Are writers ever normal? No, otherwise they'd be productive members of society. When Writers Go Weird is when we remember writers acting strange, odd, off, or--yeah--just plain weird. Also known as Tuesday to them.
Today: That time Yukio Mishima tried to spark a political coup, only to end up committing seppuku.
It's hard to imagine writers as ever being passionate enough to attempt a coup. Most writers can't even be passionate enough about their choices in coffee, alcohol, or spouses. Sure, writers dream of creating revolutions in thought, in imagination, but through passive means. At least that's the dream.
Then there's Yukio Mishima. And Mishima wasn't passive. But he had a dream in the autumn of 1970.
Who He Was:
Somewhat forgotten in western circles, Mishima is arguably Japan's most famous author of the 20th century. He wrote endlessly, with nearly three dozen novels, fifty plays, two dozen collections of short stories, and almost three dozen books devoted to essays. He even wrote a libretto and a film. He was like if Charles Dickens had a illegitimate lovechild with the Energizer Bunny.
His work didn't go unnoticed, as he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times, and appeared on the final short list for the award in 1963 when he was only 38-years old.
Lest you think Mishima was always busy writing, he also acted in a handful of films, sang the theme song to one, and was a part-time model. He was also famously devoted to working out. As this photo can attest, Mishima never missed ab day:
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| He probably wrote three novels before breakfast. |
Clearly obsessed with work, Mishima was also obsessed with his politics--and his politics was styled in a conservative nationalism born from an upbringing from unconventional grandmother, authoritarian father, and the ruins of Japan's role in World War II. His obsession to tradition--Japanese tradition--led to his downfall.
The Family Tradition:
Born in 1925, Mishima's father worked in the government, while his mother came from a historic and affluent family--and historic it was. Mishima's grandmother was the granddaughter of the daimyō (an old Japanese feudal lord system) of Shishido. She also was a direct descendant of Tokugawa Ieyasu, a shogun who started a shogunate that essentially ran Japan from 1600-1868. In essence, Yukio Mishima came from a long line of relatives highly aligned with the leadership of Japan.
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| Tokugawa Ieyasu starts the family tradition. |
It's this same grandmother that decided to take Mishima away from his parents for years and raise her grandson herself. An eccentric by some accounts, she rarely allowed Mishima to play in sunlight or with other boys. He was allowed to enjoy time with female cousins and their dolls instead. Later, when he was given back to his parents, Mishima's strict father wanted his son toughened-up. He did this reportedly by holding young Mishima up closely against passing trains. All in all, Mishima became the type of person who did not want to disappoint his father's rules or his grandmother's prestige. He was obsessed with tradition.
The Private Life:
As he grew up, Mishima's private life was always closely held. He married a woman, had two children, yet was also reportedly gay. His widow and children for decades have denied it, despite one fellow writer, Jiro Fukushima, releasing love letters he and Mishima wrote to each other. (Fukushima was sued by Mishima's children in 1998 for an invasion of privacy and copyright. The children won.) For decades, Mishima's family denied the likelihood of his sexuality for reasons we can only make broad assumptions about--but it's fair to say tradition again plays into the narrative.
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| Mishima on his wedding day. |
...Aaaaaaaaaand The Coup:
Mishima enlisted in Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force in 1967 and then later started a private militia called Tatenokai (or "shield society"), recruited mainly of young college students that held far-right beliefs. Mishima claimed this militia was to protect the Emperor of Japan. For Mishima, the Emperor wasn't man, but instead the Japanese essence and traditions of the nation--or so it seemed. "Emperor" as a term often waffled between "man" and "essence."
Regardless, in his final years, he became more and more aligned with a conservative nationalist viewpoint--so conservative that he believed Emperor Hirohito should have abdicated the throne after Japan lost World War II. He also espoused the belief in "bushido," a traditional form on nationalism and pride based off the age of samurai, of Japan's glory days.
By 1969--and still training his private militia--Mishima apparently began planning a coup d'etat with four hand-selected members of his group to restore more power to the Emperor, be it man or essence. No one knew of this plan except these few people. All while this was ongoing, Mishima continued publishing novels.
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| Mishima with some of his recruits. |
On November 25th, 1970, Mishima and his four militiamen visited a Japanese self-defense force base under false pretenses, and barricaded themselves in a general's office. Soldiers on the base rushed the office to protect the general, but Mishima's militia had swords drawn and stabbed eight soldiers before locking themselves completely away. They held the general hostage by tying him to a chair.
