Yukio Mishima Yukio Mishima Mishima was active as a nationalist and founded his own right-wing militia, the Tatenokai. In 1970, he and four other members of his militia attempted a "coup d'état" when they seized control of a Japanese military base and took the commander hostage, then tried and failed to inspire a coup to restore the Emperor's pre-war powers, in accordance with Mishima's conceptualization of the Kokutai. Mishima then committed ritual suicide by "seppuku". The coup attempt became known as the "Mishima Incident". The Mishima Prize was established in 1988 to honor his life and works. Mishima was born in the
Yukio Mishima later, he formed the Tatenokai ("shield society"), a private militia composed primarily of young students who studied martial principles and physical discipline, and swore to protect the Emperor of Japan. Mishima trained them himself. However, under Mishima's ideology, the emperor was not necessarily the reigning Emperor, but rather the abstract essence of Japan. In "Eirei no Koe" ("Voices of the Heroic Dead"), Mishima denounced Emperor Hirohito for renouncing his claim of divinity after World War II, arguing that millions of Japanese had died in the war for their "living god" Emperor, and that the Showa Emperor's renouncing his divinity meant