Mishima: Japan’s Last Samurai

by Martin Schwarz

Martin Schwarz discusses the heroic core of Yukio Mishima’s life and death.

This essay was first published in German in 1999.

We show you a value that stands higher than the respect for life. It is not freedom or democracy. It is Japan, the land of our history and tradition, the Japan we love.

— Mishima, Gekibun [Manifesto]

Mishima occupies a special place among the heroes of this ending dark century because he was a decadent. After a delicate childhood, he discovered his sadomasochistic tendencies with a homoerotic inclination and, consequently, Western decadent authors like Thomas Mann. Amidst his disguises as an actor, photo model, poetic prince, and political journalist, he followed his true calling: to bear witness to the eternal Japan in the only remaining possible form: the pure affirmation of the eternal through the death of the transient.