by Hiroaki Sato
4 “Gaiyū nikki,” Zenshū 30, 49–50. One of his “diaries” he wrote for publication.
5 Klieger, Christiaan, The Images of America: The Fleischmann Yeast Family (Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2004), 74–77.
6 Hiroaki Sato, “Tracking Mishima’s Footsteps in Florida,” The Japan Times, February 28, 2005 (online; accessed July 11, 2012).
7 “Kōkaku no awa,” Zenshū 31, 519–20. The conversational tone of the original essay is a result of the fact that he wrote it in the form of a letter to Nakamura Mitsuo, then the editor of Koe.
8 “New York no kanemochi,” in Tabi no ehon, Zenshū 30, 689–92. Apollo no sakazuki, Zenshū 27, 538–41.
9 “Nihon bundan no genjō to Seiyō bungaku to no kankei,” Zenshū 29, 630–47.
10 “Influences in Modern Japanese Literature,” Zenshū 30, 16–31. This one remains as printed in two installments in the February 7 and 9, 1958, editions of the Yomiuri Japan News. As with his American speech, there seems to be no record of the date of the speech.
11 “Shuppatsu no ben,” Zenshū 29, 615.
12 “New York buratsuki,” Zenshū 30, 265.
13 Christopher Isherwood, Diaries: 1939–1960 (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 710. “I am a camera” is a phrase that appears at the outset of Isherwood’s Berlin stories.
14 August 17, 1957, Gaiyū nikki, Zenshū 30, 50–52. Gaiyū, “overseas excursion,” is a word for foreign travels that was becoming old-fashioned by then. The “diary” was originally published in several issues of Shinchō. For the rest, unless otherwise noted, most of the accounts from what proved to be six-month-long travels derive from Gaiyū nikki, Zenshū 30, 49–69, and Tabi no ehon, Zenshū 29, 651–764. Most of his travel accounts—excluding those of 1951–52—are collected in a single paperback volume, Gaiyū nikki (Chikuma Shobō, 1995).
15 Letter to Keene, August 23, 1957, Zenshū 38, 333–37. The name Shults is spelled differently elsewhere but the one Mishima gave in this letter will be treated as correct.
16 Keene, Donald, trans., Five Modern Nō Plays by Yukio Mishima (Tokyo and Rutledge, VT: Charles E. Tuttle, 1967; originally New York: Knopf, 1957), xv.
17 The text available online at the Japanese Text Initiative of the Universities of Virginia and Pittsburgh, with Arthur Waley’s translation. The nō play Koi no omoni is a variation on the story.
18 Konishi Jin’ichi, “Shinjitsu to kyogi no higan,” Gunzō special Nihon no sakka 18: Mishima Yukio, 32–47. To conclude his five-volume history of Japanese literature, Konishi returns to Mishima and nō to observe that in his academic opinion Mishima’s understanding of nō was a little short of complete. Nihon bungei-shi, 983. See also the list of Mishima plays produced, Zenshū 42, 744.
19 “Batsu,” Zenshū 33, 459–62. The book is Takahashi Mutsuo’s Nemuri to okashi to rakka to (Sōgetsu Art Center, 1965). A complete translation is included in Hiroaki Sato, trans., Mutsuo Takahashi: Sleeping Sinning Falling (San Francisco: City Lights, 1992).
20 “New York no tameiki,” Zenshū 30, 250–64. It consists of three episodes. These are Episodes 3 and 1.
21 Descriptions of James Dean’s “wraith,” the restaurant Dean used to haunt, and the Actors Studio appear in Zenshū 29, 701–2 and 725–29, and in “Dean to Broadway,” Zenshū 30, 270–71.
22 “America no musicals,” Tabi no ehon, Zenshū 29, 735–62. See also “New York de musicals o mite,” Zenshū 29, 617–23.
23 “Ruy Blas no jōen ni tsuite,” Zenshū 34, 135–36. The translation, Hokan, 55–128.
24 “Haikei o New York ni kaeru,” Zenshū 29, 765–66, 779.
