My PhD dissertation’s last chapter, first image (submission due very soon).

Archival photograph: Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito)’s funeral procession departing the Imperial Palace main gate (1989).

Slowly chipping away - amid writing - at Iijima Naoki’s recent book on emperor-military relations, from the Meiji creation of the modern army and navy through the two world wars. It will be in my state-of-the-field review.

Crown Prince Hirohito at the Eiffel Tower, 1921.

Exciting to see the first volume (to end-1943) of the wartime diaries of Tsuboshima Fumio (1893–1959), aide-de-camp to Emperor Hirohito during the Pacific War, coming out soon.

Spoke on Saturday at ASCJ at Sophia University on Emperor Hirohito and the Cold War. A real pleasure to be part of such a thoughtful discussion - and many thanks to @rbjapan.bsky.social for organising it.

This corner, this calm.

To sit here now - where he lived - matcha in hand, light falling just so - and reflect not to solve Konoe, but to sit with the contradictions: charisma and drift, ambition and regret. The house does not explain him. But it lets him linger.

Here is the dining room, where I was allowed to sit - on the very chairs where guests once gathered and were entertained. You can picture Konoe - distant but focused, speaking softly while power reorganised itself around him. He governed by tone as much as by vision.

Designed by Itō Chūta, a leading architect, the villa fuses Japanese and Western forms - Taishō refinement with Shōwa shadows. Originally built in 1927 for Irisawa Tatsukichi, court physician to Emperor Taishō, it became a political crucible before turning into memory.

After his death, Yoshida Shigeru briefly stayed here. One dreamed aloud, the other managed what remained. Tekigai-sō held both.

He used this villa for political activity, forming his second and third cabinets here. In this drawing room, one of many important meetings he hosted was the Ogikubo Conference, held in July 1940. Konoe, Tōjō, Matsuoka.

This was the room - his study - where he ended his life on 16 December 1945, before GHQ could arrest him. For a man who once embodied Japan’s hopes for modern imperial leadership, it was not simply political escape.

Tekigai-sō - Konoe Fumimaro’s final residence. A quiet villa in Suginami, but once the site of urgent decisions, unfulfilled ideals, and the long shadow of Japan’s imperial end. A house that felt the fall of empire - and the postwar state that rose from its ruins.

Still adjusting to Tokyo time, but glad to have presented last week on Emperor Hirohito and 20th-Century Japanese Diplomacy. Grateful for the thoughtful engagement and sharp questions from Japanese colleagues.

On this day in 1936, a group of young officers launched a violent coup in Tokyo, driven by radical ideals of restoring power to the Emperor. What followed was a political crisis that shook the throne of Emperor Hirohito and left scars that would haunt him for decades.

Manchukuo’s top Chinese & Japanese leaders at the Kantō Army’s headquarters in Fengtian, 16 Feb. 1932. A striking image that highlights the complexity of Chinese national ideals within Manchukuo, reminding us of the significance of examining their role in shaping its development between 1932 & 1937.

I was fortunate to be at Blue Note for his last performance, and none of us knew it would be the final one. Such a heartbreaking loss.