• What is the Society for Historical Consulting?
• A Message from the Chair
• Position Statement
• Our Members
• History
• Regulations

The Society for Historical Consulting is an organization that moves in step with the people.

The fundamental policy of the Society for Historical Consulting is to make the Society’s activities broadly known to the public, and to engage in discussion with them. Furthermore, when it comes to period-specific media presentations, we go beyond merely discussing them from the perspective of historians to consider and exchange ideas about them with their creators and their audience. We also go beyond the content of period-specific media presentations to consider how such presentations in whatever format have a reciprocal influence on civil society .

Anyone can be involved with historical background research studies.

The Society has no membership system. Accordingly, anyone who is interested in period dramas presented through whatever sort of media or in the subject of historical background research is welcome to attend any of the symposiums and salons that the Society holds. Event information is posted to the Society’s website as arrangements are made. Individuals who participate in a Society event can also sign up to receive information by email about future events.

The period dramas for which the Society for Historical Consulting has offered its services go beyond NHK’s Taiga drama and the chanbara jidaigeki (“sword-fighting period dramas”) that all studios produce.

When they hear the word jidaigeki 時代劇 (“period drama”), most Japanese think of either NHK’s long-running Taiga drama series or the many action-oriented dramas set in the Edo period (1603-1867) that emphasize sword fighting. However, the period-specific media that the Society for Historical Consulting deals with go far beyond those parameters. Aside from television dramas and movies, there are a wide variety of works that take up historical events or are set in the past. These include novels, comic books, animated movies and TV prgrams, theatrical works, and educational television programs. Furthermore, when it comes to productions that require historical background research, we must also include in the category of period drama such items as works that take up topics in our more recent past as well as the serialized dramas that are presented regularly on NHK. We are also mindful of period-specific media presentations set in various locations outside of Japan as well. The Society for Historical Consulting maintains a broad perspective.