• Noh: 巣鴨塚 ハルの便り (Sugamozuka: The Tidings of Spring)

8/15/26 (Sat)

Photographer/artist Sugimoto Hiroshi commissioned this provocative Noh piece, which debuted last year, about Itagaki Seishiro, a general in the Imperial Japanese Army who oversaw the occupation of Manchuria and its conversion to a puppet state. He was later convicted of war crimes and executed as a Class A criminal at Tokyo’s Sugamo Prison.

Sugimoto had some time ago discovered an extended poem written impressively in ancient Chinese by Itagaki during his postwar imprisonment that provided an insight into his motivation and actions, with a healthy dose of self-justification. Itagaki contends that Japan took over Manchuria in order to save it from the corrupt Chinese government, which was bringing the people only misery. He aimed to build a US-type federation under his ideal of Five Races Under One Union (五族共和) in which the region’s five major ethnic groups (Manchus, Han Chinese, Japanese, Mongols, Koreans) could live in harmony. That is, the Japanese colonization of the region and establishment of Manchukuo was an act of altruism on behalf of the Manchu people.

That may very well be true, but Lenin and Mao could make the same claim on behalf of their actions. Continue reading →