What happens
The Pacific Story examines the rise of Japan's wealthy merchant families, the Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and Yasuda, who came to control much of the nation's trade and industry. The episode follows the House of Mitsui from its samurai origins and its founding fortune through its expansion into merchandising, money lending and government banking. It then traces how the Mitsubishi interests built a shipping monopoly, how the families entered politics, and how rising military leaders pressed them toward war industries. The Pacific War and the search for raw materials frame the closing developments in the story.
Japan, from the Tokugawa era through the Meiji period, the 1920s and 1930s, and the early years of the Pacific War, with scenes in Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka and Manchuria.
Characters: Sokubei Mitsui, Hachirobei Mitsui, Mr. Matsui, Mr. Mitsui, Mr. Yasuda, Inukai, Shidehara, Baron Dan
Listen for: The founding of the Mitsui house constitution and the Mitsubishi shipping monopoly, and the moment the wealthy families turn to war industries.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.