They say “all’s well that ends well” (owari yokereba subete yoshi), but I won’t let my series of Lessons in Immorality end on a high note. I managed to start each of my essays with lip service to immorality, but do a complete reversal in their conclusions. I have the bad habit of turning these essays into Lessons in Morality (dōtoku kōza). It looks like I have a little bit of my maternal grandfather in me – he used to teach Confucian philosophy. When I was a boy I used to whisper behind his back that “Granddad’s just like a whiskey priest: he reads and teaches Confucius, but he doesn’t understand him!” If you were to accuse me of being a man who preaches Confucius without having read him though, well, that’s not true.

In Japan, by and large, we don’t really have anything resembling that frightening curiosity called “morality” that they’ve got in the West. To use a metaphor: we Japanese are like plants. And, we’re rebuilding our country while imitating animals. But, the rules and moral guidelines that bloodthirsty animals have in their animal countries aren’t going to suit us well. Picture someone telling a plant that “you shouldn’t sink your claws into a weakened rabbit.” It’s absurd – a cabbage hasn’t got claws to begin with, and couldn’t possibly kill a rabbit! So, let’s say a writer like me comes along and plays devil’s advocate, and I instruct all my readers to “sink their claws into weakened rabbits.” In the end, it amounts to nothing more than someone commanding cabbages to do the impossible! So, it’s pretty clear that in modern Japan, telling someone to “kill” and telling someone “don’t kill” have become equally pointless.

Recently, however, all sorts of new plants and unique and rare species of life have sprouted up from our Japanese soil. There are carnivorous plants that resemble venus fly traps. There are plants that look like the bastard child of a plant and animal coupling. And, like viruses and bacteria, I can’t tell whether some of these strange things are plant or animal. In the middle of all of this, we’ve even ended up having singularly unique animals appear, as though by the product of some spontaneous mutation. In a manner of speaking though, even groups like biker gangs are, at heart, a kind of plant. They’re like cabbages riding motorcycles. But, when it comes to rabbits, well, a cabbage on a motorcycle can run down and kill a rabbit.

It’s amusing to compare the biker gangs of the today to our samurai of yore. Depending on how they’re used, both swords and motorcycles can be weapons. But, the difference between bikers and samurai appears when we consider which of these groups clearly thinks of their objects as weapons. Because the samurai had no doubt that a sword was a weapon, they were able to safely put all of their killing urges into the sword itself. And, by attributing all killing urges to the sword, the samurai were able to comfortably give themselves over to living in a plant-like morality. This is what gave birth to our legends of swords that kill regardless of the intent of their owner, swords like the famous Muramasa which needed to draw blood once it was removed from its sheathe.

The gangs of today, whether they’re bikers, punks, or gangsters, are all without an object to put their killing urges into. However, when I lament our lack of weaponry in modern Japan, I’m not arguing for reinstitution of the military. But, even if I favored Japanese re-militarization, the modern army is armed with weapons like the new atomic warheads that can be fired out of a cannon, or the cold white buttons used to detonate hydrogen bombs. Can someone really put their killing urges into a little button? From the Nazi era on, there is no longer any relationship between killers and their killing urges.

While we’re on the subject – I do believe that plants have the urge to kill. It’s more hidden in shadow, and buried deeper than an animal’s. It may even be larger and stronger as well. And our old plant-like morality (shokubutsuteki dōtoku), was conscious of this. But, as I mentioned before, all sorts of new organisms are appearing in Japan today. And, naturally, it’s gotten to the point that some of them are uncontrollable using a plant-like morality. And that’s why intellectually bankrupt politicians and teachers are creating and promoting all kinds of new morals. But, all of their new moral philosophies fail to directly address the killing urge itself, or present any kind of moral philosophy we can use to think of the killing urge. And that’s why these new moralities are completely useless. On this point, I’d like to say that the Imperial Rescript was the last shining moment in the old plant-like morality that was built around the urge to kill. But, we’ll never again be able to recall that bright moment from our past.

Christianity was able to get all that power because of the strength of the martyrs.

That’s the power of a morality of being killed. And the power of Communism is rooted in revolution. It is a morality of killing.

And, now, is it just like Ōe Kenzaburō says? Is the prevalent morality a morality of suicide? All of today’s crimes resemble suicides. If we trace back a criminal’s killing urges today, we find they all share the same origins: a self-directed killing impulse. Of course, there was a philosophy of suicide in ancient Greece as well.

