One Man’s Justice is a poignant account of defeat told from a loyal Japanese solider turned war criminal fugitive. It’s a story about the hardships and humiliating sting of a defeated nation. It’s a story of how war can twist moral absolute truths and makes the indefensible justified. And it’s a story of how world politics can making what should be the solid ground of justice a murky and incomprehensible fog.
At a time when the once proud Japan is reduced to rubble and humiliated by surrender an act otherwise unthinkable by traditional standards becomes the only option for a group of frustrated solders not ready to give up the fight. With the firebombing of entire cities and the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulting in thousands of civilian deaths, the lives of American POWs not only become dispensable but also are taken as an act of revenge for the atrocities of others. As a participant in the executions of American POWs, our loyal Lieutenant Takuya, is labeled a war criminal by the conquering United States, which at the time is automatic death sentence. Unable to bear the thought of execution for an act that Takuya doesn’t consider a crime and as a soldier was only following the orders of superiors, he must flee and become a fugitive in war torn Japan. Without a functioning economy or an adequate food supply, the Japanese road to recovery is full hardships for the average citizen; for a fugitive like Takuya the additional stress of being caught by the authorities is almost unbearable. Not to mention the humiliation of being the subjects of a military occupation where the Japanese people have no real control over their lives and now must adjust to this idea of democracy. Nothing in Takuya’s life is steady or certain; except for the idea if caught, he will be executed for his actions. However, world affairs and time has made justice in Japan malleable and more forgiving. So even his idea of justice becomes unattainable and Takuya’s foundations crumble like the old Japan he once knew.
Yoshimura has a way of taking a simple story and making it a complex exploration of what grounds us as human beings. In [One Man’s Justice] explores the idea of right and wrong and how the that perception changes in a given circumstance, generationally, and over time. To Yoshimura an absolute right or wrong is not absolute given the right set of circumstances. Take a confused, self-deluded product of a strict and disturbing moral order, facing defeat and humiliation at the hands of the enemy and pretty much any action can be rationalized at the moment. However, with time that rationalization disappears and what’s left is a haunting memory and broken life. What’s particularly remarkable about this book is that it’s a clear-eyed account of a defeated nation. Yoshimura doesn’t shy away from the anger felt by a people who have been firebombed and subjected to the 1st and so far last atomic bombings. And he’s not a afraid to air the atrocities committed by Japan. In some measure this is to show how the inequality of outcomes for war criminals depends on the victors. How a few soldiers killing of a handful of POWs outweighs the death of thousands of civilians at the hands of hundreds of B-29 raids is fundamentally unfair and should be treated as wrong if justice is to be applied equally to everyone.
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Postwar History Up Close and Personal
This novel is certainly an interesting look at Japan in the years right after World War II (and during its final stages via flashbacks), and it can be quite thought-provoking at times on the issues of war, violence, and responsibility & guilt--and of their social and psychological repercussions. And in some ways the whole novel is an intriguing meditation on the arbitrary nature of value systems and of how they may shift rather suddenly after a national trauma.Of course, none of this would go far if the novel didn't work well as a novel, and for the most part it does. The minute psychological depiction of the protagonist, Takuya, is very complex and convincing. This is by far the strong point of the book. The story unfolds in a realistic yet riveting manner with a level of suspense appropriate to such a story (it's not supposed to be a mystery novel, after all), and Yoshimura's keen eye for detail enables him to paint landscapes of devastation in vivid, almost palpable hues.Still, "One Man's Justice" has some noticeable flaws. The most glaring one is in the final 30 or 40 pages, which is rushed and hurried, forfeiting a concrete sense of Takuya's mental states and their changes (hence forfeiting the novel's strong point). We are "told" rather than "shown" for the most part; this is of course the cardinal sin in fiction, and it flies in the face of most of Yoshimura's strengths as a writer (at least as is evident from the prior majority of this novel). I'm sure he had a lot he wanted to cover, but next time he needs to keep his finger off the fast-forward button.The other flaw is less serious, but still important for a work of historical fiction such as this. Yoshimura has clearly done some in-depth research on the history of the time-frame in question, both the events major and minor and the texture of everyday life at the time. And for the most part it works. But it also falls into the rut of depicting World War II in terms of Japan vs. the USA (reflecting the rather simplistic postwar historical memory on both sides of the Pacific), whereas at the time Japanese propaganda depicted the war as a fight against the Anglo-American empires for the sake of a Greater East Asia under Japan's leadership. While today we can know this was so much empty rhetoric, at the time to the average Japanese subject it was believable and inevitably informed their understanding of what they were doing. And yet we see almost none of this in Takuya's mental landscape, from which "Greater East Asia" is unconvincingly missing. This would have gone a long way towards rendering more fully his sense of not being guilty of war crimes, too.These flaws are serious enough to keep "One Man's Justice" from being a major classic, but it is still quite a good novel worth reading and pondering, especially in these days of wars and rumors of wars.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2014
Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2006
This novel is certainly an interesting look at Japan in the years right after World War II (and during its final stages via flashbacks), and it can be quite thought-provoking at times on the issues of war, violence, and responsibility & guilt--and of their social and psychological repercussions. And in some ways the whole novel is an intriguing meditation on the arbitrary nature of value systems and of how they may shift rather suddenly after a national trauma.
