Through Yasunori Kagoike’s testimony published in WiLL, this chapter reexamines the essence of the Moritomo affair. It explores the land transaction issue, the pursuit by the Asahi Shimbun and opposition parties, information control by Tamotsu Sugano, sabotage against Tsukamoto Kindergarten, and the structure in which the destruction of Moritomo Gakuen and the campaign to bring down the Abe administration were linked.

June 1, 2020
What was the Moritomo affair?
When I calmly organized my thoughts in an environment free from surrounding noise, I began to see the essence of things that I had not noticed while I remained in the midst of the clamor.
I have absolutely no interest in a person called Kyoko Koizumi.
To begin with, I think she is probably a person of half-finished ability, whether as a singer, an actress, or a television personality.
But the fact that she is popular in Japan is something that, for example, Chinese intelligence agencies and others would know without fail.
Unlike me, she probably does not possess even a fragment of a philosophy such as never going to China or South Korea.
On the contrary, the fact that she grew up reading newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun and possesses only a mind shaped exactly according to the editorials of the Asahi Shimbun became clear when she went along with the latest fake reporting, once again launched jointly by the Asahi Shimbun and the Constitutional Democratic Party in order to attack the Abe administration.
She has probably visited China and South Korea many times, and in both of those countries she must have personal connections that we cannot know.
What is she doing?
China spread the Wuhan virus and continues to inflict the worst damage in history upon the whole world, while further exploiting that situation to reveal its actions of violating and attempting to seize the Senkaku Islands.
In order to prevent the anger of the Japanese people from being directed toward China, the Asahi and the Constitutional Democratic Party jointly began fake reporting about the retirement age of prosecutors.
I learned from Shukan Shincho that she apparently feels like the leader of the so-called entertainers and others who rode along with it.
Those who subscribe to WiLL, the monthly magazine that all Japanese people must read, have probably already read it, so in this article I will introduce the entire following chapter.
Needless to say, Kyoko Koizumi and others like her surely do not read the monthly magazines that all Japanese people must read.
This article is also an important documentary piece of evidence telling us that media people who joined in the Moritomo Gakuen uproar must immediately leave the stage.
Readers who know Kyoko Koizumi and others should by all means teach them how the Asahi Shimbun and the Constitutional Democratic Party fabricate things.
Except for the headline, emphasis in the text is mine.
The whole truth.
Speaking about the Moritomo uproar.
Yasunori Kagoike.
“The overthrow of the Abe administration” and “the destruction of Moritomo Gakuen.”
Opposition parties, the media, and activists joined hands, and a grand two-front operation was carried out.
The dots connected into a line.
Placed under suspicion of fraud and other charges, I spent about 300 days in a detention center from July 2017 to February 2018.
Furthermore, this year, the new virus struck Japan, and a state of emergency and requests for people to refrain from going out were issued.
What was the Moritomo affair?
When I calmly organized my thoughts in an environment free from surrounding noise, I began to see the essence of things that I had not noticed while I remained in the midst of the clamor.
The intentions of the people who approached me, and the inexplicable events that occurred around me, in other words, the dots connected into a single line.
In September of last year, my eldest son Yoshishige published a book titled The People Surrounding the Kagoike Family, from Seirindo.
It depicts the underside of the Moritomo affair, but at that time people around me all said in unison, “You must not read such a book.”
But if one does not know the argument, one cannot evaluate it.
First, in a YouTube video that an acquaintance told me about, WiLL Extra Issue, August 22, 2019, I saw Yoshishige appealing that “my father’s education was not wrong.”
Then the other day, I read Yoshishige’s book for the first time.
Although there were some differences in recognition, the broad flow and the structure of human relationships surrounding the Moritomo affair were generally correct.
Looking back, the situation had moved greatly outside the range of what I knew.
Now I know what is right and what is wrong.
Whether it is the Abe administration or the opposition parties, what is good is good, and what is bad is bad.
Until now, there were parts of me that had been manipulated by forces raising the banner of “anti-Abe,” but from now on I want to judge everything fairly, issue by issue.
Into the vortex of a great uproar.
