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Born in Chiaraijima Village in present day Fukaya City in Saitama Prefecture to a farming family which made indigo balls and cultivated silkworms, Shibusawa Eiichi, the man whose face will be on Japan’s new 10,000 yen bill, is known as the father of Japanese capitalism. He was involved in the founding of almost 500 companies, and at the same time some 600 social welfare organisations. Shibusawa lived in a time of turbulent change. He began as an advocate of anti-foreign sentiment, but recognising the momentum of history he came to embrace Western ideas. Born to a farming family in a rural area, Shibusawa became a vassal of the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu. But with the demise of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868, he found himself unemployed. Shibusawa ended up serving the new Meiji government despite himself. After waging a great battle in the political arena, he eventually resigned at the age of 33 and became a civilian. As an industrialist, he kicked off towering
Jan 23, 2021
With the new year comes a new yearlong, weekly historical drama series from Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK. This year’s is “Seiten o Tsuke,” which is about Shibusawa Eiichi, often called the father of Japanese capitalism, one of the most important figures of the Meiji Era (1868-1912) and the man who founded the first bank in Japan based on joint stock ownership. Shibusawa’s face will grace the new ¥10,000 bills.
He is being played by Ryo Yoshizawa, who turns 27 on Feb. 1. Yoshizawa first gained popularity in 2011, when he was still a teenager, on the superhero TV show “Kamen Rider Fourze,” and became known to a wider audience with the 2018 theatrical film “River’s Edge,” for which he received the newcomer’s award from the judges of the Japan Academy Film Prize. Yoshizawa solidified his appeal on NHK’s daily half-year morning drama in 2019, “Natsuzora,” which may have had something to do with NHK’s casting him as the lead in “S