their time. Jidaigeki films are sometimes referred to as chambara movies, a word meaning "sword fight", though chambara is more accurately a subgenre of jidaigeki.
Edo periodThe Edo period or Tokugawa period is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional daimyo. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characterized by economic growth, strict social order, isolationist foreign policies, a stable population, perpetual peace, and popular enjoyment of arts and culture, colloquially referred to as Oedo.
EdoEdo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a jōkamachi (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the de facto capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate. Edo grew to become one of the largest cities in the world under the Tokugawa. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868 the Meiji government renamed Edo as Tokyo (, "Eastern Capital") and relocated the Emperor from the historic capital of Kyoto to the city.
NinjaA ninja (忍者; ɲiꜜɲdʑa) or shinobi (忍び; ɕinobi) was a covert agent, mercenary, or guerrilla warfare expert in feudal Japan. The functions of a ninja included siege and infiltration, ambush, reconnaissance, espionage, deception, and later bodyguarding and their fighting skills in martial arts, including ninjutsu. Their covert methods of waging irregular warfare were deemed dishonorable and beneath the honor of the samurai.
Mount Fuji, located on the island of Honshū, is an active stratovolcano in Japan, with a summit elevation of . It is the tallest mountain in Japan, the second-highest volcano located on an island in Asia (after Mount Kerinci on the island of Sumatra), and seventh-highest peak of an island on Earth. Mount Fuji last erupted from 1707 to 1708. The mountain is located about southwest of Tokyo and is visible from there on clear days.
Tokugawa shogunateThe Tokugawa shogunate (ˌtɒkuːˈgɑːwə ; Tokugawa bakufu, tokɯŋawa baꜜkɯ̥ɸɯ), also known as the Edo shogunate, was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars of the Sengoku period following the collapse of the Ashikaga shogunate. Ieyasu became the shōgun, and the Tokugawa clan governed Japan from Edo Castle in the eastern city of Edo (Tokyo) along with the daimyō lords of the samurai class.
DejimaDejima or Deshima, in the 17th century also called Tsukishima ( 築島, "built island"), was an artificial island off Nagasaki, Japan that served as a trading post for the Portuguese (1570–1639) and subsequently the Dutch (1641–1854). For 220 years, it was the central conduit for foreign trade and cultural exchange with Japan during the isolationist Edo period (1600–1869), and the only Japanese territory open to Westerners. Spanning or , Dejima was created in 1636 by digging a canal through a small peninsula and linking it to the mainland with a small bridge.
