A republication of a chapter first released on June 25, 2017.
Using the postwar academic claim that the Man’yōshū poet Yamanoue no Okura was a naturalized immigrant as a point of departure, this passage argues that postwar historians, literary scholars, and school textbooks systematically demeaned Japan while elevating China and Korea, excluding the Kojiki, the Nihon Shoki, and Japan’s mythic traditions from serious treatment.
It sharply examines the absurdity of timelines that list Emperor Nintoku’s tomb while omitting Emperor Nintoku himself, praises Empress Michiko’s profound understanding of myth, and exposes the essence of postwar education that erased Yamato Takeru no Mikoto and Ototachibana-hime from the textbooks.

2019-03-03
Of course, neither Yamato Takeru no Mikoto nor Ototachibana-hime ever appears in left-leaning textbooks… It does not matter to them that there is a place name called “Azuma,” or a city called “Yaizu.”

I am republishing a chapter I originally released on 2017-06-25 under the title: “A recently decorated scholar of the Man’yōshū published in Iwanami’s Literature the theory that the famous poet Yamanoue no Okura was a naturalized immigrant.”
What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.
A recently decorated scholar of the Man’yōshū published in Iwanami’s Literature the theory that the famous poet Yamanoue no Okura was a naturalized immigrant, and it drew a great deal of attention.
However, in the Man’yōshū, there is a poem by Okura praising Empress Jingū, who conquered the Three Korean Kingdoms.
Moreover, Okura also composed a poem praising Japan: “From the Age of the Gods it has been handed down and told that Yamato, the land fair to behold, is the stern land of the imperial gods, a land blessed by the spirit of words…”
There could not possibly have been such a naturalized immigrant in that age.
He was probably one of those repatriated from the peninsula after the defeat at the Battle of Baekgang.
To fail to notice that means one is a Man’yōshū scholar who has not even read the Man’yōshū.
That is how appallingly crude the claims of Japan’s postwar historians and literary scholars have been.
Just as Mr. Hasegawa says, so long as someone says something that demeans Japan and elevates China or Korea, Asahi and Iwanami will seize upon it and lavish praise on it without any verification.
And that is the structure by which such ideas spread among the Japanese people.
Postwar textbooks decided not to deal with the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki.
That is why ancient history in textbooks consists only of archaeology—such as the Stone Age, the Jōmon period, and the Yayoi period.
If you look at the chronology of the Japanese Historical Society, Emperor Nintoku’s mausoleum is there, yet Emperor Nintoku himself does not appear.
Hasegawa.
Even though, in reality, there is a huge keyhole-shaped tomb in Osaka Prefecture?
Watanabe.
According to leftists, archaeology does not require it to be an imperial tomb at all.
They say mythology is out of the question, and that the only things that can substantiate the existence of the emperors are Chinese or Korean historical materials, so only when a figure resembling a Japanese emperor appears there do they begin writing history from that point.
But even by common sense, there is no way ancient Chinese or Koreans could have known what was happening in Japan.
So naturally they would not have written about it.
What is admirable is that the Japanese history chair first established at the University of Tokyo in the Meiji era began with mythology.
That does not mean one must believe the myths.
It means there are historical circumstances that cannot be explained if mythology is ignored.
Their position was that if mythology is denied, what follows can no longer be explained.
Hasegawa.
In her book Bridging the Gap, Empress Michiko clearly says, in substance, that studying mythology is profoundly important.
Myth itself is not literal reality, but it reflects something of Japanese society.
Watanabe.
What I think is truly admirable about Empress Michiko is that, as I believe she wrote somewhere, she regards herself as being prepared in the spirit of Ototachibana-hime.
Ototachibana-hime was the one who threw herself from the boat in order to save Yamato Takeru no Mikoto.
Yamato Takeru no Mikoto lamented, “Azuma haya—my beloved wife.”
Of course, neither Yamato Takeru no Mikoto nor Ototachibana-hime ever appears in left-leaning textbooks.
The excuse is that this was not yet a historical age.
It does not matter to them that there is a place name called “Azuma,” or a city called “Yaizu.”
Because there are no Chinese documents that wrote about it.
That is their logic.