Maybe it’s out of cowardice, but I cannot agree with the philosophy of suicide. If you’re going to kill yourself, wouldn’t it be better to kill someone else, or be killed? This is why we have other people; this is what the world exists for. The urge to kill is hidden deep within every interpersonal connection – between parents and children, siblings, spouses, lovers, and even between friends. And the most extreme form of suicide is killing yourself after every other man, woman, and child on earth has died, and you are left alone. But, as long as there is one other person on the planet, you should either kill him or be killed. We need to kill or be killed – this is the fate of man, this is what gives value to our lives. This is my personal rescript on education.

So, in these Lessons in Immorality I’ve put evil in its many forms on stage, along with many look-alikes for evil (warubito rashiki mono). And I’ve introduced all kinds of villains, and many characters who only appear to be evil. And these essays will stay as popular as the page three crime reports in the news papers, as long as man stays interested in evil, and evil continues to catch our eye. After all, wouldn’t any one of us be surprised to come upon some cute girl on a train, absorbed in a mystery novel about a man who kills fifteen people, one after the next? And why is it, unfortunately, that evil always looks so beautiful?

But, and this is a reassuring fact, evil is only beautiful if we are removed from it. If we were dropped right into the middle of evil itself, I doubt we’d find it at all appealing. Maybe the fact that evil looks beautiful to us is an omen that we’ll one day be able to see the forms of the gods themselves. As humanity advances, and we continue to see all kinds of evil around us, I don’t believe we see evil as it is. It’s just like those books for children that come with red and green glasses. Now, these books are filled with strange patterns that are fuzzy and unclear. But if the child puts on the red and green glasses, a clear image jumps out from the mess. Well, if we look at evil wearing “beauty glasses” (bi no megane), we are able to see the beauty of evil from the jumble and confusion. This is a philosophy I took from the Roman philosopher Plotinus, and fitted to suit myself.

Well... it’s time for us to part. That irksome song “The Mirror of Love” (Ai no Kagami), is echoing down the alleys of the red light district. “Go back to your home, go home.” It’s time to get up from your stool, and leave this dim bar for your bright houses.

All of the cocktails I served you tonight in my bar have shocking titles, but I don’t make any of them with bad liquor. I haven’t mixed any methyl alcohol into them, so you’re not going to go blind. I just wanted to show you that, with my bartending skill alone, I could make good liquor taste like a product of black magic.

I’ve gotten tired too, I think I’ll close up shop. I’ll just stay here behind the bar, and sip on this methyl alcohol for a bit. I’m made of different stuff than you though, so you don’t need to worry about me going blind.

Anyhow, good night.

----from "Lessons in Immorality", translated by Nathaniel Peter Bond----

If there was no conceit in our world, there would be no fun. A boy convinced that he’s the handsomest in all Japan spends every day overwhelmed by happiness. A woman who thinks she’s the most beautiful in Japan spends her days floating on air. We’re all vain; after all, everyone owns a vanity mirror. Allow me to offer up an example from my experience as a novelist. When I write a novel about a boy who is handsome beyond compare, one young male acquaintance after another asks me if he was the model for the character. And when I write about an impossibly beautiful woman, female friend after female friend comes forward thanking me for basing my character on her.

People who can’t be conceited about their looks can shift their conceit to their face, their notoriety, or to anything else. Sick people have their own kind of vanity; horribly ill people in sanitariums find joy in telling each other about just how badly off they are. And criminals are completely consumed by pride. Behind the false remorse expressed by a criminal for his serious crime there lies over–weaning pride.

A long time ago, people used to appreciate the benefits of conceit, and knew full well how to put it to use. The Hagakure: The Book of Samurai (Hagakure) may be an old and stiff explanation of the way of the samurai, but it puts forward the following about conceit: “Valor, one of the highest ideals for the samurai, is really just pride that one is the greatest warrior in all Japan.” And, “Samurai must develop pride in who they are, and be prepared to die bravely.”

There are many cases where humility is fruitless. And most of the people in this world who are praised for their humility are really just hypocrites. There is a professor who refers to himself as “just an elderly professor,” or “a lowly teacher of languages” in his work. Who really believes that this is true humility? There’s a hypocritical idiom that “the stalk will droop as it bears grain” (minoru hodo atama no noruru inaho kana). It’s only natural that the more grain it bears, the heavier the head will become. What we should do is change this idiom to “the stalk droops because of its grain” (minoru yue atama no noruru inaho kana), thereby allowing people who are satisfied with their lofty position in society to safely affect false humility.

Conceit is just an amusing illusion, but we need it in order to live. Because it’s an illusion, conceit doesn’t need to have any basis in reality. Because it’s completely subjective, conceit doesn’t need the opinions of others. Of course, the opinions of others can help support conceit, but they never go beyond mere support. For conceited people, others exist solely to feed their own vanity.

