The Violence of Youth
How two of Japan's most prolific authors fostered nationalism in the younger generation.
The occupation of Yasuda Auditorium at Tokyo University was one of the last majorly defining movements for the Zenkyoto (全共闘) before their slow dissolution around the early 70’s 1. The movement was made up of people with different backgrounds and beliefs, from non-sectarian locals trying to garner more care for their neighbourhood, to left wing revolutionaries campaigning against bills that would restrict employment opportunities for medical graduates. The one thing that the Zenkyoto all had in common is that they were young. A group of student visionaries forced into rebellion against ideals of traditionalism and western imperialism, but also finding a sense of identity and selfhood in fighting for a cause that they believed in.
Tokyo University would become a home ground for a large group of Zenkyoto and would be the basis for many of their struggles against the police alongside Nihon University. They fundamentally were against hierarchy, especially the concept Nenkoujyoretsu (年功序列), the system of seniority determined by age or relations (mostly within the university complex). The prescence of the Zenkyoto was so prominent that it was described as “descending boundaries of university issues, and became a conflict between students and state power” 2. It was clear to say that the group itself was fundamentally anti-nationalist, and to prove themselves so, they invited one of the most prominent nationalist believers to come speak in a debate at Yasuda Auditorium, Yukio Mishima.
Yukio Mishima was, and still is, one of the most controversial figures in Japanese literary history. Born in 1925 and dying in 1970, Mishima’s 55 years of life were coloured by a fundamental yearning for nationalism. His literary works follow a clear progression from moderate Shintoist views in his earlier works Confessions of a Mask and Fire House, to Ultra-Nationalism in his later works like Runaway Horses. Mishima stood completely opposed to the students of Tokyo University, wanting to embrace traditional structures and restore complete power to the Japanese Emperor. Mishima had been nominated for a Nobel prize over 5 times in his life, and in 1970, a year after his prescence at Yasuda Auditorium, committed Seppuku (切腹) after a failed political protest in which he tried to convince a platoon of the Japanese defence force to overthrow the Japanese constitution in order to restore autonomous national defence 3,4.
Mishima, both through his works and his public appearances, aimed to instil a sense of pride in Japanese Shinto traditions in the youth culture, and attempted to change the minds of the radicals that had overthrown Tokyo University. And to some extend, he succeeded. The members of the Tatenokai (楯の会, 楯の會) that helped him in his attempted coup included Masakatsu Morita (Age 25) and Hiroyasu Koga (age 23) 5. All of the inner circle of the Tatenokai were university students, likely inspired by Mishima’s most radically nationalist work, Runaway Horses.
The book is centred around Isao, a reactionary trained in the ideals of the Samurai by his father, and early friend, of the Court of Appeals Judge Honda. Isao is clearly a stand in for Mishima, as by this point in his career it was clear his novels were rough autobiographies running under the thin guise of fiction. Isao was deeply idealistic, trying to restore the ideals of the Samurai his father taught him, and his strong stoic prescence was only compounded by his determined unwavering sense of purpose. His body was a reflection of this, Isao was a warrior, perfectly sculpted and undefeated in Kendo, his body was designed as a reflection of the strength of the Imperial Japanese Nation (at least to Mishima). Isao was an idealist self-insert, but also a sort of promise to the youth, an image for them to aspire to, and a reward for expressing these ideals. Mishima knew that the youth had the capacity for rebellion, as shown by the university demonstrations, he only needed them to use that passion for the strength of traditional Japan.
Yukio Mishima was not the only author trying to help the youth find an identity in post war Japan however. Japan’s arguably most well known author, Haruki Murakami, was attempting the same thing. Murakami was 25 years younger than Mishima, and unlike his contemporaries, had a much different approach to the identity crisis of contemporary Japan. Whilst Mishima appealed to, and tried to capitalise on the passions of youth, and the drive for change that was present in the late 60’s, Murakami’s raison d'etre was to show the decay of the individual in post war Japanese society. Murakami aimed to appeal to his generation, those who were directly involved in the Zenkyoto movement, from a place of solidarity, not from a place of superiority like Mishima. This was helped by the fact he was part of said generation himself.
