One day, people showed up on the Japanese islands from northern Asia. They make a culture and civilisation out of worshipping and hunting bears.

Skip forward a few thousand years, and some people from southern and central Asia show up with some sort of hunting and gathering techniques. They sort of get to know the people in the north (ainu) and adopt some of their culture and religion. Some interbreed.

Then a few hundred years go by and some more people from Asia come in, and bring with them cultivation and farming techniques. They florish along with the original two cultures and begin intermixing. These people are later called the Yamato people, and still account for 99% of the gene pool in Japan today.

Somewhere along the lines of these three migrations, a clan of priests and priestesses comes about that is thought of as sort of the spiritual leaders of the country. More on that later.

Then a while passes, and a big empire in China called the T'ang comes about. They are pretty cool, make cool cities, have a cool society and have this interesting writing system and language. They bring Buddhism, an originally Indian religion, to Korea and then sends missionaries to the islands. The Yamato thinks the T'ang is so cool, they start copying them. They start speaking Chinese in the government, write in Chinese, and practice buddhism. The original religion on Japan is called Shinto, which is a polytheistic religion that worships nature and thinks there is a spirit in everything. People writing Japanese take Chinese characters and add Japanese pronunciations to them. You know that high priest family I mentioned last paragraph? They become the Imperial family, and the Emperor (天皇)sends a message to the T'ang Emperor in Chinese, and addresses it from the Emperor of the Sun's source (日乃本) to the Emperor of the setting sun. This term becomes shortened to 日本 (Nippon, Nihon), the name of Japan today. The court then wrote a history of their nation in which they said the first Emperor, Jimmu-tennou, united Japan in 660 BCE, and that this and all of the imperial family is descended from Amaterasu, the Sun Haruhidess and Haruhi of Japan

Because the Chinese characters were so hard to write, some people made simplified versions of them to use to write phonetic Japanese. Two character sets came from this: Hiragana, which was originally cursive-like simplified Chinese characters, and Katakana, which is made of parts of the characters. These are shunned by the educated Japanese who preferred to write in poor Chinese. But eventually they win, and the Tale of Genji is written in 1000 entirely in hiragana.

Throughout the course of the history, a caste system is created where ruling warrior classes are the top of society and others are lower classes. The ruling classes are called Samurai. Daimyo are the leaders of Samurai.

Then a bunch of wars happened, and a jumble called the Sengoku period comes about, and the emperor appoints shoguns, or military rulers, to try to unite Japan. This happens for a while. Eventually Oda Nobunaga, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu come out on top for being badass. Hideyoshi Toyotomi actually took over the Korean peninsula for a while. Tokugawa kills Toyotomi's entire family at Osaka castle.

Then one day Europeans come into Japan. First by accident, then on purpose. They bring christianity with them. This made the shogun at the time, Tokugawa, very angry. He shuts off the entire country to trade, moves the capital of Japan from Kyoto to Edo, and makes sort of a feudal dictatorship.

Then nothing happens for, oh, 200 years. The Dutch have a trading island in Nagasaki but other than that, only about a dozen or so outsiders see Japan.

Then some asshole brings a bunch of steamships into Edo bay, and tells the shogun that he has to open Japan to trade in six months or he'll personally blow his head off, then leaves. The ruling class gets all scared and decides they can't go against these crazy white futurepeople.

Then that asshole comes back three months later. (That asshole is Matthew Perry. Not the actor on *Friends*, but an admiral.)

Japan then opens trade with the outside world. The shogun gives his power to the emperor, at this time, Meiji, and he begins modernising Japan. Japan then drafts a western-style constitution, and becomes a pretty major power.

Then they pretty much kick the shit out of the Russian navy and get Korea from them. Korea is pretty apathetic at this time, and Japan begins modernising the country.

Then Meiji dies. His son, later called the Taisho emperor comes to power. This guy is pretty insane and is sort of aloof. He doesn't do much, so the elected government decides to take control. A lot of progression happens, and Taisho Japan looks more and more like a democracy. Also, Japan fights Germany alongside the allies in the Pacific, and wins all their territories. This is when Japan really starts to become an empire. But the League of Nations limits Japan's proud navy, and they get a bit upset.