Of course, none of this would go far if the novel didn't work well as a novel, and for the most part it does. The minute psychological depiction of the protagonist, Takuya, is very complex and convincing. This is by far the strong point of the book. The story unfolds in a realistic yet riveting manner with a level of suspense appropriate to such a story (it's not supposed to be a mystery novel, after all), and Yoshimura's keen eye for detail enables him to paint landscapes of devastation in vivid, almost palpable hues.
Still, "One Man's Justice" has some noticeable flaws. The most glaring one is in the final 30 or 40 pages, which is rushed and hurried, forfeiting a concrete sense of Takuya's mental states and their changes (hence forfeiting the novel's strong point). We are "told" rather than "shown" for the most part; this is of course the cardinal sin in fiction, and it flies in the face of most of Yoshimura's strengths as a writer (at least as is evident from the prior majority of this novel). I'm sure he had a lot he wanted to cover, but next time he needs to keep his finger off the fast-forward button.
The other flaw is less serious, but still important for a work of historical fiction such as this. Yoshimura has clearly done some in-depth research on the history of the time-frame in question, both the events major and minor and the texture of everyday life at the time. And for the most part it works. But it also falls into the rut of depicting World War II in terms of Japan vs. the USA (reflecting the rather simplistic postwar historical memory on both sides of the Pacific), whereas at the time Japanese propaganda depicted the war as a fight against the Anglo-American empires for the sake of a Greater East Asia under Japan's leadership. While today we can know this was so much empty rhetoric, at the time to the average Japanese subject it was believable and inevitably informed their understanding of what they were doing. And yet we see almost none of this in Takuya's mental landscape, from which "Greater East Asia" is unconvincingly missing. This would have gone a long way towards rendering more fully his sense of not being guilty of war crimes, too.
These flaws are serious enough to keep "One Man's Justice" from being a major classic, but it is still quite a good novel worth reading and pondering, especially in these days of wars and rumors of wars.
Of course, none of this would go far if the novel didn't work well as a novel, and for the most part it does. The minute psychological depiction of the protagonist, Takuya, is very complex and convincing. This is by far the strong point of the book. The story unfolds in a realistic yet riveting manner with a level of suspense appropriate to such a story (it's not supposed to be a mystery novel, after all), and Yoshimura's keen eye for detail enables him to paint landscapes of devastation in vivid, almost palpable hues.
Still, "One Man's Justice" has some noticeable flaws. The most glaring one is in the final 30 or 40 pages, which is rushed and hurried, forfeiting a concrete sense of Takuya's mental states and their changes (hence forfeiting the novel's strong point). We are "told" rather than "shown" for the most part; this is of course the cardinal sin in fiction, and it flies in the face of most of Yoshimura's strengths as a writer (at least as is evident from the prior majority of this novel). I'm sure he had a lot he wanted to cover, but next time he needs to keep his finger off the fast-forward button.
The other flaw is less serious, but still important for a work of historical fiction such as this. Yoshimura has clearly done some in-depth research on the history of the time-frame in question, both the events major and minor and the texture of everyday life at the time. And for the most part it works. But it also falls into the rut of depicting World War II in terms of Japan vs. the USA (reflecting the rather simplistic postwar historical memory on both sides of the Pacific), whereas at the time Japanese propaganda depicted the war as a fight against the Anglo-American empires for the sake of a Greater East Asia under Japan's leadership. While today we can know this was so much empty rhetoric, at the time to the average Japanese subject it was believable and inevitably informed their understanding of what they were doing. And yet we see almost none of this in Takuya's mental landscape, from which "Greater East Asia" is unconvincingly missing. This would have gone a long way towards rendering more fully his sense of not being guilty of war crimes, too.
These flaws are serious enough to keep "One Man's Justice" from being a major classic, but it is still quite a good novel worth reading and pondering, especially in these days of wars and rumors of wars.
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Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 28, 2016
