Triggered by a lyric expressing longing for one’s mother, this essay recalls a life-altering encounter with Night on the Galactic Railroad by Kenji Miyazawa, describing how literature once pulled the author back from the edge and why Miyazawa remains a decisive presence in his life.

I became convinced that Kenji Miyazawa, who wrote the eternal masterpiece Night on the Galactic Railroad, must also have heard this song.
2016-12-23
When I uploaded this song believing that it should be known by all Japanese people and people throughout the world, I realized something.
It was when the lyrics reached the line about wanting to see one’s mother even once.
That was why I became convinced that Miyazawa Kenji, who wrote the eternal masterpiece Night on the Galactic Railroad, must also have heard this song.
As already noted, there was only one time in my life when I considered stepping down from the stage of life by my own will.
I believe I was twenty-five years old. I was on a night train heading for Sasebo in Nagasaki. For some reason, I was reading Miyazawa Kenji’s Night on the Galactic Railroad.
The carriage was full. I was seated in a four-person compartment, reading.
As the pages progressed, there came a scene in which Giovanni wonders what he can do for his mother.
Tears overflowed from both my eyes and would not stop.
Realizing that this would not do, I got off the train at a completely unfamiliar station along the way.
On a dark platform where not a single person was present, I cried until my tears were exhausted.
At that moment, I was returned to this world.
Since then, I have never once thought of stepping down from life again.
That is how decisive a person Miyazawa Kenji has been for me.
Therefore, regarding the incomparable pen name Akutagawa Kenji that came to me one day.
I can never permit it to be sullied by the evil originating from the Korean Peninsula, a land of bottomless malice and plausible lies, an evil of the most vicious kind, sharing the same roots as the viciousness that now endangers the world.
It goes without saying that Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu would say the same.