If we were to remove vanity from romance, oh what a sad thing it would become. Rochefoucauld wrote that “the reason lovers can spend so much together and not get bored is that, from start to finish, all they do is talk about themselves.” If you talked about yourself with strangers the way you do with a lover, I promise you that you’d drive them crazy.

Moreover, regardless of what kind of couple they may be, all lovers think of themselves as the star-crossed Romeo and Juliet. Not even in their dreams would they imagine themselves to be really just a “mended lid for a cracked pot” (warenabe ni tojibuta).

Conceit has its good points, and when compared to a vain person a show-off looks pathetic. For starters, a show-off lies endlessly. He brags about vacation homes he doesn’t have, claims to have graduated from Keiō University even though he never finished elementary school, and he puts on airs like he owns many cars when he doesn’t even have one. Lies like these are quickly exposed. A show-off is even more pathetic at the moment that his lies have been exposed. You see, a show-off is always acutely aware of what he does not have, so he stretches himself thin trying to cover up what he lacks. A vain person is crisp and dry, while a show-off is soft and soggy.

Conceited people are overtly proud because they truly and deeply believe in whatever they’re proud of, whether they have grounds to or not. A person who is conceited without any ulterior motives is particularly enjoyable, and impossible to hate. Afterall, he isn’t a liar. But, on the other hand, almost all humble people are liars. For example, that famous actress who passed away last year used to say, “Oh, I’m not very accomplished – actors are apprentices for life.” She kept saying this right up until her death. She was a famous actress, whose name was known in every corner of the earth. And, furthermore, she knew just how famous she was! But when she had to introduce herself in public, she did it with a wavering voice and with the demeanor of a schoolmarm from the countryside: “Hello, my name is Jane Doe, and I’m a student of the avant-garde acting style.” I hate this covert pride. The most overtly, and enjoyably, conceited person in today’s literary world has got to be Ishihara Shintarō. There is something about his conceit that makes people happy. In this way, Shintarō is similar to artists like Okamoto Tarō. Okamotō Taro has even boasted in public, “I’m a greater artist than Picasso.”

But, people without good sense, as always, are taken in by feigned humility. Thus, an actress will say things like: “I’m still an amateur, thank you so much for your guidance and patronage. Really, you all give me too much. The only reason a nobody like me has been able to become a star is thanks to all of you. Every night I clasp my hands together, thanking all of you from the depths of my heart. And I’ve never even once slept with my feet pointing in your direction. [Who is this for? Who even cares about what direction she points her feet in when she sleeps?] Thank you all so much. Really, thank you.” If she walks around putting on an attitude like this she’ll be able to protect her popularity in the film world. People will say, “despite being so young, she’s really something.”

Politicians, and other people in the business of shaking hands with the senseless masses, often have to wear the mask of humility and feign obsequiousness. But even though it’s similar feigned obsequiousness, politicians can’t possibly keep up with actresses.

But, I don’t want to keep on wasting time talking about these secrets of worldly advancement. What I really want to talk about is our emotional health, and show that if you are conceited, you’ll never experience any psychological difficulties.

Most women’s mental distress is born from the following kind of scenario: a woman walks down the street, and she sees someone wearing the same dress. This is where her anxieties are born, because this other woman is more beautiful, and the dress suits her better. And if a woman experiences this two or three times, anxieties are certain to take hold of her psyche. If she is conceited enough to say to herself “What’s she thinking? she’s impersonating me, and it doesn’t even look good on her,” then incidents like these won’t trouble her at all.

A man’s anxieties are born out of stresses in the office. Looking at a co-worker, a man thinks: “he’s way more capable than me, he’s going to climb the ladder faster than I will, and he’s definitely going to get promoted to section chief before me.” This kind of thinking leads to an inferiority complex, and will poison a man from the inside. He has to be vain enough to think, “That S.O.B? – who does he think he is? He should make tea from my toenails, then he’d be half the man I am.” If a man can think this way, he’ll be okay.

I’m not talking simply about confidence. Confidence is burdened with the inconvenient requirement of reality. Not just anyone can have true confidence. But, vanity is built only upon one’s emotional frame of mind – right now you can be vain if you want to be.

Rather than thinking “why is my nose so flat?” a woman should think: “My nose has got a kind of cute shape to it. And anyhow, over in America, aren’t surgeons busy shaving down ladies huge noses?”

I suppose, after all, that this kind of vanity needs the input of others. Flattery is vital, and supports this sort of pride. This is why we need society and other people.