Murakami’s style was detached and disillusioned, standing in stark contrast to the previous appeals from Mishima, ones that were full of passion. His books and short stories often abstracted ideas and traditions of Japanese culture, and addressed themes and motifs in a roundabout way, always in reference, rarely directly. For example, in his short story collection Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, the titular story depicts the feeling of loss and disease through surreal, dreamlike memories and abstracted writing style. Murakami’s style of writing is often categorised as Magical Realism, keeping real themes and ideals but creating a definite fictional distance between his real concrete views and the meaning of his literature. This is ever apparent in the fact the narrator was often referred to just by boku (ぼく) an ambiguous term.
There are some fundamental differences between both authors tenants that stretch outside of the realm of tone. For example, Mishima is concerned with the transcendent nature of death, and the metaphysical link between death and beauty. He believes death was the most profound beauty for the human form, and his fatalist attitude concludes that death cannot fully be perceived, rather it moves you to a new state of perception. However Murakami identifies himself more with the work of Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty and the phenomenology movement, instead arguing that perception is intrinsically tied to the human world, and death is the end of that. Murakami’s magical realism plays with the idea of perception, where as Mishima’s works centre around the idea of fatality. Murakami’s literature and perception provides an interesting look into the concept of the ideal self, as his use of unconscious fantasy is a vehicle for discovering the inner self. In contrast to Mishima, the mind is a reflection of identity, rather than the body.
However like Mishima, Murakami’s works are heavily politicized. The function of Magical realism is often debated, generally assumed to be that of rejection of Euro-American traditions and realism, in favour of the real and unreal coexisting. This interpretation is reflective of ideals of Russian Formalist Viktor Sklovsky, and his defamiliarization. This defamiliarization can be used as a form of rebellion, removing yourself from the designated “real” of hierarchical society, so through his genre, Murakami shows solidarity with those of the Zenkyoto. This is further emphasises by the denunciation of American Imperialism in the Zenkyoto’s ideals, compounding Murakami’s choice of genre. However in a broader sense, magical realism opens itself up to a large degree of interpretation, as any subversion of the literary form can be classifies as such, its identity as a genre becomes fluid, supporting Murakami’s separation from traditionalist nationalist identities in favour of more progressive ideology 6. Murakami’s construction of the mind is central to his critique of nationalism. In Sekai no Owari to Hādo-Boirudo Wandārando, the “black box” is a creation of the mind that records events and creates the self, but is impervious to outside introspection. The idea that the systems you are apart of cannot interact with and have no bearing over your true self. The government technology in the Hard Boiled world being developed to access this “self” is reflective of the nationalist ideologies that permeate and infect the youth of Japan, and how the impregnable nature of memory shows that the ideologies present in the younger generation cannot be swayed by traditionalist views.
Both authors fundamentally oppose one another by engaging with mind and body, freedom and traditionalism, and individualism and nationalism respectively. However they both share the same goal of the fulfilment of self for the Japanese Youth, and the progression of Japan to an ideal world, and it’s interesting to see how they both approach this topic in varying ways.
Zenkyoto (全共闘), or the All Campus Joint Struggle Committee (全学共闘会議), were a group of students opposed to Japanese government legislations in the late 60’s.
Manabu Miyazaki. Toppamono. Nanpusha, 1996.
Seppuku is a Japanese ritual suicide where a samurai kills himself by cutting into his belly. After one had done so, a second person would cut off his head.
Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution (日本国憲法第9条) is a clause in the Constitution of Japan outlawing war as a means to settle international disputes involving the state.
The Tatenokai, or Shield Society was a private militia that Mishima had rallied in order to defend the honour of the current emperor. The inner circle was made up of four University students.
Strecher, Matthew C. “Magical Realism and the Search for Identity in the Fiction of Murakami Haruki.” The Journal of Japanese Studies, 1999