A March 2016 essay examining Sankei Shimbun articles by Akira Abiru and Sekihei, highlighting how firsthand testimony from former nuclear safety officials exposed political irresponsibility during the Fukushima disaster.

2016-03-10

As I have already mentioned, my close friend stopped subscribing to the Asahi Shimbun after learning of its true nature in August two years ago, and switched to the Sankei Shimbun.

Today, he brought me the paper, saying that there were excellent articles by reporter Abiru Tetsuya and Sekihei.

The article by Mr. Abiru reproduced below perfectly proved the correctness of my own commentary, in which I had sharply criticized the conduct of the individual in question at the time.

All emphasis in the text other than the headline is mine.

“The Nuclear Accident and the Shock of the Hanemoto Manga”

At first reading, I was struck by the question of whether it was really permissible to reveal the reality so frankly. The subject is a self-created manga published online by Hanemoto Haruki, who, as chairman of the Nuclear Safety Commission, was involved in the response to the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident on March 11, 2011. The irresponsible and ad hoc behavior of then–Prime Minister Naoto Kan and other politicians in the Prime Minister’s Office is depicted with remarkable candor, exactly as it appeared to Hanemoto.

A Faceless Figure

The manga is a series of four-panel strips, and the identities of most politicians can be roughly inferred from their caricatures. However, there is one figure whose face is never drawn.

“Among the politicians who were at the Prime Minister’s Office at the time, there is one person who evokes a sense of rejection. He is the one I least want to see again, and probably a kind of trauma, so I cannot draw his face.”

When asked, Mr. Hanemoto revealed these feelings, adding, “I’m publishing the manga quietly; it’s like an outlet for my pent-up frustrations.”

He says there are parts where his memory is unclear, so he does not claim it to be factual. Yet as one reads on, the abnormal and dangerous behavior of this faceless figure becomes vividly apparent.

For example, on the morning of the 12th, the day after the accident, during a visit to the plant, when Hanemoto tried to convey concerns about core meltdown, the faceless figure cut him off, saying, “Just answer the questions,” and proceeded to ask only trivial details such as reactor output.

The manga also shows this figure, even in an emergency, asking, “By the way, are there experts at Tokyo Tech as well?”—revealing an obsession with his own alma mater’s academic clique. Alongside this are Hanemoto’s “inner voice,” expressing irritation: “What good does it do to know that?” and “What is this question supposed to mean?”

An episode from the afternoon of the 12th is also depicted, when a meeting in the Prime Minister’s Office discussed injecting seawater into Unit 1.

On this point, Sankei Shimbun had previously reported that Prime Minister Kan shouted, “If we inject seawater, there’s a chance of re-criticality, isn’t there?” Kan denied this, calling it impossible. Yet in Hanemoto’s manga, the faceless figure is clearly shown shouting:

“You can’t inject seawater when there’s a possibility of re-criticality!”

Another striking scene shows Hanemoto telling a politician in the Prime Minister’s Office, “The Prime Minister really does shout a lot,” to which the politician points to another aide and says:

“That person is practically serving as an aide just to be shouted at.”

A Terrible Rationalization

The manga also clearly denies the so-called “urban legend” that Prime Minister Kan stopped TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu from withdrawing completely from Fukushima Daiichi in the early hours of the 15th.

In a work depicting Shimizu calmly saying, “We will not withdraw,” in front of tense officials, the title emphatically states:

“There is absolutely no truth to the claim that the Prime Minister stopped a withdrawal.”

Regarding Kan’s later dramatic speech at TEPCO headquarters—“If you withdraw, TEPCO will collapse!”—Hanemoto offers a harsh assessment:

“Making someone Prime Minister who thinks people will move just because he vents his anger was a mistake. It was the worst speech in history—one that wounded those who heard it and inspired no sympathy whatsoever.”

Through this manga, one is reminded anew of the chaos within the Prime Minister’s Office at the time, and of the subsequent self-justification and beautification of events.

(Political Desk Editor and Editorial Writer)