Go Mishima sexuality. The two men drew artistic nudes together as a pastime; Go Mishima began to pursue a career in homoerotic art in earnest with Yukio Mishima's encouragement, and adopted Mishima's last name to use as his pen name in tribute. After Yukio Mishima's death by ritual suicide, Go Mishima began to depict more violent material and themes in his art, including bondage, masochism, and torture. In 1964, Mishima was published in and "Bara", two of the first magazines in Japan to publish gay and gay pornographic content. He was an early contributor to "Barazoku", which in 1971 became the first
Yukio Mishima author Michizō Tachihara (1914–39), which in turn created an appreciation for classical Japanese poetry form of "waka". Mishima's first published works included "waka" poetry, before he turned his attention to prose. He was invited to write a short story for the Gakushūin literary magazine and submitted , a story in which the narrator describes the feeling that his ancestors somehow still live within him. Mishima's teachers were so impressed that they recommended the story to the prestigious literary magazine "Bungei-Bunka". The story makes use of the metaphors and aphorisms that later became his trademarks and was published in book form