We embark on a 4-part journey through the life and death of Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest-running Prime Minister, who just so happened to get assassinated in May of 2022. As we shall discover, perhaps the damage had already been done by that point...

Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page, and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast that we do together, Not Another Film podcast.

You can also find me on Twitter @sequencepod, or you can listen to my other podcasts Final Fanservice and Not Another Film on any big podcast app.

Sources:

• Tobias Harris - The Iconoclast: Shinzo Abe and the New Japan
• The Nation - Abe denies Japanese war crimes
• The Nation - Japan attempts to erase history
• BBC News - Obituary for Shinzo Abe
• The Economist - Biography of Shinzo Abe
• FP - Abe's Ultranationalism destroyed diplomatic ties with China
• Asia Society - Abe denies the use of "Comfort Women" by Japan
• Wikipedia - Shinzo Abe

This is the tale of the rise of fascism in Japan, from its origins in Mussolini's Italy to the first bumbling attempts at coups by clandestine organisations. One of the most unlikely people who became embroiled in one such coup was the legendary comedic actor Charlie Chaplin.

Today's guest is Cami! You can find her via her Twitter page!

You can also find me on Twitter @sequencepod, or you can listen to my other podcasts Final Fanservice and Not Another Film on any big podcast app.

Sources:

• Japan Today - Charlie Chaplin narrowly escaped assassination
• Medium - That time Charlie Chaplin almost got assassinated
• The Vintage News - Charlie Chaplin was nearly assassinated in Japan in 1932
• Terror in Japan by Mathew Legare
• Reto Hoffman - The Fascist Effect
• Wikipedia - The League of Blood

We continue our exploration of Shinzo Abe's greatest influence on his life, the war criminal Nobusuke Kishi. This episode we cover his life after being released from prison, and his highly successful and Machiavellian return to politics. What a piece of shit.

Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page, and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast that we do together, Not Another Film podcast.

You can also find me on Twitter @sequencepod, or you can listen to my other podcasts Final Fanservice and Not Another Film on any big podcast app.

Sources:

• Absolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque, by Mark Driscoll
• Japan at the Crossroads, by Nick Kapur
• Nobusuke Kishi - Wikipedia

To begin a long series on the life and death of Shinzo Abe, we must first look at the most influential person in Abe's life - his maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi. Beginning his career in 1930s Manchuria, Kishi would eventually be one of the central architects of post-war Japan.

Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page, and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast that we do together, Not Another Film podcast.

You can also find me on Twitter @sequencepod, or you can listen to my other podcasts Final Fanservice and Not Another Film on any big podcast app.

Sources:

• Absolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque, by Mark Driscoll
• Japan at the Crossroads, by Nick Kapur 
• Nobusuke Kishi - Wikipedia

In 1961, a new Disneyland was due to open in the city of Nara. This would have been the second Disneyland in the world, a replica of the Anaheim original, and a monument of America's cultural dominance across the world. Nara Disneyland never happened, but what we got instead was something far more beautiful. 

Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page, and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast that we do together, Not Another Film podcast.

You can also find me on Twitter @sequencepod, or you can listen to my other podcasts Final Fanservice and Not Another Film on any big podcast app.

Sources:

• Defunctland: The History of Nara Dreamland 
• World Abandoned 
• Matterhorn 1959: Stuff from the Park
• Video of Nara Dreamland in 2000 
• SoraNews24 - Is Osaka's Bic Camera Haunted?
• Unseen Japan 

Tokyo Rose was an infamous radio host operating during WWII, helping to spread pernicious Japanese propaganda with the aim of breaking the spirits of Allied troops. Despite the fact that the US State Department would eventually claim that a Japanese American woman, Iva Toguri, was the culprit, the truth is that Tokyo Rose never even existed. 

Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page, and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast that we do together, Not Another Film podcast.

For more content follow me on @hikikomoripodcast on Instagram where I'll be posting photos relevant to this episode!