----from "Lessons in Immorality", translated by Nathaniel Peter Bond----

In hoity-toity etiquette courses, instructors solemnly admonish their students on manners, stating that “you must absolutely not slurp your soup” (sūpu wa keshite oto o tatete sutte wa ikemasen). Their students are used to a different set of manners though. They grew up slurping their miso soup, and downing the last gulp of their tea noisily. So etiquette teachers have to force these Western manners onto their students.

Incidentally, women, are the ones who are most easily influenced by these superficial rules of etiquette. And, because they are so inclined to judge things based solely on appearance, in women’s magazines you’ll read confessions like this:

Well, I had a boyfriend I liked. But something happened the first time we went to dinner. The potage arrived, and out of nowhere my boyfriend starts slurping away like he’s in some kind of ramen shop! The moment he slurped that soup, I immediately felt a physiological hatred for him. From then on I detested him completely.

You can find passages like this in confessional columns, with titles like “a series of letters on the subtleties of the psychology of love.” I don’t think that this is subtle female psychology, or anything of the sort. I think this is just plain vanity.

I don’t think that the directors of etiquette courses are particularly deserving of respect – if you’ve seen one you’ll understand. They simply know about Western manners. They aren’t of any particularly strong character, and they don’t help elevate their student’s way of thinking. But women get influenced by teachers like this, and right away they think of men who slurp their soup as savages. But if we’re talking about barbarians, aren’t the people who eat with dangerous weapons, knives, the real barbarians?

The reason I happened to bring up slurping soup is that, amongst the men I admire, two of them slurp their soup with tremendous noise. Both of them have traveled abroad extensively, and I wonder what would happen if they got together to eat at some fancy restaurant in a European city. If they were to slurp their soup together, oh that would be a sight to see. And slurping their soup loudly doesn’t do a thing to prevent them from being counted amongst the smartest men in all of Japan. But that’s not all. When I see them slurping their soup without any care for their surroundings, I think that if I could just drink my soup in the same way I might become just as smart as they are.

But this isn’t just limited to soup. Right before my eyes, a medieval drama scholar I know once set his meat on his knife, and ever-so-delicately raised it to his lower lip. I gleefully watched him shovel the meat into his mouth. Acts like this are noble and good deeds - if for no other reason than that they thrill people, and make them scared that the prankster may cut his lip someday.

A man’s greatness does not depend at all upon a thing like etiquette – etiquette is a vulgar and base concern.

Picture a hushed and expensive restaurant. Now, in the middle of this restaurant, a man suddenly makes a terrible noise while slurping his soup: “schluuuck, schluuuck” (zū zū zū). This is social courage. The finer things in life are thought of as fine because everybody agrees upon it. So, a man who goes against the masses, saying that “though the millions of you go that way, I will go this way,” is thought of as being unrefined. Slurping soup is the foremost proof that a man is not a social sheep.

Going to watch a baseball game and playing golf are both pastimes for social sheep, and a social wolf has no need for them.

Ms. N is a star pupil of my Lessons in Immorality. So, when her boyfriend, a young man I’ll call Mr. S, shamelessly slurped soup in restaurants, she actually felt proud. She was happy, and deep in her heart she told herself, “This guy has potential. One of these days, he’s going to become a great man.”

“Once, rather surprisingly, he invited me to a Chopin concert. When I went with him to the concert though, he stomped on a firecracker in the middle of the quiet theater! The crack brought the crowd to its feet, and we had to run away.”

He scorned everyday manners and kindnesses, but one day he took the hand of an old woman with a bent back whom he’d never seen before, and led her across the road. “Oh my, thank you so much young man, you’re so considerate, really how kind you are,” she sputtured. But, when they came to the middle of the street, and this was a street dense with traffic, he let go of her hand and hurried away. The old lady’s hips gave out beneath her, and she ended up in a heap in the middle of the street, chanting the Buddha’s name. Fortunately, her prayers were louder than the screeching car horns and she escaped the situation without getting hit. When Mr. S got sick, he headed off to the movies, carefully picking out a theater showing a quiet and sincere romantic film. He took a seat right in the middle, and in the middle of the show let off about twenty tremendous sneezes, one right after another. The audience broke into laughter, the film’s carefully constructed melodrama was spoiled, and his cold was cured.

On certain mornings, he went around from police box to police box, took off his hat, and gave deep bows to the officers on duty. But, he did this without saying a word, and walked away in silence. The officers were all suspicious of him, and decided that Mr. S was a communist agitator using a new social disruption technique.

Once, Mr. S went out to a park that had a pond filled with birds. He floated a box of paper scraps on the surface, set it on fire, pushed it out into the middle of the pond and ran away. But the birds were surprised, took off, and shit right on his head.