25 “New York no hono’o,” Tabi no ehon, Zenshū 29, 713–15.
Chapter Fourteen: Marriage
1 Kojima, Mishima Yukio to Dan Kazuo, 69–71. For her initial assignment to Mishima, see 91–92. Sometimes Kojima is identified by her real name Kojima Kikue, as in Hiraoka, Segare, 156.
2 Ratai to ishō, Zenshū 30, 107. Descriptions and quotations with dates in this chapter come from this “diary,” unless otherwise noted.
3 Richard Minear, trans., Yoshida Mitsuru: Requiem for Battleship Yamato (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1985), xxix–xxxii.
4 “Ichi-dokusha to shite,” Zenshū 27, 669. Mishima’s letter to Hayashi, February 21, 1948, Zenshū 38, 785.
5 At the time of writing of this book, the house is not open to the public.
6 Yoshida Mitsuru, “Ikoku nite” and “New York no Mishima Yukio,” Senchūha no shisei-kan (Bungei Shunjū, 1980), 169–87, 251–58. The date for Mishima learning the postponement of the play and scheduling his decamping of New York seems at odds with the date suggested in Mishima’s own account. See Zenshū 29, 705–7.
7 In 1967, when the journalist Tokuoka Takao spent some time with Mishima, Mishima told him he had met Shōda Michiko. Tokuoka Takao, Gosui no hito (Bungei Shunjū, 1999), 136–40. In 1969, when a Shield Society member and an unusually well-read Mishima fan asked Mishima the same question, Mishima, losing his usual cheer and composure, admitted that such a meeting for marriage did take place. Murakami Tateo, Kimitachi ni wa wakaranai: Tate no Kai de mita Mishima Yukio (Shinchōsha, 2010), 109–10.
8 “Asa no tsutsuji ni tsuite,” Zenshū 29, 616.
9 Entry of February 19, 1958, Zenshū 30, 79. For Mishima’s comments on The Rose and the Pirate, “Bara to kaizoku ni tsuite” and “Atogaki,” Zenshū 30, 246–49.
10 Yoshida, Senchūha no shisei-kan, 256.
11 The statement of purpose, Zenshū 36, 500.
12 “Haha o kataru,” Zenshū 30, 657–660. Originally in the October 1958 issue of the women’s monthly Fujin seikatsu.
13 “Joyū shigan o megutte,” Zenshū 30, 291–94.
14 Itasaka, Kyokusetsu: Mishima Yukio, 57–59.
15 “Torukojin no gakkō,” Zenshū 26, 26–27.
16 Selcuk Esenbel, “Japan’s Global Claim to Asia and the World of Islam: Transnational Nationalism and World Power, 1900–1945,” The American Historical Review, vol. 109, no. 4, October 2004. Esenbel, professor of history at Bogazici University, Istanbul, points out: “Muslim Tartars, former Young Turk officers and intelligence men, even Ottoman loyalists [who] joined the diaspora of Pan-Islamists and Pan-Turkists under Japanese protection” as Japan engaged in empire-building in the 1920s and 1930s. “Some had been involved in the Basmaci uprising of the Turkic populations in Central Asia in 1922.” Abdul Hannan’s father may have been part of the uprising.
17 “Boku no risō no josei,” Zenshū 30, 302–3.
18 Nathan, Mishima, 151. Nathan himself is a tall, big man.
19 “Owner no ben,” Zenshū 31, 234–37, 694–95.
20 “Otoko no bigaku,” Zenshū 34, 383–85.
21 Fukushima, Mishima Yukio: Tsurugi to kanbeni, 31.
22 The entry toward the end of 1958, Matsumoto, Tokuhon, and Ratai to Ishō, Zenshū 30, 174.
23 “Jikkanteki sports-ron,” Zenshū 33, 157–66.
24 April 10, 1959, Ratai to ishō, Zenshū 30, 223–25.
25 “Shukukonka: cantata,” Zenshū 37, 772–73.
26 “Jūhassai to sanjūyonsai no shōzōga,” Zenshū 31, 225–27.
