Happy Families

Published: April 24, 2018, 10 p.m.

Delving further into the darker sides of Japan's recent history, Christopher Harding explores two starkly contrasting models of \u2018family\u2019 in turn-of-the-century Japan. One was a neo-Victorian idyll, epitomised by the emperor serving as the benevolent head of a national family; the other was symbolised by a woman who joined a group of anarchists plotting to assassinate the emperor and by feminists who opposed "the heavy investment of powerful people in this familial ideal."

Producer: Sheila Cook