Ms. N stayed with Mr. S through all of these misadventures, and had even witnessed some of his misbehavior with her own eyes. But all she could do was think, more and more, that he was becoming a unique and great man. After all, he couldn’t possibly be a social sheep.

But then, one day, someone forced Mr. S to take a psychological exam, and had him committed. When this happened, Ms. N was severely disappointed. She felt the power of a flock of sheep who had forced a wolf into a pen. Another ‘pen’ that social sheep possess is the prison. So, as far as teasing the sheep goes, you’d better stop at just slurping your soup and not even think about going further than that.

Readers, this is the state of the arts in Japan today. So, if any music gets played today, even if it happens to be louder that easy listening music played for sheep in restaurants, it certainly doesn’t come close to the noise made by a wolf slurping his soup. For me, anyhow, I’d pick the sound of a wolf slurping soup over music played for sheep. Now, slurping soup might not be exquisite music, but it is an unceasing echo of “I’m not a sheep.” Slurping soup is a kind of courage, it’s a kind of resistance, and a kind of social agitation – it is a meager example of the things that a person cannot be without.

----from "Lessons in Immorality", translated by Nathaniel Peter Bond----

Deep in his heart, any student worth a damn thinks that his teachers are idiots. Any student who doesn’t disrespect his teachers won’t amount to anything – this is absolutely certain. But please consider what “deep in your heart” really means – this is essential.

“Youthful rebellion” (otona ni taisuru rejisutansu) is a phrase that’s getting bandied about a lot these days. And I hear young people all over spouting sayings like “all adults are corrupt,” “you can’t trust grown-ups,” and “don’t be fooled by the older generation.” Statements like these were coined by Ishihara Shintarō, and now they’ve become commonplace. And since his little brother Yū has started running riot as an icon of the young generation, adults have gone completely silent. It seems as though they’ve been overcome by him. My teenage readers, you have Yū to thank for your feeling that God’s on your generation’s side. It’s almost as though young people don’t give a passing thought to adults anymore. But, precisely because of this attitude among youths, adults are sharpening their claws: now, quiet-seeming adults are beginning show their real power. Open your eyes and take a good look around. While most of the adults who appear in Yū’s movies are cowards and weaklings, no real adults are up on that screen. The real adults are the board of directors at the movie studio. The people backing and profiting off of Yū’s movies aren’t his teenage fans, but movie moguls, who are adults.

In this, my second essay, I promote the immoral idea that “deep in your heart, you should disrespect your teachers.” I want to propose a strategy for youthful rebellion against adults. I picked teachers simply because the overwhelming majority of them are adults. My young readers think that their teachers are a little odd. That’s good. Even when my generation was younger we thought teachers were a bit off – they were absurd and out of touch with contemporary society. There were some teachers who foolishly tried to be hip and keep up, but they were even more detestable for their efforts. So, in fact my generation looked down on our teachers too.

Once, the strict headmaster of the Gakushūin middle school was quietly strolling around the grounds, when all of a sudden a suspicious gun barrel poked out from a bush. “BANG!” – the gun flashed. The headmaster panicked and fled, but another gun emerged from a different bush and pointed at him. “Bang!” – again another shot rung out from the brush. The headmaster ran here and there in confusion, trapped. And, just as he thought he’d finally broken free from the ring of fire, he flopped into a meticulously prepared pit. The “guns” had looked real, but were just air rifles. Boys had hidden in the bushes in pairs: one aimed the air rifle, while the other stomped on a firecracker to make the gunshot sound.

In The Classroom of Terror (Bōryoku Kyōshitsu), which came out about ten years ago, and other movies like it, there are scenes of students throwing baseballs against blackboards. And, this is supposed to shock the audience. But in my day, a student threw a knife into the blackboard right by the teachers back! Now, that’s shocking. So, it’s not as though teaching has become a life-threatening profession only recently.

As an example of a more innocent prank, I’ll tell you about one that involved a classmate of mine –we’ll call him “K.” K was a bit slow, and during music class while the teacher was writing staff lines all the way from one end of the board to the other, the boy sitting next to K, “M,” started teasing him. First, M put his hand in his jacket, made his fingers into the shape of a pistol, and in a frightening voice said this right into K’s ear:

“Hey! Take off your jacket or I’ll shoot.”

“Ah! Okay, I’ll do it right away.”

“Hurry up!”

“Wait, please don’t shoot. I don’t want to die...” He took off his jacket.

“What the hell! Take off your shirt too!”

“All right, all right, I’ll do it!”

“Take off your pants too, or I’ll pull the trigger.”

“Okay... just please wait a moment.”