Chapter Fifteen: Kyōko’s House
1 June 29, 1959, Ratai to ishō, Zenshū 30, 236.
2 Okuno, Mishima Yukio densetsu, 367–69. In this book Okuno reproduces his review that appeared in the September 1959 issue of the weekly Dokushojin. Muramatsu, Mishima Yukio no sekai, 320–21.
3 “Sakka to kekkon,” Zenshū 30, 308–9.
4 Yuasa, Roy to Kyōko, 120–21.
5 “Kyōko no ie—soko de watashi ga kaita mono,” Zenshū 31, 242.
6 For a proper appreciation of this film, see Steven James Snyder, “The Original Godzilla: New Criterion Release Celebrates the Greatest Monster Movie,” Time, January 25, 2012.
7 The rightwing part aside, the idea of Shunkichi getting his right hand smashed may well have been inspired by the greatest-moneymaking movie of 1957 from the Nikkatsu Studio, Arash
i o yobu otoko, written and directed by Inoue Umeji and starring Ishihara Shintarō’s brother, Yūjirō, in which something to the same effect happens. Tanaka, Mishima Yukio: Kami no kagebōshi, 158.
8 June 29, 1959, Ratai to ishō, Zenshū 30, 238–39.
9 “Kaidai,” Zenshū 19, 787. Mishima’s afterword to his collected short stories in six volumes published in 1965, Zenshū 33, 412.
10 “Shin-Fascism-ron,” Zenshū 28, 350–59. For Marguerite Yourcenar’s comment on Fascism and Mishima, see Mishima: A Vision of the Void (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1986), 111–18.
11 Etō Jun, “Mishima Yukio no ie,” Fukuda Kazuya, ed., Etō Jun Collection, vol. 3 (Chikuma Shobō, 2001), 352–72. The essay, originally printed in the June 1961 issue of Gunzō, is included in the Gunzō special Nihon no sakka 18: Mishima Yukio, 118–30. For Mishima’s plot design, see Tanaka, Mishima Yukio: Kami no kagebōshi, 159.
12 As was routine in prewar Japan, Kishi Nobusuke was adopted when young. In his case, the adoption meant doubling back to his “real” family, for his father, Satō Hidesuke, himself had been adopted from the Kishis. One account says he was in work clothes when let out of prison. A maidservant also did not recognize him and thought he was a vagabond—a homeless man in today’s lingo. Iwami, Kishi Nobusuke, 162. At the time Japan was full of people without homes.
13 Crimes against peace and humanity were newly created categories; as the British government’s memorandum stated at the time, they “are not war crimes in the ordinary sense, nor is it at all clear that they can be properly described as crimes under international law.” Minear, Victors’ Justice, 8.
14 Iwami, Kishi Nobusuke, 151–64. See also Minear, Victors’ Justice, 106–7.
15 In November and December 1945 five political parties came into being, three conservative, the other two Socialist and Communist. For the next several years, these, along with some new ones, continued to break up and merge, until most of the conservative wing coalesced into the Liberal Democratic Party, in November 1955. “Liberal” in this context does not mean what it is usually supposed to mean. Rōyama, Yomigaeru Nihon, the foldout at the end of the volume.
16 Handō Kazutoshi, Shōwa-shi: 1945–1989 (Heibonsha, 2009), 421.
17 Ibid., 420.
18 “Orokanaru jingū kensetsu no gi” and “Dai-Nippon-shugi no gensō,” Matsuo Takayoshi, ed., Ishibashi Tanzan hyōron-shū (Iwanami Shoten, 1984), 29–32 and 101–21. Chō Sachio, “Kaisetsu,” Ishibashi Tanzan, Tanzan kaisō (Iwanami Shoten, 1985), 417–18. Hiroaki Sato, “Ishibashi’s ‘Alternative Reality’ for Japan,” Japan Times, March 27, 2006 (online; accessed July 11, 2012).
