The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima (27 page)

Photo: Kyodo

In Tatenokai uniform. He wanted to “inspire people with a sense of national pride,” he said, as if imagining the sound of brass bands and cheering multitudes of onlookers.

Photo: Eikoh Hosoe—Time/Life Picture Agency

Photo: Kyodo

Masakatsu Morita. The descriptions of Ōmi in
Confessions of a Mask
remind me of Morita, the student leader of the Tatenokai who was to die with Mishima. “Something about his face,” wrote Mishima Ōmi, “gave one the sensation of abundant blood coursing richly throughout his body, it was a round face, with haughty cheekbones rising from swarthy cheeks, lips that seemed to have been sewn into a fine line, sturdy jaws, and a broad but well-shaped and not too prominent nose.” The fate suffered by Ōmi in the book is not so different from Morita's; he was made a human sacrifice, according to Mishima's fantasy.

Photo: Shinchosha

With members of the Tatenokai; Morita on the right. “I've often heard the glib motto ‘The Pen and the Sword Join in a Single Path.' But in truth they can join only at the moment of death.”

Photo: Shinchosha

At a reception shortly before his death. I noted, after a meeting with him about the same time: “He went on and on about curses. The whole of Japan, according to him, was under a curse . . .”

The last official picture of Mishima, used for publicity and in the catalogue for the Tōbu Exhibition describing the “four rivers” of his life, which was held November 12–19, 1970. The exhibition was Mishima's farewell to the general public. In the prominent position was the sword made by Seki no Magoroku, the two-handed, three-foot-long weapon with which Morita was to cut off Mishima's head on November 25.

Photo: Takao Tokuoka, Mainichi Shimbun

Mishima's private group within the Tatenokai, who helped him stage the hara-kiri. Mishima is seated. Behind him, left to right, are Morita, Furu-Koga, Ogawa, and Chibi-Koga. They had a group portrait taken in full uniform at Tojo Hall, where wedding parties are the usual customers. (Mishima joked to the others that the Tojo Hall cameramen had the art of making everybody look beautiful.)

Photo: Newsweek (Bernard Krisher)

WWP

(
ABOVE AND ON FACING PAGE
) Mishima addresses the Jieitai soldiers from the balcony at Eastern Army Headquarters a few minutes before his death. At midday precisely, Mishima appeared on the balcony. He strode forward to the front of the balcony, a small figure in the yellow-brown uniform of the Tatenokai. The men below saw only his head, with a hachimaki bound around it, the symbol of the Rising Sun in the center of the forehead. He leaped up onto the parapet, his small, wiry frame coming entirely into view, the buttons of his uniform shining brightly in the November sun. On his white gloves, bloodstains were visible. He braced himself, shoulders back, his hands on his hips. “It is a wretched affair,” Mishima began, “to have to speak to Jieitai men in circumstances like these . . .”

Photo: Kyodo

Mishima's seventeenth-century samurai sword showing bloodstains after his suicide in the general's office. Morita stood ready to strike with the sword and cut off the head of his leader. “Do not leave me in agony too long,” Mishima had said to him.

Photo: WWP

Chibi-Koga led the way out of General Mashita's office carrying Mishima's sword. Also surrendering with him are Ogawa (
LEFT
) and Furu-Koga, who escort General Mashita between them. An officer rushed to Mashita. “Are you all right, sir?” The general nodded, but he was on the verge of collapse. The police still did not move. “Well,” an inspector cried out finally, “arrest them!” The police doctors went into the room. At 12:23 they confirmed that Mishima and Morita had died by hara-kiri and beheading.