You can also find me on Twitter @sequencepod, or you can listen to my other podcasts Final Fanservice and Not Another Film on any big podcast app.

Sources:

• The Guardian - Obituary of Iva Toguri
• PBS History Detectives - Transcript
• John Juji Hada - The Indictment And Trial of Iva Ikuko Toguri D’Aquino - “Tokyo Rose”
• Chicago Tribune - '91 Retrospective on Iva Toguri
• The National Registry of Exonerations 
• CBS - '76 Report on Iva Toguri
• Military History Wiki - Zero Hour
• FBI Website - Iva Toguri and Tokyo Rose
• Wikipedia - Iva Toguri D'Aquino
• Wikipedia - Tokyo Rose

We've made it. The final chapter in the fate of the legendary Shinsengumi. As the reign of the Tokugawa is in its death throes, Kondo Isami gets repeatedly promoted, seemingly unaware that he's being made the captain of a sinking ship. By the time he realises, it's far too late, and Isami might be denied his "beautiful death" of Seppuku.

Today's guest is Carly Shields! You can find her via her Twitter page, or listen to the excellent Greetings Adventurers podcast for which she helps produce!

For more content follow me on @hikikomoripodcast on Instagram where I'll be posting photos relevant to this episode!

You can also find me on Twitter @sequencepod, or you can listen to my other podcasts Final Fanservice and Not Another Film on any big podcast app.

Sources:

• Shinsengumi: The Shogun's Last Samurai Corps by Romulus Hillsborough (2005)

The final tale of the storied Shinsengumi... split up into 2 parts. Kondo, head of the Shinsengumi, begins to have a taste of the power he always sought, even as Japan falls into the turmoil of the Boshin war. 

Today's guest is Carly Shields! You can find her via her Twitter page, or listen to the excellent Greetings Adventurers podcast for which she helps produce!

For more content follow me on @hikikomoripodcast on Instagram where I'll be posting photos relevant to this episode!

You can also find me on Twitter @sequencepod, or you can listen to my other podcasts Final Fanservice and Not Another Film on any big podcast app.

Sources:

• Shinsengumi: The Shogun's Last Samurai Corps by Romulus Hillsborough (2005)

Sumo Wrestling is the national sport of Japan, and has been practiced in some form for most likely around 2000 years. It prides itself on its integrity, honor and sportsmanship, and yet considering the innumerable scandals the sport has faced in the past 20 years alone, it could be argued that Sumo is not, in fact, a sport at all.

Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page, and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast that we do together, Not Another Film podcast.

For more content follow me on @hikikomoripodcast on Instagram where I'll be posting photos relevant to this episode!

You can also find me on Twitter @sequencepod, or you can listen to my other podcasts Final Fanservice and Not Another Film on any big podcast app.

Sources:

• Freakonomics clip on sumo match-fixing
• AP - Japan mayor saved by nurse says female sumo ban irrelevant
• Aljazeera documentary on sumo
• NPR piece on corruption in sumo
• Japan Times - Sumo links to Yakuza
• The Guardian - Does Sumo need saving?
• Wikipedia - Shinto origins of Sumo
• Wikipedia - The Tokitsukaze Hazing Scandal

Content Warning: Spree Killing by Firearms

Despite the social phenomenon of the violent Incel being associated with the advent of the internet, the Tsuyama Massacre of 1938 feels unnervingly recognisable. This is the story of the sack of shit Mutsuo Toi.

Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page, and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast that we do together, Not Another Film podcast.

You can also find me on Twitter @sequencepod, or you can listen to my other podcasts Final Fanservice and Not Another Film on any big podcast app.

Sources:

• Murderpedia article
• English Academic 
• Medium blogpost by S.A. Ozbourne
• Twitter thread by @poondonkus on Tsuyama as a trope
• Alpha-net blogpost by Knight 9
• Love and Life in Southwestern Japan, Journal of Comparative Family Studies by Emiko Ochiai
• Japanese Wikipedia on the Tsuyama Massacre