Japan is a unitary state to an extent whose only near parallel in the modern world is Egypt. Its geographical isolation and militaristic culture have not obliged the Japanese to make the sort of cultural and intellectual accommodations commonplace in other nations. The Japanese world view of cultural superiority, centred on the divine emperor, is remarkable in the depth to which it is held.

The near complete political and economic isolation imposed on the country in the early 17^th century has been uniquely successful. It ensured social stability and laid the foundation for the economic growth it is now experiencing. The price was unresponsive government, technological and social backwardness and a high proportion of gross domestic product spent on a now inadequate military.

The manifest inability of the shogunate leadership to deal with change has been illustrated by the increasingly frequent incursions into Japanese waters and ports by the navies of other nations, zeppelin overflights by Chinese and Russian craft and, most notably, the Avalonian Pacific Fleet’s forceful opening of diplomatic and trade relations.

The Japanese response to this, now almost overwhelming, technological and economic gap existing between them and the rest of the world will, it may be safely assumed, be a unique one.

The emperors of Japan have ruled in unbroken line of succession since 660 BC, legend has it, with the accession of the Emperor (Tenno) Jimmu, who was of divine origin. All Japanese believe this implicitly and while foreigners may doubt both the divinity and longevity of the imperial line, it is a fact that all immediate members of the imperial family are always sorcerers of varying degree and the imperial regalia are of great antiquity and power.

The current emperor is Mutsuhito, who has taken the reign name Meiji (Enlightened Ruler). Mutsuhito, only 19 years of age, came to power less than 12 months ago, with the death of his reactionary father, Komei. Mutsuhito is fully at one with the current feeling among the majority of the daimyo that reform of the political system is urgently needed. Resistance comes from a minority of the nobility and, most importantly, the current shogun, Iemochi.

The position of emperor has been little more than that of a figurehead for over 1000 years, true executive power residing with the shogunate. The focus of loyalty for all Japanese however, remains with the emperor. It remains to be seen whether a young, untried ruler can help overcome the forces of reaction and instigate the sweeping changes that will allow Japan to survive intact in the modern world.

The shogunate is one of the most successful feudal governments the world has known. For over 200 years it has maintained control, in every sense, of Japan in its entirety without recourse to significant military oppression of internal foes.

At the peak of the Japanese political structure stands the near powerless god-emperor. Immediately below him in status, but in possession of true political power stands the Shogun, head of the Tokugawa clan, which controls the bakufu (military government) and the major offices of the imperial court. Below these extend a further eight ranks of samurai nobility, who occupy all bureaucratic and military officer positions.

In common with other aristocratic systems, government is effected through a vast system of patronage. At the highest level the daimyo (feudal lords) are divided between the fudai (hereditary client vassals), who are awarded the choicest fiefs based on their long-standing loyalty to the Tokugawa; and the tozama (outer lords), traditional opponents.

A second element of control over the daimyo is achieved by considerable micro-management of their lives. All daimyo and their immediate families are required to spend six months of the year at the court in Edo. Also, the children of the nobility are required to come to Edo for their education, in schools created for that purpose. Thirdly, all daimyo must demonstrate considerable yearly public works spending within their fief up to a level set by the shogunate.

The merchant and artisan/proto-industrialist class is of modest size but very energetic. Their economic power can only be translated into the political realm through formal petition to the daimyo or the bakufu; or covertly, through funding of impecunious but well connected nobles.

The peasantry, comprising over 80% of the population, entirely lack political power or representation. They are held in place by a cultural convention of deference to authority and deliberate resistance to upsetting the status quo by the central authority. The popular devotion to the emperor is a crucial social glue and curb on unrest.

Criminal justice under the shogunate is arbitrary and excessively harsh. Torture is commonplace and execution a common punishment. Relatives and associates are often made to suffer the same punishment as the convicted criminal.

The peak "legal" body is the hyojosho, an essentially administrative body which reports directly to the shogun. The larger cities, Edo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nagehana, etc. have a city magistrate (mach-bugyo). By and large however, the fiefs are largely self-governing, with an arbitrative and subjective application of the law. The bakufu does not intervene unless there are reports of serious mis-government or activities which might threaten the shogunate.

