⛩️ #33 A Hyper-Intelligent 17 Year Old Assassin
The Headlines, This Week in Japanese History, and Much More
Otoha Yamaguchi croaks Inejirō Asanuma, chairman of the Japan Socialist Party, live on stage. Image: Yasushi Nagao
THE QUIZ
A picture any Japanese person will recognize instantly — do you?
Question: whose chair is this?
Answer at the foot of the mail.
THE HISTORY
A Hyper-Intelligent 17 Year Old Assassin
Otoha Yamaguchi. Image: Unknown
The Saint
There was a guy once, who we’ll call S.
S was the kind of person who, however much he yearned to, felt like he didn’t belong.
This is the prerequisite for becoming an artist — the need to use your art as a way to connect to the rest of society and, sometimes, just sometimes, feel whole —but in the absence of any obvious talent, that yearning to connect instead caused S to do murder.
Because in the small town where he lived a group of newcomers was causing a stir. This group was loudly proclaiming how they weren’t fans of the existing order. In fact they were suggesting a whole new way for the town to organize itself, minus the present leaders.
So S, sensing the opportunity, went to the bosses and said — you guys don’t know it yet, but you have a real problem here. You guys have a real problem, and you’re looking at the guy who knows how to solve it.
The bosses, being bosses, i.e. lazy and more apt to enjoy the fruits of others’ hard work than work hard themselves, are always on the lookout for people willing to do their bidding (bonus if they’re willing to work for peanuts.)
So S, taking the bosses at their word that they wanted the problem solved, went off and whacked the leader of the group that was disrupting the town.
Soon it comes time for S to go back and get his flowers — knowing he now has a solid career path ahead of himself as muscle for the bosses — but, to his surprise, he finds that they are none too pleased.
I mean, they’re people of conviction, of course we’re people of conviction, and yes we did want our problem solved…but we had no idea murder would happen — no one could have anticipated that.
Couching it in pretense, the bosses tell S to leave town — just until things cool down. In fact, they say, this is a promotion — you’re still very much in our employ — but better we don’t get in in touch with each other for a while.
Before he knows it, S is on a donkey on a very long trek to another town, wondering what the hell just happened. He did exactly what the bosses told him to do, in as many words — and now I’m an outcast? — when he hears a voice asking him “Paul, why do you persecute me?”
The guy’s name wasn’t Paul, it was Saul, but if you’re hearing voices you don’t want to make them a liar for messing up one little consonant.
That’s the story of St. Paul, and the guy he whacked was St. Stephen, and Stephen’s death was the first martyrdom.
Paul, who committed murder because of that yearning to be a part of something bigger than himself, later turned that instinct back to art, and became by some measures the most successful writer of all time.
What St. Paul didn’t understand is that the bosses are going to rev you up and turn you loose, but they’re never going to embrace you afterwards. They distrust fanatics because the fanatic has a tendency to turn against the bosses when he realizes they’re never going to take you to their heart and ease that sense of unbelonging.
And that’s the exact same mistake made by the Proud Boys or Dim Bulbs or whatever the January 6th attackers are calling themselves these days, when they thought they would emerge from the burning Capitol as heroes.
But one Japanese kid named Otoha Yamaguchi, 17 year old, knew better than Saul/Paul and all the wannabe brownshirts, and saw through the bosses’ bullshit and did his murder knowing his reward would come from posterity or not at all.
* * *
The Kid
Otoha Yamaguchi was smart. Second son of a high-ranking officer in the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, he was also grandson of writer Namiroku Murakami, known for his serialized stories extolling an idealized brand of samurai ethics.1
The kid was born in the wrong time. He had Saul/Paul’s yearning to be the man of action for a cause larger than himself, but there were no more daimyo to whose service he could devote himself. Instead he was coming of age at the beginning of the 1960s, when left-wing protests were sweeping Japan.
Led by Inejirō Asanuma and the Japan Socialist Party, enormous rallies were being staged in opposition to the revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty that would dictate a rehabilitated Japan’s place on the post-war world stage.
The Socialists favored an Asian-centric approach that would ally Japan and China, while right-wingers demanded a continued American-centric, anti-communist future.
Bin Akao led the Greater Japan Patriotic Party, the most virulently anti-Red faction. Like many prominent 1960s anti-Communist figures, Akao himself began as a fellow traveller, attempting to create a utopian society on the volcanic island of Miyakejima before his fellow residents unceremoniously deposed him. Arrested for a speech attacking the Emperor, a quick spell in prison rinsed the collectivism out of him and, himself always needing a cause, to lead, he began his foray into right-wing Japanese politics.
Soon he became convinced that Japan was on the verge of a communist revolution and mobilized his followers to stage counter-protests in support of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.
Age 16, Otoha Yamaguchi heard a speech where Akao declared Japan’s youth must begin resisting the actions of left-wing groups. At the end of the speech the kid was following Akao home, offering his services. He had found his boss — for now.
Except, smart cookie that he was, he did better than Saul/Paul and the Trumpists, and quickly realized Akao was all talk.
Akao-Sensei was always saying “we must take out the leaders of the left wing,” but it was clear that he was more interested in attracting media attention with mild agitation, and that he would stop me if I ever tried to put his words into action....Therefore I decided to leave the party, lay my hands on a weapon, and take decisive action.2
F*ck the bosses, in other words — they’re engaging in a pantomime — but, boys, I’m a fanatic.