19 Okuno, Mishima Yukio densetsu, 369.
20 A graphic reconstruction of the life of Abe Sada, a woman who killed her lover, cut off his penis, and carried it around until she was apprehended. Because filming graphic sex was not possible in Japan then, Ōshima made the film in France. His script closely follows Abe’s statements during the preliminary hearings. See Nanakita Kazuto, ed., Abe Sada densetsu (Chikuma Shobō, 1998), 19–86.
21 “Fascist ka kakumeika ka,” Zenshū 39, 755–56.
22 December 17, 1959, Ratai to isshō, Zenshū 30, 182–88.
23 The genre may largely be derived from French literary tradition. In English, H. W. Fowler’s Modern English Usage and such, as well as The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White, are too prescriptive to fall in this genre, whereas Understanding Poetry and others by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren seem intended not for “the general reader” but for college students.
24 Bunshō tokuhon, Zenshū 31, 32–39, 94–96.
25 Shidehara Kijūrō, Gaikō 50 nen (Chūō Kōron Shinsha, 1987; originally 1951), 220–24.
26 “Transcript of Testimony by MacArthur: Senators Question General for the Third Day,” New York Times, May 5,1951. Dower, Embracing Defeat, 550–52.
27 “Nihonjin wa yahari 12-sai ka?” (“Are the Japanese Twelve Years Old After All?”), Hokan, 143. Hiroaki Sato, “Irony of Being in the Company of ‘12-year-olds,’” Japan Times, June 25, 2012.
28 Iwatani Tokiko and Koshiji Fubuki, Yume no naka ni kimi ga iru—Koshiji Fubuki memorial (Kōdansha, 1999), 41–42, 48, and the last page of the first photo section. The book includes Koshiji’s writings about Paris, including her diary.
29 “Kazan managed to do quite a damage to Tennessee’s plays while, simultaneously, making them into sexy melododramatic commercial hits,” and Williams, “who loved glory almost as much as his inventions, made no fuss then or later.” Gore Vidal, Point to Point Navigation (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 69. In the case of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Kazan changed Williams’s metaphor “a summer storm” into a real storm, Vidal reports.
30 “Gekisakka no mita Nippon,” Zenshū 39, 328–41. By some odd affectation, Japan is called “Nippon” and written in katakata syllabary when it is presented, as here, as a country in a Westerner’s eye.
31 Some kabuki titles are too fancifully convoluted to make much sense, but the title of the shortened version means something like “the young woman Benten the male-female robber.” Shiranami, “white wave,” harkening back to old Chinese stories, means “robber.”
32 “Boku wa objet ni naritai,” Zenshū 31, 294–300.
33 The producer Fujii Hiroaki’s 2010 interview on Masumura Yasuzō and Karakkaze yarō, http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/.
34 The Tokyo District Court’s decision on September 28, 1964: Utage no ato jiken: Wa: No. 1882. It contains the arguments of both complainant and defendant. Online. Keyword search: “Utage no ato jiken.” (Accessed July 11, 2012.)
35 “Privacy saiban no wakai zengo,” Zenshū 34, 276.
36 “Utage no ato jiken no shūmatsu,” Zenshū 34, 269.
37 “Mishima Yukio: Saigo no kotoba,” a taidan with Furubayashi Takashi, Zenshū 40, 764.
Chapter Sixteen: The 2.26 Incident, Yūkoku
1 Shiine Yamato, Heibon Punch no Mishima Yukio (Shinchōsha, 2009), 133. Itasaka, Kyokusetsu: Mishima Yukio, 28–29.
2 “Karakkaze Yarō no jōfu-ron,” Zenshū 31, 409.
3 Karakkaze yarō, Zenshū 37, 773–74.
4 Letter to Keene, April 21, 1960, Zenshū 38, 357.
5 “Salome no enshutsu ni tsuite,” Zenshū, 31, 389–90. “Waga yume no Salome,” Zenshū 31, 419–20. Also the English scholar Yano Hōjin’s comment during the zadankai, “Salome to sono butai,” Zenshū 39, 348.
6 Charles Sprawson, Haunts of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992), 296. Sprawson doesn’t cite sources for his mellifluous book, unfortunately.
