I punish people by fighting dreams with dreams. What else is there to live for?
- Detective Kogorō Akechi in The Black Lizard. Imago Theater production, translated by Laurence Kominz & Mark Oshima
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I punish people by fighting dreams with dreams. What else is there to live for?
- Detective Kogorō Akechi in The Black Lizard. Imago Theater production, translated by Laurence Kominz & Mark Oshima
In this world, there will never be another miracle.
- Black Lizard in The Black Lizard. Imago Theater production, translated by Laurence Kominz & Mark Oshima
You were so beautiful when you wanted to die. When you wanted to live, you became so ugly.
- Black Lizard in The Black Lizard. Imago Theater production, translated by Laurence Kominz & Mark Oshima

Mishima visited a Tokyo department store two weeks before he committed suicide, where a Yukio Mishima exhibit was held. (Mainichi)
From this write up in the Mainichi Daily News about several Japanese books on Mishima, published in response to the 40th anniversary of his death, we get a new quote for this site:
“Japan will disappear, and in its stead, an impersonal, empty, neutral, intermediate, opulent, shrewd, economic giant will be left standing in a corner of the Far East.”
- “Hatashieteinai Yakusoku” (Undelivered Promises)
I was in Barnes and Noble today and I found a beautiful, hardcover edition of the Hagakure, which Mishima referred to as the “womb of his oeuvre” and wrote his own commentary on. It is bound in bright orange fabric, it’s printed in full color, and it even has a purple ribbon page marker. It’s very reasonably priced, and I almost picked it up–but I highlight my books and it seemed like too nice of an edition for me to own. I am tempted to pick it up for my Mishima bookshelf. Just to have…
The photo on Amazon/B&N doesn’t do it justice. Here’s a link to the publisher, Duncan Baird. Even that doesn’t quite show how nice it is for the money.
Tags: art of the samurai, Hagakure
“My concern, what confronted me with my real problem, was beauty alone. But I do not think that the war affected me by filling my mind with gloomy thoughts. When people concentrate on the idea of beauty, they are, without realizing it, confronted with the darkest thoughts that exist in this world. That, I suppose, is how humans are made.”
– Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
Tags: dark beauty, darkness
“What is so ghastly about exposed intestines? Why, when we see the insides of a human being, do we have to cover our eyes in terror? Why are a man’s intestines ugly? Is it not exactly the same in quality as a youthful, glossy skin? [...] Why does there seem to be something inhuman about regarding human beings like roses and refusing to make any distinction between the insides of their bodies and the outside? If only human beings could reverse their spirits and their bodies, could gracefully turn them inside out like rose petals and expose them to the spring breeze and to the sun…”
– Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
Tags: entrails, guts, intestines, ordeal by roses, roses, seppuku, spirit
“Insensitive people are only upset when they actually see blood. Yet, by the time that blood has been shed, the tragedy is already completed.”
– Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion