An essay contrasting citizens’ decency with top leaders’ indecency, labeling the Fukushima crisis “man-made,” citing reports on Kan’s visit, venting delays, and refusal of US aid. Urges ministers to donate salaries for world-class protective gear and to hand the helm to a true leader. Closes with cultural notes on the phoenix and the Analects, criticism of new appointments, and love for Fukushima.

In a series of blog posts from March 25-26, 2011, the author draws on Japanese weekly magazine reports to vehemently criticize Prime Minister Naoto Kan, asserting that his visit to the Fukushima nuclear plant, motivated by a desire for a “photo opportunity,” delayed critical vent operations and exacerbated the disaster. The author condemns Kan’s “self-righteous arrogance” for rejecting US aid and causing the loss of life, further lambasting his appointment of new advisors as an opportunistic act of a “looter” taking advantage of the disaster for personal gain. He holds the media accountable for enabling this incompetent administration and excluding Ichiro Ozawa, and he demands they take responsibility for the immense damage inflicted on the “beautiful country” of Fukushima.

Now, what is saving Japan is the decency of private citizens.
In contrast, their indecency—especially at the very top—is truly bitter, heartbreaking, and no longer forgivable, and the 80% of the public who did not support him, who wanted him gone at once, who no longer wished to see his face, will all nod.
Back then he could not understand this, and convinced himself he must be popular.
This petty arrogance has, in the end, led directly to the loss of lives that ought to have been saved, and to suffering and hardship that need not have been inflicted.

I think this way: many alumni are admirable and active in many fields.
But among the alumni of this gentleman’s university who appear in public and speak loudly, I have seen about three who are self-centered, argue after the fact, and grow fat from the ashes.
This did not begin now—this goes back twenty years.
What I think through these three is: I cannot trust alumni of that university.
Of course this applies only to those individuals and has nothing whatsoever to do with the majority.

For the petty arrogance, lust for power, and self-display of a single man—
Where is the reason that the entire nation must suffer!
For the sake of performances done only to win popularity and to get through the moment, where is the reason that many citizens had to die or lose their homes!

What created the fatal causes that worsened the situation was none other than Prime Minister Kan himself.
March 26, 2011.
To begin with, in the Fukushima nuclear accident, the one who created fatal causes that worsened the situation was none other than Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
On the morning of the 12th, the day after the quake, Prime Minister Kan skipped the Emergency Disaster Countermeasures meeting and flew by Ground Self-Defense Force helicopter to the Fukushima Daiichi site.
“I would like to talk with TEPCO’s leaders on site and grasp the situation,” he said to the press with evident satisfaction, his expression overlapping with that time in 1996 when, as health minister, he ate kaiware daikon on camera.
But this created confusion on the ground.
“Prime Minister Kan arrived a little after 7:10 a.m.
He inspected for nearly an hour, and that was unnecessary.
From the middle of the night of the 12th when he suddenly announced he would enter the site, until he left—about six hours—every operation stopped completely; we could only watch.” (TEPCO source)

Let us put it in a timeline.
At 12:30 a.m. on the 12th, pressure inside Unit 1’s containment rose to six atmospheres, two above the design maximum of four.
By 4:00 a.m. it may have risen to around eight atmospheres.
In principle, to reduce containment pressure immediately, it was necessary to open the vent valve and release steam.
But because the steam contained radioactive materials, nothing could be done until the prime minister departed.
Instead, at 5:44 a.m. the government expanded the evacuation zone from three kilometers to ten.
(From this week’s Weekly Asahi.)

