Japan's coastal Shimoda carries history of Japanese author Mishima, scholar Keene

The Mainichi

13-07-2025

The year 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Japanese author Yukio Mishima (1925-1970). Various exhibitions and events are being held in places connected to him, including the city of Shimoda in Shizuoka Prefecture. Mishima spent the summers of his last seven years here with his family, making it one of the places where his legend lives on.
Donald Keene had a deep connection with Mishima. It was in the fall of 1954, when Keene was studying at Kyoto University, that they first met. At that time, Mishima had already emerged as a young writer. Keene was not only studying classical literature, but was also beginning to engage with contemporary writers, and apparently found a rapport with Mishima due to their close ages. Parts 25, 31 and 44 of The Mainichi's series "Donald Keene's Japan" carried related autobiographical accounts from Keene. Below we look at an excerpt from a different autobiography.
I first met Mishima Yukio in November 1954 when his play Iwashi Uri Koi no Hikiami was being presented at the Kabuki-za. It is difficult to remember now our conversation or even the impression he made on me because these early memories have long since yielded to fresher, stronger ones. When I see photographs taken of Mishima about that time I even wonder -- did he really look like that? The closely cropped hair, powerful body, and up-to-the-minute sports clothes were so much a part of Mishima's appearance (and for so long) that the slender young man with wavy hair in a yukata gently smiling from the back of the American translation of Sound of the Waves seems a stranger.
I cannot recall a single instance during all the years of our friendship when we had difficulty finding a topic of conversation. We often disagreed, even on literary matters. I never shared, for example, his professed admiration for conspicuously bad taste, whether in comic books or yakuza movies. I had trouble in understanding even his tastes in modern literature, and could not take seriously his political opinions, which seemed just as paradoxical and implausible as his praise for bloodthirsty novels of the Taisho period. But such divergences of opinion made it easier, rather than more difficult to converse.
(Meeting with Japan)
At a glance, there appeared to be quite a gap between the personalities of Mishima and Keene, but their exchanges spanned nearly 17 years. Keene viewed Mishima as a subject of modern literary study, while Mishima had expectations for Keene as an ideal translator. Both likely had professional motives, but there must have been an invisible bond surpassing those motives. Keene recounts the events of the summer of 1970, Mishima's last, as follows.
In the summer of 1970 Mishima invited me to Shimoda, where he customarily spent August with his family. He normally wrote every day from midnight to six, slept from six to two, then went to kendo practice or some other gathering until it was time to return home and start writing again. He spent little time with his children, but he made up for the neglect by devoting the month of August to them.
I almost canceled my trip to Shimoda because of a painful attack of gikkuri-goshi (slipped disk), but I was instinctively certain that Mishima had planned every moment of my stay in Shimoda from arrival to departure, and I could not bear to upset his plans. On the train I debated whether or not to mention my gikkuri-goshi, but when I saw him on the platform, sunburned and cheerful, I decided I would act like a samurai and keep the pain to myself.
We had lunch at a sushi restaurant. Mishima ordered only the most expensive fish. Later I was able to guess the reason: he had no time to waste on lesser fish. That evening we were joined by the journalist Henry Scott Stokes, who later wrote a book about Mishima. Mishima took us to a restaurant where lobsters were served out of season. He ordered five dinners for the three of us. But when the five dinners appeared, he ordered two more, not satisfied with the quantity. I thought this was peculiar, but no doubt he wanted to be sure we would have our fill of lobster at our last meal together.
The next day Mishima and I went to the hotel pool. He did not go in the water, but he was pleased to display his muscular body. We talked about his tetralogy The Sea of Fertility, which was approaching completion. He said he had put into the work everything he had learned as a writer, adding with a laugh that the only thing left was to die. I laughed too, but I must have sensed something was wrong. Violating our pledge not to discuss "sticky" matters, I asked, "If something is troubling you, why not tell me?" He averted his glance and said nothing. But he knew that three months later he would be dead.
That night in his hotel room he put into my hands the manuscript of the last chapter of the fourth volume of the tetralogy. He said he had written it in hitoiki (one breath). He asked if I would like to read it, but I declined, supposing I would not understand it without knowing what had happened in preceding chapters.
Although it was written in August, he would inscribe the date November 25 on the manuscript, just before heading for the Self-Defense Headquarters.
I left Japan for New York in September. Departure time for the plane was ten in the morning, and I was greatly surprised when Mishima appeared to see me off. He was unshaven and his eyes were bloodshot. He probably had not slept that night. It still did not occur to me that his unusual behavior, both in Shimoda and at the airport, foreshadowed a calamity. After my plane left, Mishima went to the airport restaurant with other friends who had seen me off.
He startled everyone by suddenly declaring that he refused to die a "stupid death."
That was the last time I saw Mishima.
(Chronicles of My Life: An American in the Heart of Japan)
