Published on September 28, 2019.
Based on Masayuki Takayama’s column in Shukan Shincho, this essay discusses Shiba Ryotaro’s character portrayals, his criticism of Nogi Maresuke and Ijichi Kōsuke, the “run them over” remark, the climate of Asahi Shimbun, hatred of modern Japan, and childish worship of foreigners.

September 28, 2019.
Shiba appears to have completely adapted to the climate of Asahi, which is “harsh toward Japanese people, while highly evaluating foreigners, even Koreans.”
Shiba’s historical view says that “after climbing up to the top of the hill, Japan became arrogant and headed toward ruin.”
This is a chapter published on September 29, 2018, under the title: Why did Shiba imitate Honda Katsuichi?
His way of portraying people went beyond even Ijichi Kōsuke.
Every week, I subscribe to Shukan Shincho in order to read the closing serialized columns by Takayama Masayuki and Sakurai Yoshiko.
This week’s serialized column too splendidly proves his erudition, insight, excellent verification, and high reporting ability.
Shiba Ryotaro was probably both a senior colleague and a familiar presence to him as a reporter at Sankei Shimbun.
This is nothing to boast of, but I have never read even one of Shiba’s books…I have never wanted to read one…but I knew him well.
That is because I subscribed to Shukan Asahi regularly for a very long time…and because I read, almost every week, Shiba’s Kaidō o Yuku, which had become the flagship serial of that weekly magazine.
At the same time, what made me feel a kind of connection was that I encountered him twice at the bar of Hotel Okura in Tokyo.
At that time, I was chatting pleasantly with a very close friend from Dentsu, while he was having a meeting with people from the industry.
I encountered him twice at seats very close by.
Then I, having appeared, as I had no choice, on the internet, the largest library in human history, wrote a piece mocking him in 2010, not long after I appeared there.
That was probably because there was something in common with Takayama’s brilliant criticism in this week’s issue.
A friend who is one of the finest readers teased me, saying that the only people who can cut down Shiba Ryotaro are Takayama and you.
Emphasis within the text, other than headings, is mine.
Takayama Masayuki.
On the 150th Year of Meiji.
When I entered Sankei Shimbun, Shiba Ryotaro’s Ryōma ga Yuku was being serialized in the evening edition.
I remember being greatly impressed by his portrayal of characters.
Around the time of the 1970 Security Treaty protests, Saka no Ue no Kumo was also serialized in the Sankei evening edition.
I looked forward to the arrival of the evening edition.
My elder brother, who had been saying the foolish thing even then that “the newspaper is Asahi,” switched to Sankei.
That was the Saka no Ue effect.
However, as the serialization progressed, the character portrayals that had impressed me so much became strangely heavy, and I even came to dislike reading them.
For example, regarding Nogi Maresuke, who caused many war dead in the assault on the Port Arthur fortress.
Shiba severely criticized him, calling him incompetent and so on.
He showered even more terrible abuse on the staff officer Ijichi Kōsuke.
I do not know any Japanese writer who curses people to this extent.
Recently, Hoshina Masayasu wrote terribly about Tōjō Hideki.
I think Shiba gave citizenship to such un-Japanese, tasteless portrayals, like Korean criticism of Japan.
Around the time the serialization ended, I was in the press club at Haneda.
When I was visiting airline companies, I found that among the executives of Japan Airlines was the grandson of Abo Kiyokazu, gunnery officer of the Combined Fleet.
He was the man who stood beside Tōgō Heihachirō and directed the concentrated bombardment against the Baltic Fleet.
At All Nippon Airways, the grandson of Ijichi Kōsuke, whom Shiba had cursed so thoroughly, was head of the Management Administration Office.
I asked the two of them for their thoughts on how their grandfathers had been portrayed, and there were truly mountains of objections.
When I wanted to ask Shiba directly about that, he had somehow moved from Sankei to Asahi and begun travel writing.
From around that time, a strange Asahi color began to appear.
The “run them over” remark also belongs to that period.
Before the end of the war, Shiba returned from Manchuria and was at a tank unit base in Sano City, Tochigi Prefecture.
There were also rumors of an American landing.
At that time, a staff officer from Imperial General Headquarters said that they should move down from Sano and stop the enemy at the water’s edge.
But the roads were full of evacuees.
When asked what to do, the staff officer said, “Run them over.”
It was a statement perfectly suited to the “cruel Japanese army” officer that Asahi had created, but I thought it was a little strange.
When the U.S. military was landing and everyone was fleeing from Tokyo, a tank unit was still leisurely remaining in Sano.
Could there really have been a situation such as, “Well then, shall we gradually move out?”
In fact, none of Shiba’s fellow tank-unit members heard that staff officer’s remark.
Why did Shiba imitate Honda Katsuichi?
His way of portraying people went beyond even Ijichi Kōsuke.
In his travel writing on Shimabara, he vilified Matsukura Shigemasa, who suppressed the Christians, saying, “There is no one in Japanese history as hateful as he.”
His grounds were the records of a Portuguese captain and the head of the Dutch trading post.
Things such as, “They dressed believers in straw raincoats and set them on fire.”
But did he verify those records?
If he had verified them, he should have known that they matched perfectly the descriptions in Las Casas’s A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, which was selling in Europe at that time.
It makes more sense to see it as follows:
This yellow country had insolently expelled Christianity, calling it a cruel heresy that knew no mercy.
So, as revenge, let us thoroughly slander it, and portray cruel Japan by imitating Las Casas.
Asahi worships MacArthur and other white people and knows no doubt.
Was Shiba infected by that too?
In his European travel writing, when Tokugawa Akitake, younger brother of Tokugawa Yoshinobu, visited Belgium, Shiba happily described King Leopold II as having “shown special favor.”
However, afterward the king plotted to make Japan a colony.
He also said, “The uncivilized lands of Asia will surely welcome European civilization.”
In the end, the king made the Congo a colony, cut off the wrists of half the inhabitants, and killed 70 percent of the population.
Shiba does not say a single word of criticism toward such a king.
Shiba appears to have completely adapted to the climate of Asahi, which is “harsh toward Japanese people, while highly evaluating foreigners, even Koreans.”
Shiba’s historical view says that “after climbing up to the top of the hill, Japan became arrogant and headed toward ruin.”
However, in that historical view, hatred of modern Japan and childish worship of foreigners are mixed together.
It is by no means a coincidence that it strangely resembles Asahi Shimbun, which disparages the 150th year of Meiji.