In the end, the Unit 1 vent valve was opened at 9:07 a.m., about an hour after the prime minister’s tour ended.
In the end, the Unit 1 vent valve was opened at 9:07 a.m., about an hour after the prime minister’s tour ended.
After returning to the Kantei, Prime Minister Kan declared “It’s all right” at a ruling–opposition leaders’ meeting—
And at 3:36 p.m., right then, the first hydrogen explosion occurred.
Moreover, at the same time the Kantei committed another major mistake.
They casually declined America’s offer of support.
“In the small hours of the 12th, Washington offered—via hotline—firefighting equipment such as emergency coolants, but the Kantei, following TEPCO’s wishes, put it on hold.
The U.S. offer assumed scrapping the reactors, which clashed with TEPCO’s insistence that ‘we can handle it ourselves.’
Had we accepted, we might have avoided the grave situation we have now.” (Kantei source)
Aoyama Shigeharu, a special member of the Cabinet Office’s Atomic Energy Commission, explains:
“Even if you say coolant, you mean borated water to slow fission, and Japan has that.
But the U.S. constantly prepares for nuclear terror and nuclear war; they have comprehensive operational know-how and units that can execute it.
They were offering methods for rapid, precise cooling.”
In fact, for the American side, Japan’s “refusal” seems to have been unexpected.
A U.S. military source says:
“The Japanese government said, ‘If you cool rapidly with coolants and the like, you may actually promote an explosion, so we want to be cautious.’
Senior U.S. Navy officers aboard the nuclear aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, engaged in rescue off Sendai, were dumbfounded as to why Japanese authorities refused U.S. help at the initial stage.”
(From this week’s Weekly Asahi.)

The Kantei’s instructions fell behind in every case.
To wit, their request to the Tokyo Fire Department for the Hyper Rescue unit and fire trucks came only the day before their dispatch (on the 18th).
“The day before, Prime Minister Kan suddenly phoned Governor Ishihara to ask, ‘May we borrow the monitor deluge fire engines?’
Startled to hear it ‘only now,’ the governor nonetheless asked the Tokyo Fire Department for an emergency sortie.
Those tears at their send-off had such a background.” (Tokyo Metropolitan Government source)
(From this week’s Weekly Asahi.)

The helicopter water dump on the morning of the 17th, carried out at the prime minister’s instruction,
“Was merely to have ‘results’ to show for the phone call with President Obama scheduled soon after,” says a DPJ lawmaker; the more you hear, the more you must question that judgment.
(From this week’s Weekly Asahi.)

Such ad-hoc judgments all stem from Prime Minister Kan’s lack of capacity as the responsible actor and his lack of decisiveness.
If the greatest bottleneck in crisis management is the presence of a “leader who cannot decide,” there is nothing to talk about.
(From this week’s Weekly Asahi.)

The man who boasted “I’m a nuclear expert” supposedly asked, “What is criticality?”
A prime minister from Tokyo Tech, who prided himself on being “well-versed in nuclear matters,” successively appointed three scholars “well-versed in nuclear” as cabinet advisers.
Multiple people around the prime minister explain that distrust toward TEPCO and the Nuclear Safety Commission mounted over slow information and coordination failures.
“He wants a second opinion different from the ministries and TEPCO,” the prime minister declared, but one expert who met him reveals, “He asked me, ‘What is criticality?’”
Even a DPJ lawmaker close to him worries: “What is needed at the top is making decisions, not accumulating knowledge.”
Aide circles also say, “Because he has just enough knowledge, we fear that if he talks, the seams will show.
In this situation, what should the prime minister say?”
Such anxiety seems to have led to a sharp reduction in his appearances.
(From page 4 of this morning’s Nikkei.)

Are cabinet advisers unpaid or paid?
If paid, taxpayers’ money is used, no?
If paid, one must say this man is privatizing the office of prime minister.
And is now the time to study nuclear power?
What a damned fool!

It is an anger as deep as the sea and as boundless as the sky.
I am not nitpicking this man’s faults.
It is that my anger of twenty years has exploded—can you understand that?
Thus, in Japan’s media sphere, Weekly Asahi alone, to my knowledge, kept pointing out that the persecution of Ichiro Ozawa was the arrogance of power, and that dogged journalist spirit led to the scoop in the Muraki case.
Editorialists at the Nikkei, open your eyes wide and look at what you have said and done in the interim.
Then cease, forever, the “vulgarity” of pious platitudes.
Those who, over these two years, wrote on and on, loudly reviling Ozawa Ichiro—never again appear on the public stage.
If you know shame, if you are samurai enough to speak loudly, take responsibility at once and quit.
I denounce this as the “Kukai of the twenty-first century.”
It is an anger as deep as the sea and as boundless as the sky.

