Ha! 😂

From gangster to kingmaker: Kodama’s story is the focus for the second of my five essays on America's transformative occupation of Japan, from 1945 to 1952.

www.historywithchrisharding.com/p/the-gangster

Arrested as a Class-A suspect, he was jailed in Sugamo Prison, where he befriended future PM Kishi Nobusuke.

Released in 1948 as US policy shifted, Kodama returned as kuromaku - funding and co-ordinating conservatives, liaising with the CIA, and helping to build the LDP.

Kodama Yoshio, born poor in Fukushima in 1911, became an ultranationalist adventurer.

He amassed a fortune in wartime China, from gems to precious metals, doing black-market deals with Nationalists and Communists alike and working as a fixer for the Imperial Japanese Navy.

In kabuki, kuromaku ('black curtain') are stagehands dressed in black who move sets unseen.

In politics, they are the unseen power-brokers: the kingmakers, the fixers, the invaluable intermediaries.

For more on how Japanese philosophy can help us live well, watch or listen to my conversation with @takeshimorisato.bsky.social.

👉 www.historywithchrisharding.com/p/how-can-ja...

From this outlook came 4 aesthetics:

✨ Yūgen: a mysterious sense of the other side.

💧 Mono no aware: the pathos of fragility and everything passing away.

🍵 Wabi-sabi: beauty in (apparent) imperfection & incompleteness.

🍂 Iki: elegance with restraint/understatement.

Unlike Western philosophy, which often seeks universal truth, Japanese thought has leaned more toward:

• imperfection
• finality
• particularity

At its roots are 3 traditions:

🌿 Shinto mythology (indigenous, ritual & nature-based)
📜 Confucianism & Taoism (imported from China)
🪷 Buddhism (via people, texts & art making their way into Japan from mainland Asia)

Japan wove these threads together in remarkable ways.

Looking forward to chatting with you about it soon, Ginny!

7/

For deeper coverage, follow:
@nickkapur.bsky.social
@mrjeffu.bsky.social
@unseenjapan.com

And for my own take, as a cultural historian: www.historywithchrisharding.com/p/rise-of-th...

6/

- Emperor restored as head of state
- Rights curtailed
- Pacifism abandoned
- Controls over media and education.

Some outlets report that Sanseito is in favour of Japan having nuclear weapons.

5/

Opposition to same-sex marriage, LGBT rights and migration isn't uncommon in Japan.

But Sanseito have been accused of peddling conspiracy theories and their ideas for replacing Japan's American-authored constitution are pretty dramatic:

4/

... but what kind of balance will it now be?

One of the insurgent parties is the pragmatic centre-right 'Democratic Party for the People (DPFP)'.

The other is Sanseito - and their rise is sparking real alarm.

3/

The upshot:

After the recent Upper House election, and for the first time since its founding, the LDP along with its coalition partner Komeito hold no majority in EITHER house of parliament.

A major shift in Japan’s political balance.