Mishimist

Yukio Mishima illustrated by Suehiro Maruo

Mishima moments before comitting seppuku

Yukio Mishima

Yukio Mishima

dir. by Yukio Mishima.

Yukio Mishima, The Death of a Man, by Kishin Shinoyama

—Yukio Mishima, The Decay of the Angel (1972)

(source unknown)

The public funeral. From the right: Yasunari Kawabata (who, before his own suicide in the spring of 1972, spoke of being visited by the specter of Yukio Mishima); the widow, Yōko Mishima (“I had thought he might do something but that it would be next year”); his father, Azusa Hiraoka (“I was not particularly surprised. My brain rejected the information”); and his mother, Shizué Hiraoka, who had seen him for the last time the night before (“I watched him leaving and I couldn’t help thinking how tired he looked, how stooped was his back”).

Yukio Mishima by Tadahiko Hayashi, 1949

dir. by Yukio Mishima.