Yukio Mishima Another traditional element of the suicide ritual was the composition of so-called death poems before their entry into the headquarters. Mishima planned his suicide meticulously for at least a year and no one outside the group of hand-picked "Tatenokai" members had any indication of what he was planning. His biographer, translator John Nathan, suggests that the coup attempt was only a pretext for the ritual suicide of which Mishima had long dreamed. Mishima made sure his affairs were in order and left money for the legal defense of the three surviving "Tatenokai" members. Mishima's grave is located at the Tama
Yukio Mishima He also had roles in films including "Yukoku" (directed by himself, 1966), "Black Lizard" (directed by Kinji Fukasaku, 1968) and "Hitokiri" (directed by Hideo Gosha, 1969). He also sang the theme song for "Afraid to Die" (lyrics by himself; music by Shichirō Fukazawa). Mishima was featured as a photo model in "Ba-ra-kei: Ordeal by Roses" by Eikoh Hosoe, as well as in "Young Samurai: Bodybuilders of Japan" and "Otoko: Photo Studies of the Young Japanese Male" by Tamotsu Yatō. American author Donald Richie gave a short lively account of Mishima, dressed in a loincloth and armed with a sword, posing