The Shimoda Tokyu Hotel, where Mishima often stayed, still preserve room 503, retaining the atmosphere from when he used it as his study. The room features a unique layout, utilizing a V-shaped corner of the hotel. Kazuya Koizumi, the hotel manager in charge of accommodations, commented, "I heard Mishima liked this room because his study at home was also fan-shaped. There was a slightly larger room across the hall where his family stayed." He added, "Room 503 is kept as close to its original state as possible. During the day, we open it to the public with exhibits, but at night we use it as a regular guest room. Mishima fans often specifically request to stay there."
Although the study faces the mountains, from the family room's window, one can see the cobalt blue waters of the Oura coast, Akane Island -- the setting for the short story "Gettan-so Kitan" -- and beyond that, the Pacific Ocean. The pool where Keene said Mishima displayed his trained physique is right in front of the hotel, and Nabeta Beach, where the family often visited, is also nearby. Imagining Mishima writing his last novel, "The Sea of Fertility," while seated in the chair in room 503 is truly a luxurious experience.
In addition to his account of Mishima, Keene also wrote an essay about the town of Shimoda. In a travelogue contributed to Japan Airlines' in-flight magazine in 1974, he discussed the romance between Townsend Harris, the first U.S. consul general to Japan, who resided in Shimoda after it was opened as a port in the late Edo period, and the geisha Okichi. Keene explains that the story known as "Tojin Okichi" is a later creation, and touches on the historical context, as we can see below:
Shimoda's chief distinction for many years was its inaccessibility. Nowadays it takes less than two and a half hours by express train from Tokyo to Shimoda, but even fifteen years ago the trains only went halfway down the Izu Peninsula, and the rest of the way to Shimoda was on a bus that creaked and swayed as it navigated the innumerable curves on the mountainous roads.
Even so, it was certainly not so remote as it was when Townsend Harris arrived there in 1856 to establish the first foreign consulate in Japan. It seemed to him like the end of the world, and when he finally got permission to go to Edo (the modern Tokyo) he learned to his great discomfort how many jolts and lurches passengers riding in palanquins had to suffer on the way.
But even Harris, whose various ailments undoubtedly affected his record of the lonely years he spent in Shimoda, was not insensitive to the exceptional beauty of the place. The bay with its islands and promontories and the surrounding green hills again and again caused this sometimes insensitive observer of the Japanese scene to interrupt the recitation of his woes. Harris persevered with his mission, despite his ailments, the isolation, and the reluctance of the Japanese officials to negotiate with him, but he is best known today not for his diplomatic skills but for his brief romance with a Shimoda geisha called Okichi. It would be hard to find a less romantic figure than Harris, but the story of their great love, invented early in the twentieth century on the basis of flimsy evidence, has given Okichi something approaching the status of a patron saint. A statue of the Buddhist divinity of compassion, Kannon, is known as the Okichi Kannon, and her name has been applied to many varieties of souvenirs of Shimoda, ranging from delicate little cakes to pornographic dolls.
There was indeed an historical Okichi, and evidence indicates that she was persuaded, perhaps against her wishes, to serve the American consul. Okichi visited the Gyokusenji, the Buddhist temple Harris used as his consulate and residence, in June 1857 and received a substantial sum of money. But, alas for the romancers, after three days' service, Harris sent Okichi away. Apparently a skin infection had displeased him, but even after the infection was cured and she asked to serve him again Harris refused, saying he was unwell. Presumably he never saw Okichi again. Their romance -- if it merits that name -- hardly seems like sufficient reason for canonizing Okichi, but everywhere in Shimoda one sees relics which are said to have belonged to her, though few of them can be genuine.
(Travels in Japan II/Shimoda)
Shimoda was one of the first ports in Japan opened to foreign countries at the end of the Edo period. It is a town that was visited by Commodore Matthew Perry, and where Consul General Harris resided as he negotiated to open Japan to the world. Though a century had passed since Perry and Harris endeavored to open Japan, Keene continued the efforts by introducing to the world Japanese literature and culture that was still not widely known at the time. The footsteps of these Americans who sought to open Japan to the world still resonate today.
(Japanese original by Tadahiko Mori, The Mainichi Staff Writer and Donald Keene Memorial Foundation director)
This is a spinoff article related to a 60-part Mainichi Shimbun series about Donald Keene, exploring the near-century of the Japanologist's life along with his own writings. Spinoff articles are posted irregularly.
The original text of Donald Keene's autobiographies is used with permission from the Donald Keene Memorial Foundation. The foundation's website can be reached at: https://www.donaldkeene.org/
Profile: Donald Keene
Donald Keene was born on June 18, 1922, in Brooklyn, New York. He was a Japanese literature scholar and professor emeritus at Columbia University. After earning postgraduate degrees at Columbia University and Cambridge University, he received a fellowship to study at Kyoto University in 1953. Keene developed friendships with prominent Japanese authors, including Junichiro Tanizaki, Yasunari Kawabata and Yukio Mishima. Over the course of half a century, he traveled back and forth between the U.S. and Japan, and continued to study Japanese literature and culture, while conveying their charms to the world in English. His main works include a multivolume history of Japanese literature, "Travelers of a Hundred Ages," and "Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912." In 2008, he received the Order of Culture from the Japanese government. Keene obtained Japanese citizenship in the year following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. He died on Feb. 24, 2019, at age 96.