* * *
The Killing
Knowing loose lips sink boats, Yamaguchi went stealth mode and starting getting ready for the hit, solo.
This was going to be close up and personal, real wet work.
The weapon was his father’s, an undersized replica of a sword forged in the Kamakura period by the swordsmith Rai Kunitoshi.
The place: Hibiya Public Hall, Tokyo.
October 12, 1960, 3pm. A televised election debate, featuring the leaders of the three major political parties: Prime minister Hayato Ikeda of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Suehiro Nishio of the Democratic Socialist Party plus Inejirō Asanuma, chairman of the Japan Socialist Party.
Along with organizing the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty protests, Asanuma had visited Red China and declared the United States “the shared enemy of China and Japan”.
Asanuma advanced to the podium and began his speech. Right-wingers began to heckle him. The moderator interrupted and called for calm — Asanuma resumes and Otoya Yamaguchi rushes the stage and — BAM —stabs Asanuma straight through the aorta.3
Mainichi Shimbun newspaper photographer Yasushi Nagao snaps the photo of the moment and wins the Pulitzer.
Asanuma dies on the stretcher in the ambulance.
Yamaguchi gives himself up on stage and smiles.
* * *
The End of Otoya Yamaguchi
Otoha Yamaguchi’s toothpaste daubings on his cell wall. Image: Wikipedia
Yamaguchi stayed cool.
Imprisoned, awaiting trial, he knew the bosses weren’t going to give him his flowers.
There was no Road to Damascus moment.
And there was no Proud Boy-style self-pitying petition for mercy to the court.
He calmly explained how he had acted completely alone.
Three weeks after the assassination, he squeezed out a message in toothpaste on his cell wall: : “Would that I had seven lives to give for my country” (七生報国 ) and “Long live the Emperor” (天皇陛下万才), the former a reference to the last words of 14th-century samurai Kusunoki Masashige.4
Then, three months before his 18th birthday, Otoha Yamaguchi hanged himself, hoping posterity would treat him well.
The Posterity
Three months after Yamaguchi’s death author Shichirō Fukazawa publishes a short story in magazine Chūō Kōron featuring a dream sequence depicting the beheading of the Emperor. Inspired by Yamaguchi’s example, another 17-year-old rightist named Kazutaka Komori breaks into the home of Chūō Kōron president Hōji Shimanaka and murders his maid and severely wounds his wife.
This copycat attack becomes known as the Shimanaka Incident, and results in Japanese artists self-censoring mention of the Imperial family in fiction.
Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kenzaburō Ōe's novellas Seventeen and Death of a Political Youth are inspired by Yamaguchi.
The Greater Japan Patriotic Party still commemorates the death of Otoya Yamaguchi every year, despite his repudiation of party leader Bin Akao’s non-violent approach. Video of a ceremony honoring him held in the same place where the attack occurred, on the 50th anniversary of the attack. Source: tokyoreporter.com
Gavin McInnes of the Proud Boys, along with members of the group, participated in a reenactment of the assassination in New York on 12 October 2018.
Provocateur French Youtuber Kroc Blanc released track Otoya Yamaguchi (feat. LYS). Notre français, ça ne casse pas trois pattes à un canard, so we Google Translated the lyrics — and discovered, with the characteristic subtlety and lightness of touch Youtubers are known for, the track concludes with this doozy:
Heir to Otoya Yamaguchi
No, Anders Breivik on Utøya Island
Moron.
But there’s always the chance that, in some future Japan, the cities will be decorated with statues of the kid who did what he alone saw needed to be done…
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THE LANGUAGE
Words Without Borders: 3 Shared Idioms in English and Japanese
Some abstract concepts work equally well in entirely different languages and cultures. Here are 3 expressions shared by English and Japanese:
1️⃣ 一石二鳥 (“isseki nichō”)
Literal Meaning: one stone two birds
A quick order-switch and we have the English expression two birds with one stone.
2️⃣ 口は災いの元 (“kuchi wa wazawai no moto”)
Literal Meaning: the mouth is the source of disaster
Bowdlerized, we get loose lips sink ships.
3️⃣ 目から鱗が落ちる (“mé kara uroko ga ochiru”)
Literal Meaning: scales fall from the eyes
Yes, Japan uses a direct translation of the same idiom used in English (and elsewhere) — from the story of Saul/Paul on the road to Damascus.
THE LINKS
3 things worth your time about Japan:
Anti-nuclear campaign group Nihon Hidankyo win the Nobel Peace Prize. Worthy winners indeed — but a sad reflection on the lack of ballsy opposition to warmongers populations are currently suffering under in 2024.
Fukuoka court rules Japan’s ban on dual nationality legal
Marco Blasco on the bureaucratic maze when trying to change his legal name
THE ANSWER
Question: whose chair is this?
Answer: this chair belongs to the boss. In Japan, office hierarchy equals the chair you sit in. The bosses get a comfy chair. You or I, however, have to make do with one designed to provide maximum lumbar agony.
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We’ll see each other again next week,
The Kyote
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The Kyote is published in Kyoto, Japan every Sunday at 19:00 JST
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otoya_Yamaguchi#Early_life
https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=Re5hDwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Inejir%C5%8D_Asanuma#Assassination
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otoya_Yamaguchi#Imprisonment_and_suicide
This story just kept getting weirder!
Great write up! Never knew about the kid, let alone that it was a kid who did this. Fucking idiot.