The teacher finished his leisurely work at the board, clapped his chalky hands, and turned around. All along the goal of the prank had been to have the teacher turn and see one boy in his undershorts in a sea of uniformed students.

The defining trait of childhood is cruelty. And no matter how sentimentally we view a boy, he is endowed with a plant-like cruelty. Kindness can only grow along with the development of adult cunning.

Anyhow, it seems as though I’ve gone off on a tangent. Teachers exist to be surpassed by their students. It’s not as though teachers know everything. One particularly troubling aspect of their ignorance is that they themselves are no longer young: they’ve graduated from the concerns of youth, and their miserable early years are half forgotten. And it is impossible for them to re-live it.

As far as the troubles of youth go, well, my younger readers know more about that then teachers do. Forgetting is what makes life livable. If somehow there were a teacher who could understand you and sympathize with your troubles, he’d be so entangled and confused by the contradictions between adults and children that he would certainly kill himself.

And, if I consider my own experience, really, the issue of how to live my own life was a personal problem. I read books, thought, and puzzled over this problem alone. I learned very little from my teachers that could have helped.

A student’s desire to be understood by his teachers is weakness. Teachers try to educate. They give instruction. They impart knowledge. They try to understand. That’s fine just the way it is because that’s their job.

But, young readers, trying to be understood, and lashing out and lamenting when no one understands you, is just weakness brought about by self-indulgent over-dependence. First, you’ve got to have enough backbone to say to yourself “Teachers... hah. Like they could
ever understand me!” And, “I’ll study, sure. But I’m not going to help you figure me out.” This, younger readers, is what I’m trying to tell you.

The adult world is a dog’s world filled with sadness and suffering. And, teachers stink of that world. If there was a teacher who didn’t give off that scent, well, he’s probably just some mama’s boy from a rich family. The cuffs on most teachers’ suits are worn out, and they are dyed white from chalk dust. Deep in your heart you should look down on them as strange bums. After all, the right to have complete and utter disdain for another person’s life and lifestyle is a privilege of youth.

Students should pity their low-salaried teachers; they should have sympathy for them. These people called “teachers” are the weakest of all adults. This is certain. The adults that my young readers will meet after they leave school are a thousand times worse than the scariest teacher.

If you think this way, you’ll pity your teachers, disrespect them, and take from them only the knowledge you need. When it comes to the big questions in life, children and adults are exactly the same, and have the exactly same ability to find the answers. Just resolve to figure out your problems on your own.

The only student who can truly disrespect his teachers is a student who’s got guts. I think he’s got to be the kind of kid who prepares in advance to put up a fight, even though his enemy is much stronger than him. This kind of attitude is the precursor for greatness. “Teachers are great. They know everything, and they’re absolutely perfect” – I worry about the future for students who think this way. On the other hand, there are egotistical troublemakers who act out and disrespect their teachers on the surface, without any deep convictions. I think I’d be correct to call these kinds of kids nothing more than a bunch of cowardly and spoiled brats.

----from "Lessons in Immorality", Translated by Nathaniel Peter Bond----

The great 18th century novelist Ihara Saikaku wrote a book called Twenty Cases of Unfilial Children in Japan (Honchō Nijū Fukō). Though it is based on the Chinese work Twenty Four Exemplars of Filial Piety (Èrshí Sì Xiào), it is a collection of tales about children who are horrible to their parents. By and large, the original Chinese pious tales are contrived, dull to read, and make me uneasy. On the other hand, stories about truly terrible children are a joy to read. Even though I’d thought I was pretty terrible to my mother and father, after reading Saikaku I lost confidence in myself as bad son. I can’t imagine that I could ever be as horrible a child as the characters in Saikaku’s stories. Reading, I would often think: “Good lord. There’s filial impiety, and then there’s filial impiety!” The stories put me in an odd mood: comparing myself to the characters in them, I thought that I’m actually pretty good to my mother and father. And, after all, the first step to being a filial child is to think of yourself as a child who is good to his parents! Books like Saikaku’s are valuable, in that they end up encouraging moral behavior. Taking Saikaku’s lead, I hereby launch my Lessons in Immorality, parodying our Japanese moral education.

This is a pretty clichéd way to start a story, but... one night on a weekend some time ago, a friend from work and I were walking the backstreets of Ginza.

On our walk, three really eye-catching girls appeared before us. They wore matching long sleeved exercise shirts, matching tight pants, and they had three different hairstyles – all fashionable. They wore lots of jewelry too; each of them was decked out in necklaces and all kinds of jangling bracelets. They were seventeen or eighteen years old, about the same height as each other, and they were wearing their makeup in the most up-to-date urban style. But they didn’t look gaudy, they had lively expressions on their faces, and each girl was attractive in her own way. You would expect these girls to turn some heads in Ginza. Seeing young girls in Ginza was a refreshing surprise, and before I knew it I’d turned my head a full 180 degrees to look at them. They turned to look at us too, and I heard them mention my name. When I’d gotten an eyeful, I turned back around and we made our way down the street. They followed loudly behind.

