As Japan Recorded It

The Pacific War, told from Japanese records.

Most of what English-speaking audiences know about the Pacific War comes from American sources. This channel reads the other side of the record: Japan's official war history (Senshi Sosho), wartime action reports, signals and diaries, and the words of Japanese officers questioned by American interrogators in 1945.

Each video asks one question about a famous decision, such as why Admiral Kurita turned back at Leyte Gulf, or why there was no third wave at Pearl Harbor, and looks at what the Japanese side actually wrote down. We check the Japanese records against American records and modern research, say plainly where the sources disagree, and list our sources in every description.

Explaining a decision is not defending it. We give the losses on both sides, and when atrocities are part of the story, we state them as facts.

Narration uses a synthetic voice. Research, scripts and translations are our own.