Starting from a Monaco Royal Ballet professor’s assertion that artists illuminate hidden truths, this essay explores Kenichi Ara’s major critique in WiLL: “The Ignorance and Fabrication in Murakami’s Killing Commendatore (Nanjing Massacre).” Ara exposes Murakami’s Asahi-influenced worldview, the constructed nature of his popularity, China’s political praise, and the fabricated media narratives surrounding the Fukuchiyama Regiment. A vital argument on artistic responsibility and historical integrity—essential reading for Japan and the world.

The Mission of the Artist and the Illusory Writer — Kenichi Ara’s Critique of Haruki Murakami and Killing Commendatore
A long time ago, an elderly female professor of the Monaco Royal Ballet School—deeply respected by prima ballerinas around the world—visited Japan.
At that time, she spoke about the very meaning of an artist’s existence.
“An artist is important,” she said, “because they are the only beings capable of shedding light on hidden truths and expressing them.”
There would be no one who would object to these words.
Kenichi Ara is not only my senior at Sendai Second High School, the alma mater I will forever love, but also a figure whose achievements I deeply respect—as my readers well know.
Below is an excerpt from his article titled “The Ignorance and Fabrication in Killing Commendatore (Nanjing Massacre),” which was published in the October issue of WiLL that arrived at my home on August 22.
Reading this article confirmed for me that my long-held assessment of Haruki Murakami was entirely accurate.
It is undeniable that Murakami is an avid reader of the Asahi Shimbun—his worldview is essentially constructed from Asahi’s editorials.
To that must be added the intellectual framework he built through years of translating American short-story writers, absorbing—indeed borrowing—their ideas, styles, and narrative patterns.
The collapsing publishing industry, combined with the political designs of anti-Japanese states, elevated him into a “best-selling author.”
In other words, he became an illusory figure created to permeate society with Asahi-style pseudo-morality.
When I learned that Murakami had earned vast sums of money and was writing while staying in international resort hotels, a certain hypothesis immediately came to mind.
Chinese and Korean intelligence agencies would undoubtedly target him.
And the environment of an international resort is the easiest possible stage for such approaches.
If this hypothesis is not correct, then Murakami is simply an ignorant man who does not understand that China is a nation of “bottomless malice” and “plausible lies.”
He would be equally ignorant of the fact that nations historically bordering China have long regarded it as a “black-hearted state” requiring constant vigilance.
He would also be unaware that Chinese bookstores have entire sections devoted to “black-heart books.”
In my business life, I once knew a man who always prefaced statements about Chinese people with, “The Chinese are clever.”
He too must have been a devout Asahi reader… come to think of it, he was also a Waseda graduate… and on top of that, he would occasionally add, “The Chinese are smarter than we are.”
Needless to say, I was inwardly seething every time I heard it.
This article is essential reading not only for the Japanese people, but for readers around the world.

The Ignorance and Fabrication in Killing Commendatore (Nanjing Massacre)
Haruki Murakami’s Mistaken View of History Praised by China

China praised Haruki Murakami.
Every autumn, the Nobel Prize becomes a topic of discussion.
For more than a decade now, Haruki Murakami has been considered a likely recipient.
It is certainly a joyous occasion when a Japanese person wins a Nobel Prize.
However, in the case of Haruki Murakami, things are not so simple.
In 2017, when Murakami wrote about the Nanjing Incident in Killing Commendatore, China lavishly praised him, saying he was deserving of the Nobel Prize.
On December 13 last year, while Japanese schools in China were either closed or moved online, the Chinese Embassy in Japan called for prayers for the victims of the Nanjing Incident.
The square in front of the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall was filled with a massive crowd of 8,000 people, and the safety of Japanese children living in China became a real concern.
If Murakami were to receive the Nobel Prize, China would no doubt elevate him further, use the Nanjing Incident to stir up sentiment, and the lives of Japanese children could be placed in danger.

The novel Killing Commendatore unfolds around a painting titled “Killing Commendatore.”
The painting is described as having been created in the late 1930s.
Historical events are listed: the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936, the outbreak of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, followed by the Nanjing Massacre in December 1937.
Murakami wrote the following:
“Since the Japanese army lacked the capacity to manage prisoners, they killed most of the surrendered soldiers and civilians.
There are disagreements among historians about the exact number of those killed, but the fact that an enormous number of civilians were caught in the fighting and killed is undeniable.
Some claim the number of Chinese dead to be 400,000, while others say 100,000.”

Two years after Killing Commendatore, in 2019, Murakami published Abandoning a Cat, a story about his father.
His father was born in Kyoto and was drafted the year after the Nanjing battle as a soldier in the 16th Division’s transport corps.
He was drafted again later and joined the Fukuchiyama Regiment.
Murakami wrote that the Fukuchiyama Regiment carried a “blood-soaked reputation” for participation in the Nanjing battle.
He added that when he learned his father had not taken part in the Nanjing battle, “a certain weight lifted off my shoulders, as if a burden had been removed.”
From this, it is clear that Murakami regarded the Nanjing Incident not as fiction, but as an undeniable fact, grounded in the alleged bloody reputation of the Fukuchiyama Regiment.

What comes to mind when one hears of the Fukuchiyama Regiment’s “blood-soaked reputation” is the testimony given in July 1987 by a former soldier, Tō Shirō, claiming that his squad had killed Chinese civilians in Nanjing.
The media reaction at the time differed sharply from previous one-off reports.
The Asahi Shimbun, Shimbun Akahata, and Kyoto Shimbun launched unusually intensive coverage.
The Asahi Shimbun reported on Tō Shirō four separate times by the end of the year.
Akahata ran a 36-part series on the Fukuchiyama Regiment starting August 14.
The Kyoto Shimbun carried ten articles on the subject beginning July 5, 1988.
These reports deeply implanted the alleged connection between the Fukuchiyama Regiment and the Nanjing Incident in the public mind.

The Fukuchiyama Regiment consisted largely of men from the Tango Peninsula and parts of Tanba, many of whom still lived in Kyoto at the time of the reporting.
Since the Kyoto Shimbun was widely read locally, there was strong sentiment that it should have been easy to verify whether the testimony was true.
People requested corrections to the articles, but the Kyoto Shimbun dismissed these requests as “intimidation against a valuable witness.”
Because the newspaper refused to respond sincerely, voices calling for the cancellation of subscriptions grew louder.
Even the Kyoto Shimbun could not ignore these voices.
In December 1988, it published a five-person roundtable, including the company commander of Tō Shirō’s unit.
These men had spent every hour of every day with Tō during their service.
All five stated clearly that his testimony was fabricated.

In April 1989, in response to the media’s false reporting—portraying the Fukuchiyama Regiment as a deranged killing unit—an organization called the “Fukuchiyama Regiment Protection Society” was established to set the record straight.
Although many members were already in their seventies, more than 300 people gathered.
The society published bulletins and held lectures explaining the realities of the military and battlefield life.
These events were widely attended, often drawing several hundred people.
The Protection Society also called upon members to investigate whether any civilian killings had actually occurred.
No such evidence was ever found.

(To be continued.)