Taisho Era

World War I began after the assassination of the Austrian archduke, known as the Sarajevo Incident.
The Triple Entente (the UK, France, and Russia) and the Triple Alliance (Germany, Italy, and Austria) fought on a massive scale across Europe. Japan also entered the war under the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and fought Germany.

During this period, Japan moved to expand its influence on the Asian mainland, including presenting China with the Twenty-One Demands and joining the UK, the US, and France in the Siberian Intervention to obstruct the Russian Revolution.

Japan escaped direct damage from World War I, and exports surged, creating an unprecedented economic boom later known as the “wartime boom.”
But the boom was followed by a backlash, and a downturn known as the postwar recession arrived.
At home, shortages drove prices up, squeezing daily life, and rice riots spread across the country.

Then, in 1923, the Great Kanto Earthquake struck, pushing Japan into a prolonged slump.
In 1920, the League of Nations was established to maintain international peace, reflecting on the immense devastation of World War I. From the start, Japan served as a permanent council member.

In Japan, democratic and liberal ideas spread during World War I.
The driving force was the Taisho Democracy movement.

Taisho Democracy is an umbrella term for various liberal and democratic movements.
It is highly regarded as the birth of democracy in Japan.

It expanded beyond politics into society and culture.
Movements such as the women’s liberation movement, the Buraku discrimination abolition movement, and the universal suffrage movement emerged, reshaping society.

In 1925, universal male suffrage was established, granting voting rights to all adult men aged 25 and over. This created a foundation for national politics to require public consent.

Artists in the Taisho Era incorporated Western culture into their own work.

One of the best-known figures of Taisho Roman is Takehisa Yumeji. His lyrical bijinga appeared on the covers of many magazines and sheet-music collections. His work went beyond painting, he also wrote poems and children’s songs. His legacy can be seen as a forerunner of modern art in Japan.

In nihonga (Japanese-style painting), many works depicted “women” in ways that went beyond simple “beauty.” A well-known example is Yokogushi by Kaishō Tadaoto, which portrays an eerie allure. Subjects were generally people, often women, with very few landscapes. He is considered a leading decadence painter, symbolizing the darker mood of the late Taisho period.

The painter Yorozu Tetsugoro also stood out as an exceptional talent. From Towa Town in Waga District, Iwate (now part of Hanamaki City), he is credited as a pioneer who introduced Fauvism, then an avant-garde style, to Japan’s Western-style painting scene.

Taisho-era architecture is known for blending Japanese and Western elements.
Many public buildings, such as government offices, schools, and Tokyo Station, were built in Western-style designs. For private homes, people began pairing Japanese-style architecture with Western fixtures and furniture.
By the mid-Taisho period, “bunka jutaku” (culture houses) that adopted Western-style living became widely built as homes for the general public.

Iconic Taisho-era landmarks include Tokyo Station, the former Imperial Hotel, and the Former Asakura Residence.
Tokyo Station was designed by architect Tatsuno Kingo and completed in 1914.
The former Imperial Hotel was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, inspired by Byodo-in Phoenix Hall. However, the massive hotel, said to resemble an eagle with spread wings, no longer exists.
The Former Asakura Residence was the home of Asakura Torajiro, who served as Shibuya Ward Assembly chairman and Tokyo Prefectural Assembly chairman, and it is designated an Important Cultural Property.
Visiting surviving Taisho-era buildings is a great way to experience Taisho Roman firsthand.

Taisho-era fashion also blended Japanese and Western styles.
Back then, Western-influenced and novel styles were called “haikara.”
Men often wore suits with shirts and ties, plus round glasses or a bowler hat. Women embraced looks like kimono paired with boots.

As haikara spread, “bankara” fashion also became popular.
It pushed back against Westernized style, featuring a stand-collar shirt with hakama and kimono, a student cap, and geta, a rough-and-tumble look known as the classic bankara style.

Chabudai (low dining tables) were fairly widespread, but in the early Taisho period many people still ate from individual trays.
A popular household item was the hakosen, a box-like personal tray set. Bowls and chopsticks were stored inside, and at mealtime the lid was flipped over and used as a tray to eat on.
As the era progressed, more households shifted from personal trays to chabudai.

Laundry, one of the most water-intensive chores, was often done around shared wells.
While washing, housewives chatted and exchanged all kinds of information.
The term “idobata kaigi” (wellside chat) is still used today, and this was the original meaning of it.
Back alleys also served as social hubs much like wells did.
Rather than meeting in polished settings like cafes, people connected in the places where they lived day to day, showing how much closer communities felt than they often do now.

In the late Taisho period, the starting monthly salary for a university graduate office worker was 50–60 yen.
The average monthly pay for working women was 40 yen for typists, 35 yen for telephone operators, and 30 yen for clerks.
Taxis began operating in the Taisho Era, and the initial fare was 60 sen.
In today’s terms, 30,000 yen now would be roughly equivalent to 10 yen back then.
By that estimate, a late-Taisho university graduate’s starting pay would be around 150,000–180,000 yen today.

Japan’s gateway, Tokyo Station, opened in December 1914.
It opened as the Central Station connecting Shinbashi Station, the starting point of the government-run Tokaido Main Line that was completed through to Kobe, with Ueno Station, the northern gateway of the former Nippon Railway. It was designed by Tatsuno Kingo, one of the leading architects of the Meiji and Taisho periods. The steel-framed brick building stretches north to south, has three above-ground floors, and measures Approx. 335 m in length.

A hot-spring town filled with Taisho Roman charm.
This onsen town shares its history with the mining of the Enzawa Silver Mine, which flourished in the Edo period.
After the mine closed, it became a lively therapeutic hot-spring destination, but a major flood in Taisho 2 (1913) devastated the town.
Later, with support from local business leaders, it was rebuilt by the early Showa period into a streetscape close to what you see today, with Western-style wooden multi-story buildings lining both banks of the Ginzan River.

A public assembly facility on Nakanoshima. Completed in 1918 through a donation from Osaka citizen Iwamoto Einosuke, a stockbroker. The elegant red-brick building, based on Neo-Renaissance design with Baroque elements, has become a Nakanoshima landmark.