This essay argues that Western colonialism undeniably made the twentieth century a century of war, while exposing how distorted views of the Japanese Emperor—instilled by domestic media—collapsed instantly through direct encounters with Kyoto Imperial spaces. By visiting the Kyoto Imperial Palace, Katsura Imperial Villa, and Shugakuin Imperial Villa across the seasons, the author rediscovers the true foundations of Japan, its people, and the Emperor’s role.

May 16, 2016

Many readers of the Asahi Shimbun are made to hold critical views toward the Emperor. I was one of them as well. In other words, regarding one’s understanding of the Emperor, one is brainwashed by the distorted ideology of the Asahi Shimbun’s editorial writers.

That Western colonialism turned the twentieth century into a century of war is an undeniable historical fact.

The First World War, and then the Second World War, which was caused by that First World War.

Yet readers of the Asahi Shimbun have been made to believe—as if indoctrinated—that the cause of the Second World War lay in the imperial system itself. They have been brainwashed.

About ten years ago, I made my third discovery of Kyoto. The beauty of Kyoto’s autumn leaves prompted that discovery. Furthermore, when I was passing beside Kikoku-tei, a taxi driver uttered these words: compared to the gardens of the Imperial Palace, no other gardens can even be compared. I thought that was probably true.

That became the trigger for my decision to visit Katsura Imperial Villa and Shugakuin Imperial Villa, places I had previously kept at a respectful distance.

Until then, I had avoided them because applying by postcard seemed troublesome. After all, even during the time when I visited Hawaii forty-seven times, my travels were always left to the wind. Yet the critical attitude toward the Emperor that had been imposed on me—inevitably—because I was a reader of the Asahi Shimbun must also have contributed to this avoidance.

The taxi driver told me that the best approach was to go to the office located at the Kyoto Imperial Palace. If I had an acquaintance who was a foreigner with a passport, it would even be possible to visit on the same day; otherwise, it would be possible the next day. Since I frequently visited the Imperial Palace and knew the location of the office well, I thought I would go before long.

I visited the gardens of the Kyoto Imperial Palace, the gardens of the Sento Imperial Palace, Katsura Imperial Villa, and Shugakuin Imperial Villa, each across the changing seasons.

In that process, the perspective influenced by the foolish and distorted editorials of the Asahi Shimbun, the perspective brainwashed by the Asahi Shimbun that views the world through a distorted mind concentrated in Tokyo alone, dissipated like mist.

To put it bluntly, it would be more accurate to say it vanished in an instant.

I boarded a Hankyu limited express from Umeda and arrived at Katsura Station. Since the appointed visiting time was approaching, I took a taxi. The moment I stepped out of the taxi, the foolish notions with which I had been brainwashed by the Asahi Shimbun dissipated. Even before passing through the gate of Katsura Imperial Villa, to be clear, there already drifted at the entrance facing the public road a presence entirely unrelated to the ugliness of the Asahi Shimbun’s editorial writers, who remain in Tokyo—a place that is nothing more than yesterday’s New York—brandishing distorted, childish, and malicious ideologies.

I instantly thought how many long years I had wasted. I realized that the truth exists here, and not in Tokyo.

I came to know that at the root of the greatness of Japan and the Japanese people lay such a presence, and the truth of the Emperor’s existence.

What it means to govern a nation—this was taught to me, one of the geniuses produced by the postwar world, in a single instant by the presence of Katsura Imperial Villa, by the architecture of the Imperial Palace, and by the gardens of the Imperial Palace.

That is why I wrote that the Emperor should reside in Kyoto and exist as Japan’s great star.

Strangely enough, it would not be an exaggeration to say that this was exactly the same as the arguments made by Umesao Tadao.

While people—whether Japanese or foreign—are touring the gardens mentioned above, I envisioned the Emperor or a member of the Imperial family suddenly appearing. I imagined the scene of pure, unclouded, unrestrained cheers rising up, without any pretense.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that what I envisioned and what Umesao Tadao argued were exactly the same.

To be continued.