A mid-ranking DPJ lawmaker declares, “Prime Minister Kan’s crimes merit death.”
(From Sunday Mainichi.)
“…It is abnormal for the prime minister of a nation to barge into a private company,” he says.
A full-scale war between the Kantei under the prime minister’s lead and TEPCO seemed about to begin with the “dash into TEPCO.”
But for some reason a truce mood emerged.
The reason lies in the “inexplicable refusal of U.S. support,” said to have been at TEPCO’s behest.
A DPJ figure reveals:
“If we accepted U.S. support, we would have to teach them about Fukushima’s internal structures.
The DPJ government was pushing nuclear exports to countries like Vietnam, and frankly did not wish to reveal its hand to rivals.
TEPCO, which did not want outside eyes, and the Kantei had aligned incentives, so they refused the aid.”
Thus the nuclear crisis worsened further.
Not only that, a mid-ranking DPJ lawmaker declares, “The prime minister’s lack of decisiveness heightened the crisis.”
“Immediately after the failure of the cooling systems became clear, if Prime Minister Kan had ordered seawater injection for the people’s safety, the situation would not have become this severe.
An indecisive Kantei, running for cover, was exploited by TEPCO, which worsened matters.
Prime Minister Kan’s crimes merit death.”
(From this week’s Sunday Mainichi, “Inconvenient Truths.”)

The phoenix…
It has been said since antiquity that it descends only when a wise sovereign appears.
Let all become aware of what this means.
Having watched more than twenty foolish years of one bad ruler after another, it was not the phoenix but Wind God and Thunder God that descended.
If you think of it this way, you will understand.
“Kan, depart; Sengoku, begone—this is your role.”
With you, Japan cannot be saved; you will never become world leaders standing with the United States.
Return to Okayama, or Yamaguchi, or perhaps Tokushima.
Heaven has said this is your true path, I am certain.
To go is the path of the saints—the path of the national statesman—
Master wisdom, transcend life and death, be far from self-interest.
To return is the path of folly—go and visit forty-seven places.
Only then will Hōnen Shōnin, or even Genshin, still save an evildoer.
—(Editor’s note in 2025/9/6: Perhaps Kan read this chapter and later visited forty-seven places.)

Why does the Analects, written by Confucius who lived in the Spring and Autumn/Warring States centuries before Christ, still live as an important book today?
Under this title I wrote swiftly, and what emerged contains formidable substance.
I released it today at 17:00 as an extra edition of my newsletter.
If you think “Kisara is no ordinary person,” please purchase.
Well, this is not a freebie “service” for 176 yen.
Those who understand will be knocked off their feet—
It is short and extremely easy to read, however.

As I was about to go out, a strange song flowed through my mind.
“Shall we peek into the heads of those who entrusted the nation to such men—ah-ha-ha, hoo—” it went.

Those who exploit this great disaster to the hilt for themselves are at the level of looters at a fire…
(With honorifics omitted in the text.)
I came home and turned on the TV to hear that Sumio Mabuchi, who had just resigned under a censure motion, was appointed as special adviser to the prime minister.
Just how “vulgar” a man is Naoto Kan?
No one in Japan is exploiting this great disaster to the hilt for themselves—
But it is public knowledge that his neck was saved by this disaster and thus he remains in the nation’s top post.
After Sengoku, now Mabuchi—
Is this not the very definition of looting under cover of chaos?
How much must this man exploit the misfortunes of others before he is satisfied?
Having exploited Ichiro Ozawa to the utmost to sate his lust for power, he now exploits the disaster, the greatest death toll in history, and even the victims, for himself.
I ask King Yama to take no mercy and boil this man in the cauldrons of hell.
He is effectively declaring that the DPJ has no other personnel, thereby harming the party, and he also needles the nerves of the opposition even as they say they will cooperate.
Where can there be greater “vulgarity” than this?
You rarely encounter such a specimen.

Teach your children well, Mr. Tachibana and Mr. Hoshi and so on.
On my way home I thought: Tachibana and Hoshi, please read the chapters I wrote about that beautiful land, Fukushima—
Its scenery and its people.
Even at a time like this, the Fukushima women I know are beautiful.
Fukushima somehow has many beauties.
About seven years ago I saw a poster at Fukushima Station and thought, “Truly a ‘beautiful country’”—its vegetables, meat, milk, craft beer, etc.
Tell me what value this administration—Kan’s administration—ever had that justified destroying such a beautiful land.
Teach your children well.
Tell me why you chose this man and this cabinet—even to the point of relentlessly attacking the true national statesman Ozawa Ichiro.
Then tell me how this man will take responsibility for the great damage he has inflicted on Fukushima—our “beautiful country”—through his handling of the nuclear accident.
There is no doubt: this is the cabinet you created.