Talk:Yukio Mishima
Kimitaké
Wow, a whole article and redirect. Thanks Kimitake for writing under a pen name! Um, I had found this whole long list of works and I tried to just use the most common or well known novels. Did not include information about his wife and children because I didn't think they're really important. I'm sure they were to him, but ...
Wikipedia naming policy is to use the better known of the names as the main entry, even if it's a pseudonym Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). I moved this entry from Mishima's birth name (Kimitake Hiraoka) to here and put a redirect from the other to here. --Zippy 08:54, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Somehow this was moved away to the inverted name order, by which Mishima is not known in English. Moved back to "most common name". -- Someone else 02:43, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Explanation request
It is not clear from the aarticle what his cause was that he tried to convince the army of. Can anyone explain? Rmhermen 15:38, Jan 21, 2004 (UTC)
Nobel nomination
During the 1960s, Mishima wrote some of his most successful and critically acclaimed novels, acted in films, and was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize.
This is a little bit misleading - there are no official nominations for Nobel Prizes like for the Academy Awards. Who nominated him for the Nobel Prize? --zeno 14:49, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- When organisations like PEN nominate a writer for the Nobel Prize for Literature, it is usually announced. In this way we know, for example, that the Esperanto poet William Auld has been nominated at least three times, and Maria Luisa Spaziani several times. I do agree that we should find a citation for this. Crculver 17:47, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Everything's in German!
I have translated this page (with minor changes) into german. Hope this is ok. fp
Mishima and militarism
I don't think Mishima wanted a return to militarism. In fact, if I recall correctly, he wrote that the Japanese army's manipulation of the emperor (who was essentially reduced to a figurehead) during World War II was shameful excess. Rather, Mishima only wanted to use the army to restore the emperor to his rightful place and remove the corrupt democratic government. So, unless you can find a citation stating that militarism was his goal, I will remove that portion in a few days. Crculver 17:52, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Well, it seems to me (my opinions come almost exclusively from Henry Scott Stokes' book) that there are two difficulties here. First, it's not clear what is meant by militarism, and that doesn't seem like a very meaningful way to describe a form of government. Second, it's not really very clear what Mishima was trying to accomplish. Judging by the speech he gave that day, he apparently wanted to the Self-Defense Forces to stage a coup, at least in that they would declare themselves independent from the democratic government and separate power center. Complicating this is the fact that, whatever he was up to, Mishima apparently didn't expect to succeed. So you could say that his goal was a high-profile suicide. As for the question of militarism, I'm not sure that anyone in Japanese history would describe themselves as militarists -- almost all of the various soldiers to control the government would have said they were doing it in the interest of the emperor, and a lot of them probably believed it. If the pre-war Japanese system is what we mean by militarism, Mishima had expressed his preference for it pretty clearly. The fact that he saw World War II as "excessive" doesn't mean much. For one thing, that's easy to say in hindsight; for another, Mishima retroactively backed a different faction of militarists, the ones that lost in the Ni Ni Roku incident. If we define militarism more broadly as a government where the military has a lot of influence, then anyone who would stage a military coup clearly fits the bill.
- Despite the fact that one can make a solid case that Mishima was a militarist, I propose that we hedge by simply saying that he wanted the SDF to stage a coup. - Nat Krause 07:52, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
Manner of death
The decapitation article claims that Mishima was decapitated. Anyone know? --Dante Alighieri | Talk 20:08, May 24, 2004 (UTC)
- I believe that he first stabbed himself in the gut, and then one of his associates cut off his head. - Nat Krause 06:44, 25 May 2004 (UTC)~
- I was the one who added him to the decapitation article. I do know that he was beheaded by his associate (rather clumsily by the sounds of it), and I have (involuntarily) seen pictures of his severed head in a book on him in Japan. Read the seppuku article for more:
- The last known people to commit seppuku were famed author Yukio Mishima and one of his followers, who committed public seppuku at the Japan Self-Defence Forces headquarters after an abortive coup attempt in 1970. Mishima committed suicide in the office of General Kanetoshi Mashita. His second, a 25 year-old named Morita, tried three times to ritually behead Mishima but failed; his head was finally severed by Hiroyasu Koga. Morita tried to follow Mishima in committing seppuku; although his own cuts were too shallow to be fatal, he gave the signal and he too was beheaded by Koga.
- I have to imagine that, even with a very sharp blade, it takes a certain degree of upper body strength to sever a human head with a katana. I'm not terribly surprised that it took more than one go at it. In any event, thanks for the confirmation. While I'm at it, anyone want to help add more decapitees to the decapitation article? --Dante Alighieri | Talk 15:36, May 25, 2004 (UTC)
- Quick question. Are there special laws in Japan that would protect Koga from a murder charge? --Dante Alighieri | Talk 15:36, May 25, 2004 (UTC)
- I don't know, but Koga was convicted of something and sent to prison. They committed several crimes that day. - Nat Krause 03:55, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
The Photo
Can anyone vouch for the legality of including this photo? Unless someone can say something about its copyright status, I'll take it down one week from time. Curtsurly, you've been warned before about not respecting the copyright of photographs, so please don't add photos to articles without making some sort of statement about them on the Talk page. Crculver 14:41, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Links
That link sounded very promising:
I was intrigued to know what the similarities were besides having an opinion far from the majority and using violence. "Another advocate of futility and practitioner of violence" That was all of the comparing part. "Short piece" is an understatement. Furthermore, I didn't find information about Mishima that isn't in the article. So I removed it. 217.81.76.124 09:45, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)