Abstract: During the 14 years from 1854 to 1867, the Tokugawa Shogunate launched three reforms in succession. In response to the many difficulties faced by Japan's founding, it launched a comprehensive reform. However, the more reform it accomplished, the more passive it became. Finally, it fell into the institutional spiral and ended up with the failure of reform and the change of regime. However, the early Meiji reform led by the Meiji new government in 1868—1881, which also addressed the old problem of saving the nation from subjugation, led the reform and self-improvement of old Japan, realized the modern national transformation, and embarked on the road of emerging capitalist countries. The reason for this reflects that the reforms of the early Meiji Restoration, compared with the end of the shogunate reforms, have an upward trend in institutional arrangements and expansion, reform ideas and models, and the simultaneous evolution of the country and society.

Key words: institutional spiral, institutional expansion, late Shogunate reform, reform in the early stage of Meiji Restoration