This essay positions Masayuki Takayama as a singular journalist in the postwar world, contrasting his fact-based historical investigation with what the author sees as abstract and ideologically driven narratives of war.
It examines postwar Japanese intellectual discourse and argues for the importance of rigorous historical verification.

January 24, 2019

Masayuki Takayama is a singular journalist in the postwar world precisely because he stands in complete opposition to the author mentioned earlier.

The following continues from the previous chapter.
Masayuki Takayama is a singular journalist in the postwar world precisely because he stands in complete opposition to the aforementioned writer.
That writer must immediately read all of Masayuki Takayama’s works.
For the fundamental defect of that writer lies first in his ignorance of war… the war he knows exists only in the Constitution of Japan, or in the war described by the Asahi Shimbun and similar sources.
It is nothing more than an abstraction constructed from constitutional theories produced by Toshiyoshi Miyazawa out of fear of losing his position under GHQ scrutiny at the time of Japan’s defeat.
He has continued to wield an abstract theory of war… moreover, one that assumes Japan committed wrongdoing… and has brandished it endlessly.
Readers know well that Masayuki Takayama stands at the complete opposite pole as a true master and great figure.
Takayama possesses detailed knowledge of actual battles fought across many regions—knowledge that most of us never had, because many of us had subscribed to and carefully read the Asahi Shimbun.
In other words, as a journalist he has relentlessly pursued the verification of facts required of a true newspaperman.
It is no exaggeration to call him a genuine researcher and scholar; anyone is struck with admiration at the breadth and depth of knowledge resulting from his long years of study and discipline.
I assert without hesitation that all of his writings, the result of that research and discipline, are of the highest caliber in the world and truly worthy of a Nobel Prize.
Before continuing to spread the evils of ignorance under the foolish prestige of titles such as “University of Tokyo professor,” that writer must immediately go to the nearest bookstore and obtain the complete works of Masayuki Takayama.