In 2016, Toyonaka city councilman Makoto Kimura requested information disclosure from the Finance Bureau regarding the land transaction for the planned site of Mizuho no Kuni Memorial Elementary School.
However, the sale price was not disclosed.
Therefore, on February 8, 2017, Mr. Kimura filed a lawsuit with the Osaka District Court, claiming that the Finance Bureau’s handling was illegal.
This was the beginning of the Moritomo affair.
The Asahi Shimbun and Fuyuki Aizawa, the author of Abe Kantei vs. NHK, from Bungeishunju, and at that time an NHK reporter, jumped onto Mr. Kimura’s pursuit.
When one looked at Moritomo Gakuen’s homepage, the name of Akie Abe was listed as “honorary principal.”
The media and opposition lawmakers, noticing the relationship between the Abe couple and us, happily visited the school.
The first to rush over was Kiyomi Tsujimoto, a member of the House of Representatives.
From that time on, the Asahi Shimbun continued to report on the Moritomo affair, and the opposition parties came to pursue Prime Minister Abe based on those articles.
On February 17, when questioned by the opposition about the Moritomo Gakuen land transaction, Prime Minister Abe said, “If I, my wife, or my office were involved, I would resign as prime minister,” and the opposition parties became frantic to find evidence of involvement at any cost.
Because of that one remark, there were many people whose lives were ultimately thrown off course, and we had no choice but to give up opening the elementary school.
It was heartbreaking.
Thus Moritomo Gakuen was dragged into the midst of a major issue that shook the nation.
A dream shattered just before the school opened.
In the first place, the essence of the Moritomo affair is whether it was legal for land worth about 960 million yen to be sold for 134 million yen.
After Moritomo Gakuen concluded a fixed-term lease contract for state-owned land, it was discovered that a large amount of waste was buried underground.
For the Ministry of Finance, this meant that it had sold a defective property that required waste removal, and if the school opening were delayed because of that, it could be sued.
Therefore, it decided to exclude warranty liability for defects and sell the land cheaply.
It has also become clear in court that there was no problem with Moritomo Gakuen’s land transaction.
However, newspapers and wide shows turned their attacks toward Moritomo Gakuen’s educational content, which was not the essence of the problem.
As expected, the media swarmed to the elementary school enrollment briefing sessions that began on March 5, and interviewed parents.
There were also people who disguised themselves as parents and secretly filmed the briefing sessions with hidden cameras.
This was nothing other than obstruction of business.
On March 10, when media reporting reached its peak, at the suggestion of the lawyer in charge at the time, we withdrew the application for approval.
Our dream was shattered just before the opening of the elementary school we had long desired.
Regarding the approval process, I feel anger at the sudden reversal of the Osaka Restoration Association.
At first, Osaka Prefecture cooperated with the approval of the elementary school.
The Osaka Restoration Association was an “ally” that eased regulations and opened the window for the approval application.
However, as the opposition parties and the media politicized the Moritomo affair, Osaka Prefecture, in other words the Osaka Restoration Association, which had been moving in step with the administration, completely changed its attitude and tried to cancel the approval.
That is why, during my sworn testimony in the Diet, I strongly criticized the Osaka Restoration Association, saying, “The ladder was pulled out from under me,” and “The worst person is Governor Matsui.”
Under control.
Immediately after we withdrew the approval application, Yoshishige brought the journalist Tamotsu Sugano to us.
From then on, Mr. Sugano handled the media response.
This became a major turning point for us.
From that point onward, our family was placed under Mr. Sugano’s control.
Mr. Sugano prohibited us from having contact with the outside and allowed us to meet only the people he introduced.
Before long, media people close to Mr. Sugano began staying overnight at my home and turned my words and actions into articles.
At that time, conservative media would also have wanted to interview me, who was in the midst of the uproar, and government and Liberal Democratic Party figures would also have wanted to speak with me.
But because everything was shut out, none of that came true.
I think Mr. Sugano’s purpose may have been to cut off information from people whose ideas differed from his own.
Incidentally, the last time I met Mr. Sugano was in mid-December of last year.
Mr. Sugano, who had sued Yoshishige for defamation, told me, “I would like to talk about the lawsuit with lawyers present,” and came to Osaka.
