I'm currently writing an investigation into the the causes of the revolution and I'm trying to dicide whether I can discuss events that led to the downfall of the regime to be part of the events that caused the restoration. Or is it a case that I have completely the wrong idea?
While I personally consider the fall of the Shogunate as part of the overall Restoration, I think that if you do discuss the fall as being part of the Restoration you need to justify your reasoning for it. For instance, one can argue that the downfall of the regime was precipitated by the Tokugawa clan's treatment of the Mori (Choshu) and Shimazu (Satsuma) clans after the Battle of Sekigahara in the 1600s. One might have difficulty tying that into why the Restoration happened, however, unless one brought up Sakamoto Ryouma (from Tosa) and his role in healing the Satsu-Cho divide that gave them the unified force to advance on Kyoto and defeat the pro-Shogunate forces in the Boshin War.
So, Jansen argues that the real war between reactionaries and the modernizers is the Satsuma War in 1877, when disaffected samurai rebelled against the new social order under a charismatic leader (Saigo Takamori) who had previously served with the Imperial Government. He argues that the Boshin War wasn't the real downfall of Edo-era Japan because both the Shogunate and the pro-Imperial domains were broadly committed to a programme of modernization even if the latter was far more so. The Boshin War was a war against a particular regime which the Japanese had lost faith in, after the Shogunate government had demonstrated itself unable to defend Japan against the encroaching West - this is why the motto of the rebels was "Expel the Barbarians, Revere the Emperor".
The coalition which ultimately defeated the Shogunate was a mix of reactionary nationalists and modernizing nationalists, with Saigo Takamori being a member of the former and the coalition's most successful commander. His rebellion against the government despite being contained had mass appeal, and was more dangerous to Japan's long term stability than the Boshin War was.
Jansen would therefore say that the rise of the Meiji Era and the Fall of the Shogunate were distinct processes which went hand in hand with each other - like the fall of Communism and the break up of the Soviet Union were. I'd also be clear that you can't use Imperial and Shogunate as respective synonyms for modernity and backwardness too, and that doing so muddies the processes going on.