This essay examines the decline of Bungeishunju after the closure of the influential opinion magazine Shokun!.
It discusses how conservative journals such as Seiron, Voice, and WiLL resisted the ideological dominance of left-leaning media power associated with Asahi Shimbun and NHK, and how Bungeishunju attempted to escape pressure from both sides, creating an intellectual vacuum within the company.
The essay also criticizes Kazutoshi Hando’s historical perspective, arguing that his view of history ignores international context and ultimately becomes a mirror image of nationalist historiography.

March 27, 2019.
The resistance journals such as Shokun!, Seiron, Voice, and WiLL stood against the media power (the Left) that dominated Asahi and NHK, while Bungeishunju tried desperately to escape from the walls of pressure coming from both sides.

The following continues from the previous chapter.
The Third-Rate Actor of the Declining Bungeishunju.

Soon a book compiling nine dialogues titled Shoichi Watanabe and Mikio Nishio: Complete Dialogues (Business-sha) will be published.
At the beginning of that book appears a conversation between the two that was published in WiLL (May 2009 issue) after the closure of Shokun!, in which they expressed concern about the future of Bungeishunju.
Rather than merely expressing concern, it might be more accurate to say that it predicted the self-destruction of Bungeishunju as we see it today.

It is widely known that in the first half of 2018 Bungeishunju exposed an unprecedented disgrace through internal conflict over the appointment of its president.
However, the decline that now borders on self-destruction had already been foreseeable from the very moment it abandoned Shokun!, the opinion journal that had functioned as its backbone.

Bungeishunju had been a company whose charm lay in the free and lively spirit of independence that jabbed at the public opinions of Asahi and NHK.
But it entered an era in which maintaining balance became difficult.
Asahi and NHK turned into rigid ideological groups, and Shokun! showed a posture of fighting against them.
The company tried to escape from both sides.
As a result it could produce nothing but timid, neutral, and hygienically harmless magazines that seemed to be afraid of offending anyone, and circulation declined.

In the dialogue I said, “At this rate Bungeishunju will be in danger,” and “Bungeishunju has been absorbed into the Asahi Shimbun.”
Watanabe responded that even if the work of anti-communism had ended, ideological enemies must still exist, and that anything obstructing the goal of making the Japanese state independent should be regarded as an enemy.
He added that perhaps those who had lost sight of that structure of confrontation had become the mainstream of Bungeishunju.

“It is certain that today’s Bungeishunju strongly bears the color of Kazutoshi Hando.
It is strange that Hando seems to have gained more influence over Bungeishunju after leaving.
He was not an editor-in-chief who dramatically increased circulation, so it remains a mystery why he now has such influence.”

Thus he repeatedly said “It is strange” and “It is a mystery,” raising questions.

Facing the resistance journals such as Shokun!, Seiron, Voice, and WiLL that opposed the media power dominating Asahi and NHK, Bungeishunju tried only to escape from the pressure coming from both the Left and the Right, and in doing so created an empty intellectual space within the company.

Into that space was sent from the Left the perfect emissary of the devil named Kazutoshi Hando.
Yes, Hando suddenly appeared as a third-rate actor, a substitute for the collective will that had reached its limits within the Article 9 Association and the weekly magazine Kin’yōbi, especially after witnessing the failure of the forced-comfort-women narrative.

The previously mentioned Nakajima Kenzo and Kato Shuichi at least wore the masks of cultural figures advocating progressivism or Westernism.
They were at least literary figures and thinkers.
Kazutoshi Hando is none of those things.
He is not an expert in anything.

Let me add one final word about Hando’s view of history.
War is always a matter involving an opponent, yet he discusses only what Japan did and does not attempt to view matters from an international perspective.
He almost always ignores what other countries did.
Nor does he attempt to view history on a long scale that goes beyond modern history.
Even if the faults of one’s own national history are described in a reflective tone, this still feels like being forced to read a self-centered national history.
Someone once said that Hando’s history is simply the reverse side of imperial nationalist historiography.
It is unlikely that this biting irony will ever reach his intellect.