At the end of the 19th century, a political organization called “Genyosha” was founded in Fukuoka, where I was born and raised. My grandfather was a member and worked as a student assistant for the politician Mr. Seigo Nakano. In 1943, after publishing an article criticizing the Tojo cabinet in a newspaper, Nakano was arrested and committed ritual suicide by disembowelment.

My grandfather’s family returned to Fukuoka from Manchuria after the war, but the GHQ (General Headquarters)viewed “Genyosha” as a dangerous far-right group that led Japan into war under Pan-Asianism and dissolved it in 1946. I believe that the 65-year-old organization was disbanded not only at the request of the GHQ but also because the zeitgeist of post-war Japan demanded its “erasure.”

I have spent time without clearly knowing, or rather, deliberately avoiding knowing how my grandfather and Genyosha were involved in the war. Within the intersection of modern Japanese history and my grandfather’s family history, a series of coincidences led me to begin this research. I started by interviewing local Genyosha researchers and political figures, but I discovered that many people in the local community, like me, had relatives who were associated with Genyosha. For example, the famous painter Sanzo Wada was a Genyosha member, as was Shigemaru Sugiyama, the father of novelist Kyusaku Yumeno.

Currently, I am at the stage of gathering impressions of individual members. However, the “inexplicable intensity” that appears in Kyusaku Yumeno’s novels is my personal image of “Genyosha,” and I want to explore where this comes from.