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| Soldiers outside the barricaded office. |
At noon, Mishima proceeded to a balcony with a prepared speech, with unfurled banners at his feet, while some of Japan's Self-Defense Force from the base slowly gathered below.
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| And things just became weird. |
He planned a rousing 30-minute speech that explained how necessary it was to return Japan to its former glory and why the soldiers needed to rise up.
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"...The [Japanese Self-Defense Forces]...has only been given the status of a...large police force...And we believe that our...duty as citizens is...to work towards the day when...the [Japanese Self-Defense Force] can be made into a true national military."
"...The foundational principle of a Japanese military can only be 'protecting Japanese history, culture and tradition centered on the emperor'..."
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| Mishima is really feeling it now. |
But the soldiers below refused to listen. They weren't riled-up as Mishima intended. They weren't overwhelmed by a sense of national pride or duty to an Emperor--be it man or essence. They simply jeered or spoke over the famous writer has he continued to talk. Soldiers attempted to leap up and pull the banners down. At points he tried admonishing them, "Listen, quiet, listen to me!", all while calling the country "spineless," but to no avail.
Mishima gave up and went back inside. The attempted coup wouldn't even last an afternoon. It wouldn't even last a single speech. His coup failed.
Shortly thereafter, he prepared himself to die. Traditional as he was, Mishima decided to kill himself in the ritualistic form of seppuku, which dishonored samurai performed, where one slices open their stomach and disembowels themselves. He used a dagger and slid it across his stomach. His last words were reportedly, "I don’t think they heard me very well."
Tradition states that during seppuku, someone else must assist with the ritual and decapitate the individual disemboweling themselves. The kaishakunin (or appointed second) has a duty to use a sword at the moment of agony. For this fateful day, the role went to one of Mishima's militiamen, Masakatsu Morita, who tried and failed three times to sever the head of his leader. A fellow militia member, Hiroyasu Koga, then took over and finished Mishima's seppuku ritual decapitation.
Morita, who had failed at his duty--and, thus, now a dishonored samurai--performed seppuku on himself as well by cutting his stomach open. Koga then completed the ritual once again and decapitated Morita.
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| Hiroyasu Koga led away after following through with tradition. |
The captive general was released and Koga and the remaining militiamen surrendered. And the coup and ritualistic suicides ended as quickly as they started. Blended in all of this was a strict adherence to tradition that Mishima believed, a tradition he was taught, a tradition he was born into. Decades of work and establishing himself as one of the greatest writers of his country was dismissed within the fleeting moments of one late November day. Today, the events are passively known in Japan as "The Mishima Incident."
In 2017, a Tokyo television station unearthed an old interview involving Mishima. It occurred nine months before the attempted coup, on February 19, 1970. In it, the author speaks with British translator John Bester on the Tokyo Broadcasting System. According to Nippon, Mishima thought of his end already:
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"I feel death has come into my body," Mishima said on the tape. “I’m obsessed with the idea that in Japan today, the only thing to do is to correct the language,” he also commented.
Criticizing his own writing, he said, “The flaw in my works is that the structures are too dramatic. I smear on my sentences like oil paintings. I hate Japanese-style pictures, which leave empty space.” He also said the Constitution was hypocritical.
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His self-reflection believed his work had become too dramatic, then, too, one notices his adherence to tradition as also too dramatic. Yet, here we are.
For seppuku, tradition dictates having a death poem prepared should the individual follow through with their end. Mishima, ever-observant of tradition, left these final words behind:
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A small night storm blows
Saying ‘falling is the essence of a flower’
Preceding those who hesitate
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Years later, the suicide and coup quietly faded in importance or notoriety, all the while Yukio Mishima remains in Japan's consciousness. The Mishima Prize was established in 1988 to honor work that "breaks new ground for the future of literature," while The Mishima Yukio Literature Museum was built beside Lake Yamanaka.
And in San Francisco, during the inaugural ceremony establishing the Rainbow Honor Walk, a hall of fame for LGBTQ individuals who were pioneers in their field, twenty individuals who were artists, musicians, writers, and protesters were unveiled.
Ever the writer and a protester, Yukio Mishima was among those first inducted.
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