A pre-trip note for Kanazawa, Toyama, and Komatsu covering the Taishō era: the 1918 rice riots from Uozu and Namerikawa to Kanazawa, three generations of the Maeda family after the domains and the Ikutoku Foundation, the 9th Division in Siberia and the universal suffrage movement, Komatsu Seisakusho and Toyama medicine sellers abroad, Murō Saisei, Takehisa Yumeji, and Shimada Seijirō's Chijō, trams, cinemas, a department store, and Awagasaki amusement park, Taishō buildings such as Saigawa Bridge and the old prefectural office, the discovery of the Ōzakai cave, middle-school baseball, and links with Taiwan.