Shinto is the "ancestral" religion of Japan, an animist faith that is the foundation of Japanese magic. Its essence is the worship of the kami (spirits, gods) that inhabit natural features and objects. There is no holy book or set of teachings. There is no one code of behaviour. So long as the kami are honoured in the manner they prefer, good harvests and fortune will follow. The most revered sites are enclosed by shrines, lesser ones indicated by stone or wooden markers or no formal indication at all. Environmental vandalism can have fatal, indeed other-worldly, consequences.

Confucianism was introduced from China in the 5^th century AD. It found favour with the Japanese aristocracy with its emphasis on social hierarchy, obligation and duty: everyone having their place and knowing it. They rejected however, the concept of the "mandate of heaven" determining the fate of the imperial line.

Buddhism arrived in the 6^th century AD. For decades there was conflict between the adherents of Buddhism and Shintoism, the latter arguing that the kami would be offended by the respect shown to a foreign deity. In time there was accommodation and the two became joint national religions. The argument went that the Buddhas and the kami were aspects of the same divine spirit. Buddhism gained favour for its emphasis on a single authority figure, which sat well with the imperial family and its fostering of education and the arts.

The early Japanese mindset was animistic. Both natural things and human beings were permeated by an individual vitality, a "vital spirit". Today we call this magic. However, the Western notion of sorcery as tapping an omnipresent thaumic field has little currency in Japan. Rather, Japanese magic demonstrates how crucially human perception of the world governs the manner in which magic may be manifested.

The universal initial animist mindset of Japan, in combination with the theme of ancestor worship, brought into existence (it is surmised) those entities known as kami. The translation of kami as "god" is a poor approximation. Kami are not at all anthropomorphic, but manifestations of place, where prolonged human devotion to a place of perceived significance (trees, boulders, mountains, etc) has enhanced existing or engendered long standing loci in the thaumic flux. These loci appear to have varying degrees of awareness and can be induced to interact with the material world by appropriate entreaty or offence. Manipulation of, and entreaty to, the kami constitutes the first of the two main threads of Japanese magic.

That the collective human will is a driving force behind the kami is indicated by the fact that kami have lifespans. They are "born", arising from some potential state in the environment and then "live" and "die", seemingly subject to human belief in their power and efficacy, those these "lifespans" can amount to many centuries. It has been found that the tendency of kami to focus on objects and localized areas can be exploited. Over the centuries, some kami have been induced to take up residence in particular objects, typically either a mirror or sword.* Some daimyo households have shrines with such centrepieces. The kami’s presence confers power and great prestige. Conversely, its "death" (perhaps through mere collapse of the magical wave function), is construed as a calamity. Magic is enhanced when performed in the presence of or through a kami: areas of effect, durations, etc are greater and higher level feats than normal can be achieved.

The second and more conventional, is the mastery of what might be described as "earth magic". A Japanese sorcerer, or maho-tsukai, tends to access magic as a function of the immediate environment, ie water, forest, summer, winter, etc. They are renowned as weather manipulators, healing with secret herbs, casters of illusions. All magic spells greater than trivial require a number of material components more or less proportional to the level of the spell. Maho-tsukai, without exception, carry a staff**, a consecrated object that may be regarded as a badge of office.

Sample Abilities:-

Trivial: Identify animal, plant, mineral; engender harugei (situational awareness of ones environment to a limited radius)

Minor: Summon animal; predict weather; cure/inflict disease; camouflage; question kami

Moderate: Alter appearance; heal injury; illusory environment

Superior: Affect localized weather; summon kami; create/destroy object; cause injury; call lightning

Legendary: Summon demon; cause death; control major weather effects

Given such a closed society, it is not surprising that impressions such as "hopelessly backward technology" and "fearful poverty" abound in the outside world. The reality, needless to say, is somewhat different.

Society is divided into four classes, the so-called shi-no-ko-sho, or samurai, farmer, artisan, merchant. There is little mobility between these classes. The samurai (derived from "to serve"), are the elite. At this time they number perhaps three million. The class encompasses the nobility of Japan, the officer class of the imperial army, the imperial bureaucracy and the bulk of the military forces of the daimyo. Loyalty unto death to their master and preservation of their honour are their paramount virtues.

The farmers are in theory highly regarded, in recognition of their provision of the essentials of life, but in practice are squeezed unmercifully, taxes being on the order of 50%.

The effective status of the artisan and merchant classes has been rising in recent decades due to the increase of industrialisation in Japan. Artisans and technicians ensure their rights and skills are honoured through their membership of guilds (za). Merchants, though held in contempt by samurai, are increasingly important as middlemen for the sale of the products of the towns and fiefs and as providers of funds, banking being a somewhat rudimentary service as yet.

