This article highlights Japan’s advanced economic civilization long before Western colonial powers proclaimed their superiority.
While Belgium’s King Leopold II spoke of “civilizing uncivilized Asia,” Japan was already producing over 650,000 koku of rice in Sakata, storing it with remarkable orderliness, and distributing it nationwide via the Kitamaebune maritime trade network.
The NHK Buratamori Sakata episode vividly demonstrates Japan’s unmatched logistical and economic sophistication.
The piece argues that Japan should communicate these historical truths globally to counter lingering Eurocentric misconceptions.

This week’s theme was Sakata City in Yamagata Prefecture.

In European Travel Notes, it is described with delight that when Tokugawa Akitake, the younger brother of Tokugawa Yoshinobu, visited Belgium, King Leopold II “showed him special favor.”
But afterward, the king plotted to turn Japan into a colony.
He even said, “The uncivilized regions of Asia will surely welcome European civilization.”
In the end, the king colonized the Congo, cut off the wrists of half the population, and killed 70 percent of the people.
There is not a single word of criticism toward such a king.

The above is an excerpt from a superb essay by Masayuki Takayama published in this week’s Shukan Shincho.
Even now, countries like Belgium and the Netherlands (to say nothing of the fools at Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung) still, deep inside—knowing nothing of world history—harbor ideas similar to Leopold II’s view of Japan.

For example, today’s episode of Buratamori—the Sakata edition—should be shown to them as a fact they must learn.
Long before Leopold II arrogantly declared that “the uncivilized regions of Asia will welcome European civilization,” Japan was already producing over 650,000 koku of rice in Sakata alone.
Those 650,000 koku were stored in magnificent warehouses, maintained with the immaculate orderliness unique to the Japanese.
They were then transported in massive quantities on the Kitamaebune coastal ships, generating an enormous domestic trade network.
There existed no other country in the world like Japan.

This Sakata edition can demonstrate this truth to the entire world, in every respect.
NHK, forget “Cool Japan.”
Broadcast these historical facts to the world immediately.
Only then will you finally begin to repay the taxes you have collected from the Japanese people.