Historical families...

[Zen Blade]

hey all, sorry I haven't been around lately. Had finals.

-so, on to the topic. Now, as many of you know, throughout Europe and such old families of power retained some of their power to modern day. (various royalties, some still in name, others just with money... counts, countesses... etc....)

now, do such things exist in Japan to current day? and if so, which families of old? any that we might know?

I know they still have the royal family thing going, but any other sorts of royalty or prominent ppl who derive from famous families and such??

-Zen Blade

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Zen Blade Asai
Red Devil
Last of the RSG

[Idaho]

Have you ever heard of the Zaibatsu? It is a little bit of an old concept now in Japan, but it answers your question.

At the time of the Meiji restoration (1863)the samurai families were no longer allowed to carry swords and meet justice and had the choice of drifting into obscurity or taking up the new rush to industrialize. Oddly enough, Japan's merchant class had great difficulty in taking on inmdustrialisation. THey were too static and traditional in their approach to business and were also extremely conservative.

It fell to a few of the noble houses to invest in industry and to set up the zaibatsu (or business groups). THere were 4 or 5 (I'll check) among them are such names as Sumitomo and Mitsubishi - now two of the largest companies in the world. Of them only one family was previously a merchant family - the rest were samurai houses.

[Tenchimuyo]

Wow! Mitsubishi was an actual old Japan family!

[Idaho]

Yeah - but I don't know if the name was their's. Mitsubishi means three diamonds - hence the logo. I think that the family name was something like Matsui or... aargh... I'll post again from home and look it up.