Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast episode 569, The Revolutionary, Part 4.

Last week, we covered one of the first major events in the age of violent student protest in

Japan, the so-called Sol Dai struggle of 1966. That term, Sol Dai, is, by the way, just another way of saying Waseda University.

The so is a variant reading of the Wa in Waseda, and the Dai comes from Daigaku or university.

So it's shorthand in the same way that, say, students at the University of Washington

never call it that, it's always the U-dub. Anyway, the Sol-Dai struggle matters for our story, of course, never call it that it's always the U-dub.

Anyway, the Soldai struggle matters for our story, of course, because Miyazaki Manabu was there for it and helped shape it in his career as a college activist.

But it's also important to the wider history of this era, because despite its failure

to do much more than force some resignations

from the University Board of Trustees and disrupt some exams, it would not be the last

student protest of the era.

Those protests would only grow in 1967 and especially 1968 and 69.

But as they did,

things would take on a different tenor.

In 1966,

things were still pretty,

for lack of a better word,

calm.

Which might seem odd

given the things we talked about

last week,

clashes between left and right-wing students,

...