Published on July 15, 2019.
This chapter introduces Masayuki Takayama’s work and praises his erudition, insight, powers of verification, and reporting ability.
Through the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries bombing, Masashi Daidoji, the Asama-Sanso incident, and the decline of left-wing movements after the 1970 Security Treaty struggle, it reflects on postwar Japanese terrorism and the collapse of left-wing illusions.

July 15, 2019.
He is the one and only journalist in the postwar world, and one will feel proud that he is Japanese.
Readers who, in response to my recommendation, purchased the following book by Masayuki Takayama at their nearest bookstore must surely be offering the greatest possible gratitude to the author, and must also feel some measure of gratitude toward me, the recommender.
They will feel proud that he is the one and only journalist in the postwar world, and that he is Japanese.
Everyone should be impressed and astonished by his erudition, his insight, the excellence of his verification, and the height of his reporting ability.
Every chapter is tremendous, but the following chapter is especially tremendous.
The emphases in the text, apart from the headings, are mine.
Thoughts on “The Death of Daidoji” in the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Bombing Incident.
Was the man who twice abandoned the assassination of the Emperor Japanese?
The left wing declined after Asama-Sanso.
Nearly forty years ago, in broad daylight, a huge explosion occurred at the front entrance of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Building in Marunouchi, Tokyo, killing eight people instantly and injuring nearly 400 others, some seriously and some slightly.
At the time, I was a reporter in charge of aviation, and that day I had a press gathering with the director-general of the Civil Aviation Bureau of the Ministry of Transport, and was in the director-general’s office on the seventh floor of the government building overlooking the moat.
The sound of the explosion crossed over that moat and shook the windows of the director-general’s office.
The first report, if I remember correctly, was that “propane gas being transported had exploded.”
It was around dusk, after quite some time had passed, that it was understood to have been caused by a bomb terrorism.
I remember that the word terrorism felt that abrupt to everyone.
The reason it felt that way was that four years before this incident had been the 1970 Security Treaty struggle.
The somewhat pastoral atmosphere of the 1960 Security Treaty struggle ten years before that had disappeared, and the students had changed into a style of hiding their faces and arming themselves with iron pipes.
In clashes with riot police, stones and Molotov cocktails flew, and many casualties occurred on the police side.
The peacefulness of the 1960 Security Treaty struggle, when neighborhood women would serve rice balls to demonstrating students, had disappeared.
The estrangement between activists and citizens reached its peak in the 1972 United Red Army incident.
The Red Army Faction and a breakaway organization from the Japanese Communist Party joined forces, and with women’s jealousy also involved, they killed twelve people, were pursued by the police, took civilians hostage, caused the “Asama-Sanso” incident, and killed police officers there as well.
For a full week, Asama-Sanso glued people to their televisions and stunned them with its brutality and madness.
With this incident as the turning point, people, as if freed from possession, awakened from the illusions played by the left-wing camp.
The magazine Asahi Journal, launched the year before the 1960 Security Treaty struggle and long selling nearly 300,000 copies, fell to actual sales of under 30,000 copies.
The extremists themselves also lost their field of activity, and even seemed to find their reason for living at most in killing one another through internal strife.
Two years after that, in Marunouchi, a bomb terrorism equivalent to 700 sticks of dynamite occurred, aiming at revolution.
This article continues.