There, he asked me to become a witness on his side, and I once agreed.
However, I felt a vague sense of discomfort with Mr. Sugano’s attitude and words, and in the end I did not accept.
I think the discomfort I felt at that time was proof that I had already escaped Mr. Sugano’s control.
Since then, I have not met Mr. Sugano.
Perhaps he realized that I had seen through his true nature and has kept his distance from me.
When we last met, he said that he was constantly going to the office of Noriko Ishigaki, a member of the House of Councillors of the Constitutional Democratic Party, who was pursuing the “cherry blossom viewing party” issue.
I think he had switched the theme of pursuit from the Moritomo affair to the “cherry blossom viewing party.”
Sabotage that had been set in motion.
In fact, about one year before the media began reporting on the Moritomo affair, strange movements had been taking place at Tsukamoto Kindergarten.
It was some time after we had begun incorporating the recitation of the Imperial Rescript on Education into classes.
For example, when my wife Junko, who was also the vice principal, cautioned children or parents over trivial matters, complaint calls began to come in to Osaka Prefecture.
It was not just once or twice that tiny matters were picked on and complaints were submitted to Osaka Prefecture or the Consumer Affairs Agency.
The same kind of thing was repeated many times, and we were forced to respond.
When Moritomo Gakuen began to be taken up by the media, a handwritten letter that my wife had written to parents was made public.
The parents who caused trouble inside the kindergarten may have intended from the beginning to leak material to the media.
There were three “bad parents” who did not agree with Moritomo Gakuen’s educational policy.
I have also seen a photograph of one of them taken together with Mr. Sugano, Ms. Tsujimoto, and others.
That person, amazingly, ran for Toyonaka City Council last year from the Constitutional Democratic Party.
This is only speculation, but I cannot help suspecting that the party endorsed that person in recognition of the achievement of crushing the elementary school.
I saw a video of Mizuho Fukushima, a member of the House of Councillors, and Makoto Kimura standing and talking in front of the planned elementary school construction site.
In it, Mr. Kimura, while laughing, reveals his true feelings, saying such things as, “I wanted to crush the far-right Moritomo Gakuen.”
My impression was that Moritomo Gakuen meant not only the new elementary school, but also Tsukamoto Kindergarten.
Looking back now, even before the Moritomo uproar surfaced, those who tried to label our education as “right-wing” and crush it had already built a network.
At the very earliest stage, sabotage from within by the “bad parents” may have been set in motion.
Once they succeeded in their first goal of crushing Moritomo Gakuen, they suddenly sided with us and then used us for a movement to bring down the Cabinet.
Destroy Moritomo Gakuen and the Abe administration at the same time.
A grand two-front operation was being carried out by activists, opposition lawmakers, and the media.
This structure, I believe, is the core of the Moritomo affair.
To nurture true Japanese people.
All I wanted was to open an elementary school.
News programs and wide shows called our school only an “elementary school,” and rarely said the name Mizuho no Kuni Memorial Elementary School.
Not only the media, but politicians of both ruling and opposition parties did the same.
I felt frustrated because, if they had said “Mizuho no Kuni,” people would have understood what kind of education I was aiming for.
“Mizuho no Kuni” literally means a country where fresh ears of rice ripen.
Surrounded on all four sides by the sea, receiving the blessings of great nature, all the people can equally feel the seasons.
In other words, it is our country, whose origin lies in mythology.
It is our role to raise the children who were chosen to be born in Japan into true Japanese people.
Manners and discipline as Japanese people are not acquired overnight; they must be taught from early childhood.
Tsukamoto Kindergarten bears that role.
At Mizuho no Kuni Memorial Elementary School, students would learn the history, tradition, and culture of our country, and deepen their awareness that they are citizens of Japan.
Moritomo Gakuen sought to combine early childhood education and elementary education, and to raise true Japanese people.
I do not know how many years it will take, but I have not given up the dream of opening the elementary school.
However, there are also people who are obstructing the operation of Tsukamoto Kindergarten, which is now in the midst of civil rehabilitation.
I am prepared for a difficult battle.
I would be grateful if the readers of WiLL would please support us.