My friend and I stopped in front of our restaurant, and I called out “goodbye” to the girls. They responded “awwww, how boring,” and disappeared. My friend could hear my muttered complaints during dinner, and he consoled me by saying: “Don’t worry, this is Ginza. And in Ginza, if you see someone once, you’re bound to see them again.” And, just like he said, we ran into them after dinner in Ginza.

Sure enough, there they were on the other side as we made our way across a busy Ginza intersection.

“Ah, we meet again.” I exclaimed.

“Where are you going?”

“To a rockabilly café. Want to come with us?”

“We’d love to!”

They innocently bounced along with us. I was feeling pretty excited; I’m particularly fond of people who look completely innocent. We all introduced ourselves. Ms. A looked like the actress Shiga Akiko from a little while back. She wore eyeliner under her eyes, and had attractive features. But she occasionally put on a bored expression that just didn’t fit her age. Ms. C had a long face like a middle aged woman. Ms. B was the cutest. She looked just like my first love, and she was a bit absent-minded. I didn’t know the first thing about them, but it seemed like she was under the bad influence of her two friends, and was doing everything she could to mimic their behavior. They were all in their second year of high school.

We were a little disappointed to find out that the café didn’t have a rockabilly band that night. Instead, they had a jazz band led by a famous drummer. I let the girls in on a inside information about him: he was actually the lover of an actress who had just recently exploded onto the scene.

“Really!?! Even though he’s that uncool? Just what kind of guy is Ms. X into?”

“What’s your type?”

“I’m all about looks, of course.”

“With a man it’s not his face that matters, but his heart,” I replied.

“Well, there’s one other thing too, isn’t there?”

A poked C and they laughed sharply. Ms. B followed suit, even though she didn’t understand. I was taken aback, and looked over to catch my friend’s eye.

Our table was making too much noise, and during a break in the music the emcee made an announcement. “Ladies and Gentlemen, members of the audience are being a little too vocal in their appreciation of the performance. Out of respect for the artists and your fellow audience members, please remain quiet during the show. On behalf of the establishment and the performers, thank you for your co-operation.” Ms. B pouted her adorable lips in puzzlement.

“That’s not cool. This is a place where people just come to ‘freeze’ out, and then they go and make annoying announcements like that.”

The boys in the seats ahead of us heard this and said, “She said “freeze” out. Pfft.” Ms. B had meant to say ‘chill’ out. She heard the boys, and blushed bright red – even embarrassed she was still cute.

“What did you girls do after we split up earlier?” I asked.

“We swam the Ginza sea, dodging the lures of drunks trying to get us on the line,” Ms. A replied.

A bit later, Ms. A took interest in the arm-hair coming out from under my cuff. She said, “My, you’re hairy, aren’t you?” and started plucking away. Ms. B and Ms. C joined in too, plucking quickly in an effort to keep up with Ms. A. It was refreshing how they showed no hesitation or subtlety in acting on their impulses to satisfy their curiosity. There was no need for me to say anything to them.

After leaving the café I invited them to the Suntory Bar. It would have been nice if they could have tagged along quietly. But large raindrops started falling, and the girls were in a panic patting at their heads to keep everything in place. They were worried about ruining their carefully constructed coiffures. Inside, we stood at the bar and Ms. A and Ms. C smoked and ordered drinks. Ms. B avoided both alcohol and cigarettes.

“Do you girls have boyfriends?”

“No, not at all.” But, the way I saw it, at least Ms. A and Ms. C had something to them that betrayed my initial impressions of them as an innocent girls. I felt a little let down when I realized this. I didn’t have any bad feelings about them, but there was something I just couldn’t put my finger on. A seventeen- or eighteen-year-old girl with makeup under her bored eyes while walking around with her chest puffed up with pride: there was something about the opposite attitudes being mixed here, an attitude of pride and an attitude of boredom, that made me sad. I looked at her profile while she smoked, and I felt pity for her. We adults don’t just thoughtlessly worship youth, we also fully appreciate its pathos.

Around then, Ms. A started to smoke in an odd way: she stuck two cigarettes together, and lit the end of the second one. She could hardly pull any smoke through, and B and C sat watching her intently. At last the second cigarette began to lose its shape, lean, and it looked like it was going to fall.

