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
Michiharu Mishima Michiharu Mishima Mishima was born in Azabu, Tōkyō, to an aristocratic family. His grandfather Michitsune Mishima had been ennobled as a viscount in the new Japanese nobility in 1884, while his father was Yatarō Mishima, the 8th Governor of the Bank of Japan. His mother was Marquis Takauta Shijō (四条 隆謌 "Shijō Takauta")'s third daughter, Kaneko (加根子), through whom he was related to the old court aristocracy and the greater Fujiwara clan. His younger sister was married to Yoshi Hijikata. He was a Peers School graduate, and succeeded his father as the third Viscount Mishima in 1919. Mishima was a