Otoya Yamaguchi
Encyclopedia
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese ultranationalist, a member of a right-wing
Right-wing politics
In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...
Uyoku dantai
Uyoku dantai
Uyoku dantai are Japanese nationalist right-wing groups.In 1996, the National Police Agency estimated that there are over 1000 right wing groups in Japan with about 100,000 members in total.-Tennō period:...
group, who assassinated Inejiro Asanuma
Inejiro Asanuma
Inejiro Asanuma was a Japanese politician, and head of the Japanese Socialist Party. Asanuma was noted for speaking publicly about Socialism and economic and cultural opportunities...
(a politician and head of the Japan Socialist Party) by wakizashi
Wakizashi
The is one of the traditional Japanese swords worn by the samurai class in feudal Japan.-Description:...
on October 12, 1960 at Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
's Hibiya Hall during a political debate in advance of parliamentary elections. This assassination was caught on tape, and a slow-motion viewing of the tape reveals that the sword blade penetrated Asanuma's left side, through the ribcage, stomach, possibly the spleen, possibly the left lung, and probably the heart.
Death
Less than three weeks after the assassination, while being held in a juvenile detention facility, Yamaguchi mixed a small amount of tooth paste with water and wrote on his cell wall, "Seven lives for my country. Long liveTen thousand years
The use of the phrase "ten thousand years" in various East Asian languages originated in ancient China as an expression used to wish long life to the Emperor, and is typically translated as "long live" in English...
His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor
Hirohito
, posthumously in Japan officially called Emperor Shōwa or , was the 124th Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order, reigning from December 25, 1926, until his death in 1989. Although better known outside of Japan by his personal name Hirohito, in Japan he is now referred to...
!" Yamaguchi then knotted strips of his bedsheet into a makeshift rope and used it to hang himself from a light fixture. The phrase "seven lives for my country" was a reference to the last words of 14th century samurai Kusunoki Masashige
Kusunoki Masashige
was a 14th century samurai who fought for Emperor Go-Daigo in his attempt to wrest rulership of Japan away from the Kamakura shogunate and is remembered as the ideal of samurai loyalty.-Tactician:...
.
Legacy
A photograph taken by Yasushi NagaoYasushi Nagao
was a Pulitzer Prize-winning press photographer.Nagao took a photograph of Otoya Yamaguchi killing Inejiro Asanuma. At the time Nagao was a cameraman working for Mainichi Shimbun; Hisatake Abo, Nagao's picture editor, told Nagao to cover a debate at Hibiya Hall...
immediately after Otoya withdrew his sword from Asanuma would later go on to win the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
and the 1960 World Press Photo
World Press Photo
World Press Photo is an independent, non-profit organization based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Founded in 1955 the organization is known for holding the world's largest and most prestigious annual press photography contest....
award. Footage of the incident was also captured.
Nobel Prize-winning author Kenzaburō Ōe
Kenzaburo Oe
is a Japanese author and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His works, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issues including nuclear weapons, social non-conformism and existentialism.Ōe was awarded...
based his 1961 novella Seventeen on Yamaguchi.