What is History of Japan?

It is a nine-minute animated video by Bill Wurtz that runs through Japan's history from 40,000 BC to the present, using deadpan narration, cheerful jingles and 80s-style infographic animation.

Where did History of Japan come from?

Bill Wurtz uploaded it to YouTube on February 2nd, 2016 after years of posting shorter experimental videos on his site billwurtz.com.

What does History of Japan mean?

As a meme, it refers to the reaction GIFs and quoted lines pulled from Wurtz's video, especially 'How 'bout I do anyway?', which came from his gag about Japan ignoring the League of Nations in 1937.

How do you use History of Japan?

People typically share GIFs of specific moments as reactions, most often the 'How 'bout I do anyway?' clip to signal defiance or the sudden singing frames as a tonal joke.

Is History of Japan still popular?

The video is still treated as a classic viral upload, with over eight million views logged in its first month and continued circulation of its clips on Tumblr and Twitter.

History of Japan

2016viral videoclassic

Published August 28, 2026

History of Japan is a viral animated video by internet musician Bill Wurtz that races through Japan's history from 40,000 BC to the modern era in about nine minutes1. Posted to YouTube on February 2nd, 2016, it pulled in more than eight million views within a month and turned Wurtz's flat narration and cheerful singing into a stream of Tumblr reaction GIFs and quoted lines3.

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Overview

The video pairs Wurtz's deadpan speaking voice with sudden bursts of cheerful jingle-singing over fast infographic animation built from 80s color palettes, cartoon graphics and pastel gradients1. He packs geographic, sociopolitical and cultural history into short comic beats, cutting between chronological facts and absurd asides that turn moments like the arrival of Perry's Black Ships or Japan's 1930s foreign policy into punchlines3.

What made the format travel was density. Nearly every second of the runtime contains a graphic, a joke or a quotable line, so Tumblr and Twitter users could clip dozens of standalone reaction moments out of a single nine-minute upload3. Wurtz's website hosts the rest of his short, jump-cut vignettes, which use the same visual voice on much smaller scales2.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

YouTube (viral spread on Tumblr)

Creator

Bill Wurtz

Date

2016

Bill Wurtz uploaded History of Japan to his YouTube channel on February 2nd, 2016, giving an abridged tour of Japan's history from 40,000 BC to the present day1. Before it, Wurtz spent years posting brief, oddball videos on his personal site billwurtz.com, treating them as montage practice and voice experiments rather than commercial projects2. The nine-minute Japan piece was a jump in scope, but the same jump-cut editing and self-taught music style carried over.

How It Spread

In the month after release the video passed eight million views and 180,000 likes, drove a spike in Google search interest for 'history of japan' and pulled in coverage from outlets writing about Wurtz's back catalog3. Tumblr users clipped the video into GIFs almost immediately, filing them under the hashtag #history of japan and reusing them as generic reactions for stubbornness, chaos or bad decisions4.

One of the most shared moments was 'How 'bout I do anyway?', Wurtz's line for Japan brushing off the League of Nations' warning against invading China in 19373. The clip became reaction shorthand for defying anyone who tells you not to do something. The video is still cited as one of the defining educational-style viral uploads of the mid-2010s and helped set the template Wurtz reused for his 2017 History of the Entire World, I Guess follow-up1.

How to Use This Meme

People typically use History of Japan by pulling short GIFs or screenshots from the video and captioning them as reaction images. Common conventions include the 'How 'bout I do anyway?' clip for ignoring a warning, the 'and everybody was Buddhist' cutaway for sweeping generalizations, and the sudden singing frames as tonal whiplash punchlines4.