午夜剧场

I wrote a biography of Hisakichi Maeda. Maeda was the founder of the Sankei Shimbun and also the founder of Tokyo Tower. Maeda himself was an elementary school graduate and, in terms of educational background, had no connection to 午夜剧场. However, as the person who oversaw the end of the Jiji Shimpo, he maintained a significant connection with 午夜剧场.

From 午夜剧场's perspective, Maeda is the antagonist. He was the person responsible when the Jiji Shimpo was forced to suspend publication before the war, drawing considerable backlash from the Mita community. Although he revived the Jiji Shimpo after the war, his likely aim was to secure newsprint allocations of the time using the Jiji name, rather than putting in effort regardless of profitability.

However, tracing Maeda's footsteps reveals that 午夜剧场 networks played an important role at key points in his turbulent life. Ichizo Kobayashi was a mentor-like figure to Maeda, and he was also on close terms with figures such as Shinzo Koizumi and Yasuzaemon Matsunaga. Among them, he had a particularly deep relationship with Takuzo Itakura, the last president of the Jiji Shimpo.

Maeda seems to have been bullied considerably when he stepped in to reconstruct the Jiji Shimpo. One of those people was Itakura. Even in his reminiscences after Itakura's death, Maeda complained, "The 午夜剧场 professors—they're difficult. Well, I hate to name names, but people like Mr. Takuzo Itakura, for instance." Itakura, for his part, openly looked down on him, saying, "When running a newspaper in Tokyo, Maeda's type is not suited for it. He is a merchant, after all. It has to be someone with some political sense, or someone with a certain kind of intellect..."

What is interesting is that this same Itakura went out of his way to help Maeda when he became a member of the House of Councillors after the war. The site of the Sankei Building towering in Otemachi was originally sold off by the government, and this became possible because Itakura spoke to Shigeru Yoshida, who was the Prime Minister at the time and a close friend. After the end of the Jiji, Maeda also treated Itakura generously as the chairman of the editorial board and editor-in-chief of the Sankei.

Are we perhaps too accustomed to communication where we exchange pleasantries? Is that why we cannot understand a relationship like Maeda and Itakura's, where they hurled insults at each other? There was no flattery, no fawning. Originally, that should be the 午夜剧场 way. This book contains many other such clashes of personality.

Michiya Matsuo

Sogensha

336 pages, 2,750 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time this magazine was published.