Kyōto, Kōchi, Kagoshima, Hagi, Shimonoseki, major cities of the Meiji Restoration, contain some of the most interesting sites in Bakumatsu history. But the Kōdōkan, the sometimes overlooked official school of Mito Han, is particularly fascinating to me – because Mito is the cradle of Imperial Loyalism (Kinnō), which of course culminated in the Meiji Restoration. It was at the Kōdōkan where Mitogaku (“Mitoism”), the ultra-nationalistic school of thought, attained prominence. Mitogaku was the cornerstone of Imperial Loyalism.