7 Letter to Okuno, August 2, 1960. Zenshū 38, 217.
8 Shibusawa, Mishima Yukio: Oboegaki, 17–18. Shibusawa’s recollections may be a little confused; Donald Richie’s first film officially mentioned appears to be Wargames, which he made in 1962.
9 “Waga shōsetsu,” Zenshū 31, 675–76.
10 “Privacy,” Zenshū 31, 500–503.
11 The description derives from the national reform movement started by a group of young officers in the army and navy in the 1920s. Ben-Ami Shillony, Revolt in Japan: The Young Officers and the February 26, 1936 Incident (Princeton University Press, 1971), 13–24. By the time the 2.26 Incident occurred, four of the five leaders were in their thirties, only one in his twenties. Ibid., 128.
12 Matsumoto Seichō, Shōwa-shi hakkutsu, vol. 8 (Bungei Shunjū, 2005), 178. Volumes 5 to 9 chronicle the 2.26 Incident with ample citations of documents.
13 The full text is quoted in a number of accounts: among others, Takahashi Masae, 2.26 Jiken (Chūō Kōron Sha, 2007; originally 1965), 25–26; Handō, Shōwa-shi tansaku 1926–1945, vol. 3, 253–54; and Taneno Nobuyuki’s fictionalized account of the Incident, Hanran (Gakken Bunko, 2004), 442–44.
14 Gunbatsu is an amorphous term. Here, paradoxically, it may refer to those in the military who pushed the importance of the military in national affairs from the 1920s onward. Takahashi Masae, 2.26 Jiken, 143–46.
15 Matsumoto, Shōwa-shi hakkutsu, vol. 6, 257–58. Many officials and opinion-makers equated the ideas of “the young officers” with Communism and its equivalents. See Shillony, Revolt in Japan, 67–68.
16 Fukuzawa Yukichi, Bunmei-ron no gairyaku (Keiō Gijuku Daigaku Shuppankai, 2009), 38–39.
17 The original is online. It became one of the documents translated into English following Japan’s defeat. Herbert Passin, Society and Education in Japan (Kodansha International, 1965), 257–59, and footnote.
18 Matsufuji Takejirō, Chitagiru Mishima Yukio “kenpō kaisei” (Mainichi Ones, 2003), 100.
19 Hayashi Kentarō, Shōwa-shi to watashi (Bungei Shunjū, 2002), 99.
20 Bōjō, Hono’o no gen’ei, 17–19.
21 Shillony, Revolt in Japan, 101–2 and elsewhere.
22 Matsumoto, Shōwa-shi hakkutsu, vol. 8, 101–4.
23 Takahashi, 2.26 Jiken, 163–64.
24 Ōuchi, Fascism e no michi, 399–403.
25 Isobe Asaichi’s testimony. See Takahashi Masae, 2.26 Jiken, 63.
26 Matsumoto, Shōwa-shi hakkutsu, vol. 8, 196–204.
27 Katō Shūichi, A Sheep’s Song: A Writer’s Reminiscences of Japan and the World, trans. and annot. Chia-ning Chang (Berkeley, CA: The University of California Press, 1999), 102. Katō’s original words in Hitsuji no uta quoted in Takahashi Masae, 2.26 Jiken, 250.
28 “Nichiren no koto Risshō ankoku-ron no koto nado,” Zenshū 26, 369–73. For an English translation of Nichiren’s treatise, see Philip B. Yampolsky, ed., Selected Writings of Nichiren (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 11–41.
29 “‘Dōgi kakumei’ no ronri,” Zenshū 34, 357, 366. Shillony, Revolt in Japan, 172.
30 “Atogaki,” Zenshū 33, 415–16.
31 “Kaidai,” Zenshū 20, 791–93.
32 “Atogaki,” Zenshū 31, 515–16.
33 Details of Kōno’s death in Matsumoto, Shōwa-shi hakkutsu, vol. 8, 235–44.
34 Mitani, Kyūyū, 161. As various accounts tell it, people around Anami expected him to kill himself. In that regard, Mishima’s supposition wasn’t quite right.