Then Taisho dies, and his son, the Shouwa emperor, takes power. Also, the strengthened government is taken over by a bunch of militarist douchebags. They call for a return to the ancient Japan before T'ang influence. They join the other nations who got the shit end of the Versailles Treaty, Germany and Italy. They start a campaign of being jerkoffs to Korea and invading China, and say they want to liberate Asia from the Western Powers. India likes this idea and starts fighting the Brits. Japan takes over most of Northern China, and America doesn't like this, so they start keeping themselves from trading with Japan and doesn't let Japanese ex-pats become citizens. So Japan gets a bit upset. Then a bunch of military leaders decide to act like fourteen-year-olds and slap the Brits and Americans in the face by invading Hong Kong, the Phillippines, and bombing Pearl Harbour. Pearl Harbour, of course, being an almost utter idiotic bombing because it didn't give Japan any sort of upper hand, just pissed off a bunch of sailors and made them all have to clean up their port. Also that makes Germany declare war on the US.

Then Japan takes over a lot of the Pacific ocean, and takes a bunch of islands off the coast of Alaska, the Phillipines, China(in the middle of a civil war), and Burma. The Imperial Japanese Navy acts all gentlemanly, while the Imperial Japanese Army is a bunch of rape-happy monkeys running around and killing for sport.

Then Japan starts starving itself for the war effort. They lose a lot of ground, and then are basically not able to fight the war they are fighting.

The Allies tell Japan to unconditionally surrender. Japan thinks this means the Emperor will be killed, so they say "no!" Then the Americans drop an atom bomb on Hiroshima (non-military and highly populated target), killing about 100,000 people. The leaders pretty much laugh at this, but then Russia declares war on Japan, and shit gets serious. They start thinking of a way to surrender to the US so they can stay away from Russia, who fucked Germany up pretty bad. Then the US dropped another atom bomb on Nagasaki three days after Hiroshima, 70,000 die, and Japan hastily surrenders to the US. By this time, Russia had taken over half of Korea and all the land that Japan had won in north China in 5 years in about five days.

Then a bunch of Americans went to Japan, including General MacArthur, who took over Japan as an occupying force. He made Japan completely remake their government, but he let the emperor keep his throne in a similar manner that the Queen of England keeps hers. All the while more than a few of his soldiers end up raping a lot of the girls. Japan after this adopted a constitution that as long as that constitution is held in Japan, Japan can't declare war. Also Japan was pretty much a wreck.

Then Japan won its self-autonomy back with the San Francisco treaty in 1952.

Then, in 1953, South Korea invaded a deserted rock in the middle of the Sea of Japan, and said it was a victory against Japan. This is a hotly contested debate where Korea is in blind rage while Japan isn't really thinking of it as a big deal. It's sort of the international equivalent of some guy taking $5 from your wallet. You want it back, but you're not about to have a screaming match with him, even if he is screaming at you.

Then Japan made a military force to keep it safe, called the Self Defence Force.

Then they made comics and cartoons that became popular because live cinema sucked.

Then Japan became a world economy in the seventies. This is also when the US gave Okinawa back to Japan.

Then Japan started making comics, cartoons, and cars that people all over the world loved.

Then a bunch of people including Michael Crichton said Japan is a bunch of business nazis trying to take over the US. Nixon and Reagan agreed and pissed on Japan diplomatically and showed preference for the communist Chinese.

Japan didn't care, they had their cars and stuff, and were the third largest economy in the world behind the US and the Soviet Union.

Then the Shouwa emperor died. His son became Emperor, and is now the current emperor. After he dies he will be called the Heisei emperor.

Then Japan had the second largest economy in the world.

Then Japan's economy got really good. This was called the Heisei bubble economy.

Then the economy went south.

Then Manga and anime became popular around the world, and better and better anime and manga were made.

But then a bunch of anime fans decided to commit crimes and most of Japan hate anime and anime fans as a whole.

But then the government decided that this was one of the few things that made people think Japan was relevant, so they started making it a diplomatic tool.

Then China passed Japan as the second largest economy in the world.

Then the anime and manga industries started becoming less and less popular.

Then the governor of Tokyo said manga and anime were bad after watching some of the creepy porn Japan made, and banned anime and manga with sexual themes, despite writing a book about a man who raped a schoolgirl by sticking his penis through a paper door.

Then an earthquake screwed Japan up for a while, and they are still recovering.

Now Japan is sort of slipping in its standing in the world, less and less publishers are publishing manga and localising anime and games, the economy is getting worse, a nuclear disaster is actively being contained, and conspiracy theorists and tea party people are saying Japan is trying to destroy the world.

To be continued...?