It’s difficult not to feel somewhat overwhelmed with ambivalence regarding Mishima: a gifted writer and a sensitive thinker as well as a fascist and an imperialist trapped by nostalgia for a Japan long extinct. I want to adore him like Saint Sebastian, and I want to cut off the head of the snake who dared insult the Dragon Lady. In Mishima we find the conflicted duality of postwar Japanese culture and identity—a bifurcation I stumbled along for two years, never quite finding my footing. Rest in peace, Mishima, and goddamn you to hell.

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