Post WWII

Post-war Samurai (1945 Tokyo, Imperial Palace)

The machine had deposited me on the grounds of the imperial palace. I was there to view the end of the war, and had made sure to be there at the right time in history. I made my way to the council chamber where the Japanese government was currently stuck in a stalemate.

As I walked through the grounds I noted a tension that every single imperial guard member was exhibiting. It was as if every man I passed was holding his breath. Most of these men still believed that they were samurai, so, why then would they hold on to the idea of dying to the last man? If ordered to surrender and not commit suicide as samurai wouldn’t they have to honor their master’s wishes?

I finally made it to the council chamber. The emperor was sitting to one side of the room, while his government sat around a table opposite. Clearly, by the absolute silence that permeated the room the emperor had just made his first divine decision, so why then was the council still in a stalemate? The restoration saw the power given back to the emperor, but the war party was still not giving into his wishes. How can these men believe that they are samurai? They murder, they rape, they ignore orders, everything that true samurai would never do these men have done on a massive scale.

I sped up the passage of time, and found that indeed the emperors decision was not a direct end of the war that it technically should have been.  At least half of these men believed that they were samurai, and they lead thousands of men who believed that they too were samurai, why then do these men not show any loyalty whatsoever to the emperor, their leader, their god? I was beginning to expect that I would not in fact find a samurai during this time period. Little did I know that there was one in this room.

My wanderings took me to another gathering. This one seemed to be made up of junior officers. To my surprise and utter horror they were planning to stage a revolt and seal off the palace and keep any word of surrender from being released. These men were not only defying a direct order from the emperor, but were going to essentially take his household hostage in order for them to continue their war to the last man. It was becoming very apparent that there was no honor, no loyalty, only shame in these modern samurai.

I desperately continued my travels hoping that I would find some shred of decency in this caste of modern samurai. I found it in an unlikely place, the home of Korechika Anima, one of the leaders of the war party. A young officer had approached him in his home and asked if he would lead the revolt making it legal. The minister general refused them and said, “Respect the will of the emperor”.  He then wrote a short note and committed seppuku. I finally found that one samurai among a sea of pretenders.

With one act the minister general had sealed his own fate along with that of the entire imperial army. It was this act that brought that shred of decency back to this man in my eyes. Did he atone for his men's sins? No, but in committing suicide he knew that the ideas of revolt and the continuation of the war would die with him, and he willingly did so, the act of a true samurai. It just took a while for it to fight its way free.