A Handful of Yokai- East and West

While this blog’s monster hunting in Japan caught bucket-loads of adventures and encounters, London remains the undisputed champion setting of Victoriana. It’s time to bring our fire babies, snail ladies, and visually acute privates back home to the streets of 1850s London through the examination of Japanese-English relations.

At first glance, there is very little historic room for Japanese/English cultural exchange before the 1860s, let alone a bunch of crazy Japanese monsters. Fearful of western imperialism and the growing wealth of Japanese merchants, the Tokugawa shogunate restricted all international trade in Japan and banned its population from traveling abroad in the early 1600s.  The Japanese government exclusively traded with Dutch and Chinese ships and restricted these ships to dock only at the port of Nagasaki. Japan’s isolation lasted until July 8, 1853, when a fleet of modern American warships sent by President Millard Fillmore arrived at Edo bay threatening to either open trade relations with Japan or burn their capital city of Edo to the ground. Japan and America signed “the Treaty of Peace and Amity” in 1854 forcibly opening the island nation to American diplomacy and trade.

A mere month, after the American fleet arrived, a Russian fleet arrived in Nagasaki with a similar plan. Alarmed that their foe in the Crimean War could gain a peaceful toehold in Japan, the British government sent its own fleet led by Vice Admiral James Stirling to attack the Russian Fleet and to prevent the Japanese from aiding the Russians in the war. Stirling’s negotiations with the Shogunate bore unexpected fruit: not only did Japan remain neutral, but Stirling also opened up the country for British trade. The combination of the threatening sight of Stirling’s fleet, the hope of British forces deterring Russian advances into Japanese territory, memories of the American fleet’s recent demands, and near-constant miscommunication between translators led to the Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty of 1854. The treaty opened Nagasaki and Hakodate to British ships and gave citizens of the British Empire the same rights as the Chinese or Dutch in Japan. The first British consulate to Japan opened in 1858. However, Stirling never got around to seeking and destroying the Russian fleet.

Japan took its biggest step in European relations in 1862 when the shogunate sent the First Japanese Embassy to Europe. This diplomatic mission consisted of forty bureaucrats, negotiators, and young samurai traveling through Europe on a mission to learn about the western world and delay unwanted clauses in certain treaties. These men explored all the major cities of Europe, watching Europeans in all strata of society with unquenchable curiosity. In London, the mission visited an opium den, noticing with pride it was full of English and Chinese addicts.

Now exposed to Japanese culture, Europe hungered for Japanese craftsmanship, and style. Creators of fashion, furniture, and art mingled their designs with Japanese simplicity and strength. The craze in England culminated in the Japanese Village Exhibition of 1885, wherein an entire Japanese village, complete with 100 Japanese men and women employed to populate the village, was replicated and displayed in London. In return, European technology and scientific advancements trickled into Japan through the late 1800s.

Adventure Ideas:

Japan and Russia have a mutual tradition tension over their respective nation's territories. Perhaps a secret diplomatic mission visited London to discuss the possibility of opening a new front against Russia in the East. A faction in the Japanese government sends Yokai to sabotage the proposed alliance.

Legends fill the waters surrounding Japan with numerous insidious Yokai. Whether they defend their nation or rampage through the waves, the foreign fleets seeking parley in the shogunate’s harbors brave these terrors or perhaps risk bringing something back to their home waters.

For 200 years, the Dutch formed the bottleneck between Japan and Europe. Once accidental English diplomacy opens up trade, greedy Dutch merchants seek the help of dangerous Yokai to make London shipping magnates think twice about intruding on their business.