This essay questions the role played by Asahi-affiliated newspapers in prewar and wartime Okinawa, and examines how wartime slogans such as “One Hundred Million Shall Die Gloriously Together” and “Never Suffer the Shame of Being Taken Prisoner Alive,” led by the Asahi Shimbun, may have influenced the mass suicides and civilian tragedies of the Battle of Okinawa.
It further raises the suspicion that, in the postwar period, the Asahi Shimbun has sought to conceal its own responsibility and erase traces of that history from public memory and search visibility, offering a sharp critique of the postwar discourse surrounding Okinawa.

2019-04-08
They are deleting it from search results in order to conceal the fact that it was the reporting of the Asahi Shimbun at the time that drove those women to suicide.
I am reposting here the chapter I published on 2018-08-30 under the title, “One Hundred Million Shall Die Gloriously Together. Never Suffer the Shame of Being Taken Prisoner Alive,” which was the slogan led by the Asahi Shimbun to drive the nation toward war.
I searched on the assumption that the two newspapers which now dominate newspaper publishing in Okinawa, the Ryukyu Shimpo and the Okinawa Times, must have existed before the war, and that their contents must then, as now, have followed the line of the Asahi Shimbun and others.
The result was even beyond what I had imagined.
Above all, my purpose had been achieved one hundred percent through the following Wikipedia entry, but…。
Founded in June 1931 as the “Okinawa Nichinichi Shimbun.”
One year later, in 1932, it changed its nameplate to the “Okinawa Nippo,” and alongside the Okinawa Asahi Shimbun and the Ryukyu Shimpo, it gained enormous support as one of the representative prefectural newspapers of Okinawa in the early Showa period.
Masayuki Takayama brilliantly exposed, through the example of the cervical cancer vaccine uproar, the vileness of the Asahi Shimbun’s conduct and the essential nature from which it springs…。
And to Riko Muranaka, a genuine scholar and genuine human being, who did not yield to the absurd pressure of the Asahi and its like…。
The good sense of the world awarded the John Maddox Prize…。
And when Asahi’s fabricated reporting was made known to the world…。
He harshly criticized the way they reported it three weeks later in a small filler article on a page readers do not read, calling them a newspaper company that is underhanded to the very end…。
And even in the search results I have just seen…。
The Asahi Shimbun company’s nature, the very extreme of pettiness and underhandedness, was exposed once again.
The Okinawa Asahi Shimbun, alongside the Ryukyu Shimpo, had won enormous support as one of the representative prefectural newspapers of Okinawa in the early Showa period…。
And yet when one clicks on “Okinawa Asahi Shimbun,” nothing appears.
It is exactly the same pattern as when they made it impossible to search for deleted English-language comfort women articles and correction articles…。
Truly, it is a newspaper that is underhanded to the very end.
Why is it that the Asahi Shimbun company is deleting searches for the Okinawa Asahi Shimbun, which had been one of Okinawa’s representative newspapers before the war.
It is because the Asahi Shimbun, making use of Kenzaburo Oe’s false anti-Japan propaganda work Okinawa Notes and the like…。
And because the Okinawan people who killed themselves or jumped from cliffs during the Battle of Okinawa…。
I remember that many of them were women…。
And because the Himeyuri Monument, which it is no exaggeration to call a symbol of anti-Japan propaganda today…。
Would reveal that it was the reporting of the Asahi Shimbun at the time that drove those women to suicide, they are deleting it from search results in order to conceal that fact.
The slogan that drove the nation toward war, led by the Asahi Shimbun, was “One Hundred Million Shall Die Gloriously Together. Never Suffer the Shame of Being Taken Prisoner Alive”…。
There was nothing else that drove the women of Okinawa toward suicide.
And yet the Asahi Shimbun and Kenzaburo Oe shifted the blame onto Japanese soldiers, who in fact were strict in discipline.
Their sin is deeper than the sea…。
It is utterly unforgivable.
If one looks at the editorials and pages of the Asahi Shimbun at the time, it is obvious at a glance…。
That is why the Asahi Shimbun company is making sure it does not appear in searches.