Mitsuyasu Maeno - Reaction

Reaction

Maeno's suicide flight inspired a variety of reactions in Japan. According to an Associated Press article, many Japanese felt some sympathy with Maeno's actions because of the shame associated with the Lockheed scandal. The scandal had shown an unsavory side of Japanese politics to the world, and there was a sense of frustration that the high-ranking politicians who had dealt with Kodama would never be revealed or brought to justice.

Many, however, also equally rejected the ideological motives behind Maeno's attack. An editorial in the Mainichi Shimbun asked the question, "Is it imaginable that a young German, not a wartime officer, would commit suicide in a Nazi uniform, shouting 'Heil Hitler!" Coming more than 30 years after the end of World War II, Maeno's kamikaze flight revived the ghost the Japanese wanted to forget."

Keiichi Ito, the director-general for training of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, said that Maeno's act was tainted by self-serving motives, not in self-sacrifice for the country. Ito, who was a surviving member of the tokkōtai, or kamikaze units, said "Maeno was performing an egotistical, grandstand play to win publicity, not unlike Mishima's suicide. Both were showing off to the world." Nevertheless, Ito commended Maeno's technique in the attack. Commenting that, if Maeno's intent had been to kill Kodama, he could not have known where he would be located within the house. Ito said the bombing was, "very skillful, I give him the highest marks on that score."

Lockheed scandal historian David Boulton writes that the attack on one of the leading figures by a pornographic actor, "aptly summed up the obscenity of it all."