August 7, 2020
Today, I finally put it into practice and published it for the entire world, but the friend who helped me with the publication process apparently thought I had lost my mind because of the sheer volume of material. (Laughs)
I had long believed that not only the Japanese people but people throughout the world should know every single fact expressed in every single sentence of the special dialogue between Masayuki Takayama, the one and only journalist in the postwar world and one of the world’s foremost critics of civilization, and Ms. Miki Otaka.
Today, I finally put it into practice and published it for the entire world, but the friend who helped me with the publication process apparently thought I had lost my mind because of the sheer volume of material. (Laughs)
Today, after watching the Giants vs. Hanshin Tigers baseball game, I watched NHK’s News Watch 9 as usual, something I have rarely done recently.
I do not know the reason, but perhaps because Arima was absent, I did not feel the disgust that normally makes me want to vomit.
So I continued watching, and then Rekishi Hiwa Historia (Secret Stories of History) began.
I watched it, thinking what an extraordinary coincidence it was.
It was an extremely informative program.
This is precisely what NHK should be, and it is exactly this kind of programming to which NHK should devote its efforts.
It is utterly unacceptable for NHK’s news programs to present commentaries reflecting ideas instilled by GHQ, a self-deprecating view of Japanese history, and pro-China and pro-Korea positions, or to broadcast reports that resemble the work of Chinese agents.
Japanese viewers must have been learning these facts for the first time, just as I was, while simultaneously marveling at the technological capabilities of Japan at that time.
An overall length of 122 meters — by far the largest in the world at that time! — and a hangar four meters in diameter, capable of accommodating three Seiran special attack aircraft, aircraft that, I believe, no people other than the Japanese of that era could have conceived of or successfully developed, and so on.
Takayama
Japan was always one or two steps ahead of Europe and America.
It is said that “one year of war is equivalent to ten years of peacetime,” but it took Britain and America three years to catch up with Japanese aviation technology.
In other words, Japan was thirty years ahead.
Those readers who read my column today and also watched the above-mentioned program must have experienced the same feelings that I did.
Takayama
And that is how the Japanese people, once so strong, were deprived of their spirit and strength.
There was a method of naval warfare that Western countries had maintained for two thousand years.
They would approach an enemy vessel, fire their secondary guns, and ram their bow into the enemy ship’s hull.
That was why their bows were equipped with rams.
However, in the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, Japan demonstrated an entirely different method.
Without ever making contact with enemy ships, Japan used the destructive power of its main guns to sink them one after another.
Moreover, during the Russo-Japanese War, a special explosive caused steel warships weighing 18,000 tons to catch fire and sink.
It was a phenomenon that should have been impossible.
Otaka
So the world perceived Japan as a threat.
Takayama
Japan transformed battleships into vessels that relied on their main guns, departing from the ramming tactics that had continued uninterrupted since ancient Greece.
Following Japan’s example, Britain built its first such battleship, the Dreadnought.
This was what became known as a dreadnought-class battleship.
Battleships that were larger and more powerful were called super-dreadnoughts.
Around the time of World War II, the Prince of Wales belonged to the 30,000-ton class and was called a super-super-dreadnought battleship.
It was supposed to have no enemies left capable of defeating it, but when Japan fought Britain and America, Japan sank this super-super-dreadnought battleship using aircraft.
Japan was always one or two steps ahead of Europe and America.
It is said that “one year of war is equivalent to ten years of peacetime,” but it took Britain and America three years to catch up with Japanese aviation technology.
In other words, Japan was thirty years ahead.
Otaka
It was such a revolutionary method of warfare.
Takayama
Therefore, just as in the case of the former Spanish Empire, after somehow forcing this powerful Japan to surrender, what would be the best way to prevent the country from rising again?
The answer was to use the Las Casas method: portray the Japanese as a cruel people and crush their morale.
That was why GHQ implemented its “WGIP” (War Guilt Information Program).
Japan was portrayed as an undemocratic and backward nation, and the Japanese were told that they needed to embrace individualism and abandon their supposedly cruel and barbaric national character.
At that point, they searched among the Japanese for someone who could play the role of Las Casas.
Saburo Ienaga and Shiro Azuma could be said to have played that role. (Laughs)

＊After that, Tetsuya Chikushi, Ichiro Furutachi, Kensuke Okoshi, Arima, Kuwako, and others went on to play that role.