Richard Appignanesi interesting and Mr. Appignanesi's descriptive skills are considerable." Almost two decades later Appignanesi published "Yukio Mishima’s Report to the Emperor", a fictional autobiography of the Japanese poet, novelist, playwright, film director, actor and bodybuilder Yukio Mishima (1925 - 1970), one of the most important Japanese literary and artistic figures of the 20th century as well as an extreme-right activist. Appignanesi's novel is set predominantly in post-World War II reconstruction Japan and in Benares, India. Its narrative builds up to Mishima's horrific ritual suicide by seppuku that accompanied his failed right-wing coup against the Japanese government. The novel explores some of
Propaganda in Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II from Western imperialism. Propaganda portrayed the West, and especially the Anglo-Saxon world, as decadent and weak. Japanese nationalistic propaganda made it difficult for the diverse nations of Asia to feel that they belonged in the new world order Japan was offering. (Japanese propaganda also promoted general Pan-Asianism, but this was never implemented as thoroughly as the nationalistic elements.) Because of this, Japanese propaganda was less appealing to non-Japanese than American propaganda, with its message of universal democracy open (in theory) to everybody. Japanese wartime propaganda was distributed through films, magazines and newspapers, radio, books, cartoons and the education system. The