This is from the “Unforgettable Photos” link I posted about twenty minutes ago. It was the second photograph on that page. I don’t remember having seen it before today, so I did a little reading. Inejiro Asanuma was the head of the Japanese Socialist Party in 1960. The man doing the killing was better described as a kid. Otoya Yamaguchi was a right-wing extremist. And then there’s a third person, Yasushi Nagao, who won a Pulitzer prize for the photograph.
Asanuma was giving a speech when Yamaguchi ran across the entire stage and killed him using a wakizashi. To the Atsugi/Yokosuka/Yokota brats: check your living room, you’re guaranteed to have one–it’s the shorter of the two swords. But don’t grab it and wave it at your brother, your parents will yell at you. The whole attack was recorded by television cameras. It was broadcast nationally, but not live.
And here’s a YouTube link. I normally wouldn’t feel comfortable posting a video where someone dies, but it’s tame (it’s got 100,000+ views and isn’t flagged). I tried to figure out at what point the picture was taken compared to the video. At first I thought the photo was seconds before the initial stabbing, but Asanuma’s glasses seem to be falling off. In the video, it doesn’t look like Yamaguchi cocks back to stab, he just runs in with it extended. The best I can do is wager a guess: I think it’s after the initial stab when he pulls out but before he’s smothered by about fifty suits. Please correct me if I’m wrong, because it’s confusing me.
Yamaguchi left a message on his wall before hanging himself in the juvenile detention facility. “Seven lives for my country. Ten thousand years for His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor!”