Despite such conservatism, Japan is far from being economically backward, though its coal powered, steam driven technological base lags behind most of the world. Over 200 years of unbroken peace, combined with the shogunate mandated public works spending and capital investment of the daimyo, has laid the foundation for the birth of an economic giant. Japan possesses an infrastructure the envy of any country in the world. A dense web of railways and all-weather roads spans the entire country, despite the often difficult terrain, even far away Ezo (Hokkaido). Telephone communication is available down to the village level, almost all communities are fully sewered, with education, at least to a primary level, widely available. Literacy rates exceed 90% for males and over 40% for females. Secondary education caters to the artisan and merchant classes, while tertiary education is mostly the preserve of the samurai and is what might be called of a classical nature.

The best and brightest of the latter three classes are however, diverted to the technical institutions of Nagehana, producing high class engineering and research graduates for the city-state. Nagehana however, is entirely cut off from the rest of Japan. The Tokugawa, struggling to cope with the stresses modest industrialisation has wrought, fear the social transformations more potent and intrusive technologies might bring.

A thriving coastal steamer trade supplements the railways. Towns and cities compete to attract, or create, the technical and artisan populations required to maintain and grow an increasingly technological society. Sustained population increase has been coped with through increased rice production, though only at the cost of restrictions being placed on internal migration from rural areas to the burgeoning industrial towns. Lawlessness is very low due to plentiful law enforcement personnel, draconian penalties and social custom. Poor rice harvests have however, been known to lead to rioting.

Free access to the physical and intellectual resources of the wider world could well lead to the flowering of a considerable economic power.

The Shogunate is, after the Golden Horde, the most militarised society on earth. Every samurai male (and a significant number of females) receives weapon instruction from an early age and are thoroughly imbued with the bushido code. However, an efficient fighting force a militarised culture does not necessarily make.

The Japanese are not Clauswitzeans: war is not a continuation of politics by other means, but a perpetuation of culture. They have enthusiastically embraced those modern weapons that most closely conform to the zeitgeist of bushido, while rejecting others. The centrality of style to the samurai way of life-in armour, weapons, skill at arms, behaviour in battle-militates against coherent action in combat.

The provincial armies are the very embodiment of the traditional Japanese approach to warfare. Every daimyo (there are 302) maintains his own combat troops. These range from company to divisional strength in a wide variety of organisational formats. Uniformity of equipment is imposed through the bakufu being the sole legitimate source of weapons. Elite troops are the battlearmoured cavalry, equipped with power swords and light rocket launchers. The bulk of the troops are armoured infantry, armed with power melee weapons and rocket launchers. Security troops are usually unarmoured and equipped with a variety of firearms. Artillery, AFV’s, aircraft and energy weapons are unknown.

The imperial, in truth shogunate, army is rather different. The Tokugawa established their rule by three means: superior generalship, advanced technology and combat discipline. These advantages are maintained down to the present day through the activities of the military industrial city-state of Nagehana. Designated in the early 17^th century as the sole site in Japan for firearms production, it has grown over the centuries and is now responsible for weapon production, research and development, officer training and troop training.

The imperial army is more recognisably a modern combat force, though with notable omissions. Officers are professional, though promotion on merit is a relatively new phenomenon. There is a general staff and troops (ashigaru) fight cohesively as units. The preponderance of battlearmour cavalry and infantry is very high. Artillery, while plentiful is dated, being conventional tube and heavy unguided rockets using high explosive projectiles. It is also cumbersome, being towed by steam tractors. A few imported helicopters exist in a reconnaissance role, but aircraft, energy weapons and internal combustion engines are absent. It is hoped that recent developments in fuel cell production and railgun development will plug some of the larger holes in the army’s capabilities. A monopoly on firepower and discipline gives the imperial army its edge over any combination of domestic rivals.

The imperial navy is strictly a coastal defence organisation. Inability to roll heavy armour plate means naval units tend to be lightly armoured gunboat to cruiser sized units, bristling with conventional artillery.

Some mention should be made of the ninja. Operating as spies or commandos, unarmed or using "shadow" battlearmour, employing a host of ancient and modern combat techniques and even, it is said, harugei, the ninja are perhaps the most dangerous special forces in the world today.