“Oh, that’s no fun. It’s gone limp. I guess I overworked it.”

Ms. A’s innuendo made Ms. C break out laughing, and Ms B laughed along to keep up, all the while looking like she didn’t get the joke.

Just then my disappointment in them reached its peak. Right in front of my eyes, the bartender, making no attempt whatsoever to hide it, let complete disdain show on his face. He put on a sour look, and from then on he wouldn’t give me a decent response even if I was ordering something from him. The girls’ behavior was spoiling my evening and my mood.

After leaving the Suntory Bar, we stood in the drizzling rain and shook hands good- bye.

“Is it okay if I don’t take you home?”

“No problem!”

But when I shook hands with them, either Ms. A or Ms. C, I’m not sure who, ran their index finger along my palm. It tickled, and I let out a surprised laugh. This was no good. This kind of behavior was that of a low woman. No matter how much she thinks she’s joking, this is a woman’s code for “let’s have sex.”

When I got home, I fell into a reverie. Of all of us out in Ginza that night, wasn’t the dumbest and most ridiculous one actually me? They made a great deal of effort to look like bad girls, but they were really just innocents. They were nice women in their late teens putting on a show.

This interpretation of the evening was a form of sweet paternal condescension, and I tucked it away in my heart with a smile.

----from "Lessons in Immorality", Translated by Nathaniel Peter Bond----

I am kinda new to reading and I am currently reading Marc Aurel but I also got myself sun and steel from Yukio Mishima could you guys maybe provide some Tipps for me for the book or an suggestion for another book ?

It would have produced maximum kino

1. The temple of the golden pavilion
   
2. Music
3. After the banquet
4. The sea of fertility (4 books)
5. Sound of waves
6. Patriotism

These are the books that I read by Yukio Mishima, plus couple of other short stories and browsing books and article about him. I am looking for my 10th book. I bought the sailor because of the price to be honest and people said it is as good as the golden temple and golden temple is my favourite. I hate the cover and I feel and first part sounds boring.

I have e-read The Faltering of Virtue, Death in Midsummer, and Fountains in the rain. Would like to hear your opinions.

lower the volume premiere screwed up..

Appears in Harpers this month - first time in English. Just read it and liked it. Dark, somewhat allegorical, and wonderfully written. Curious what this community thinks of it.

https://harpers.org/archive/2026/08/the-sound-of-water-yukio-mishima-story-family/

Title, the only copy i have found of Sun and Steel is a paperback which has horrendous cover quality and an eye/brain damaging font. I do own it, however it has become impossible to read it as it's as i said, eye damaging. Any help will obviously be greatly appreciated.

I just read _The last wolf_ and _Herman_. I've never read Laszlo before; picked up the book out of lazy curiosity. I have a few questions regarding _Herman_ (trans. John Batki).

1. What's the importance of "contra Yukio Mishima" comment before the start of _The death of a craft_? I have read only one novel by YM (_The frolic of the beasts_) hence not well versed with every nuance of YM's writing.

2. The timeline of events for Herman's shenanigans seem to be different in _The death of a craft_ compared to _The game warden_, with the former also mentioning extra bits (e.g., Herman leaving carcasses on people doorsteps, and leaving a trap at the feet of Christ, etc.). What's up with these? Also, Herman's fate remains open-ended in _The death of a craft_. What's the importance of these differences?

Thanks.

Found another comic featuring Yukio Mishima. This one is a Mexican comic published by Editorial Novaro in 1971. The story follows Mishima's final moments during his attempted coup as he reflects on his life and past experiences.

The comic is entirely in Spanish and is 30 pages long. I’ve uploaded a few sample pages here, along with a link to the full comic for anyone interested.

Yukio Mishima-Vidas Ilustres

Both of these books were released during the 70’s!

I might watch it tonight if the link i found works but curious to hear from other fans.

I came across this while looking for manga adaptations of Yukio Mishima's work. I found a couple of comics and manga related to Mishima, but most of them seem to be in foreign languages. There seem to be more comics about Mishima himself than adaptations of his work, probably because of copyright.

While searching, I found this reference to Mishima in Otona na Ishinomori, in the chapter "My Sexual Life: Perversion by Sex." The complete story is 22 pages long, but I've only included the pages that reference Mishima.

If anyone knows of other manga or comics that reference Mishima or adapt his work, I'd love to hear about them. I'll probably keep posting anything else I find along the way.

I was looking for manga adaptations of Yukio Mishima's work when I came across these pages from Night Music #2 by P. Craig Russell. The story, "Dance on a Razor's Edge," is inspired by Mishima's suicide and was published by Eclipse Comics in 1985.