Spiritual Pollution and the Decay of Japanese Values

Day 620, 07:34 • Published in Japan Japan • by Reiji Mitsurugi

今日、日本の若者達が自国の� ��統文化にほとんど興味を示� �ない事は残念である

Since Kyushu is once again united with the rest of the archipelago, its lease to Indonesia settled, Japan is once again entering an era of relative peace. With new war games underway, even the most militant citizens have their bloodlust sated. And yet, all is not well. Beloved soldiers and citizens of Great Japan, I write to you today to warn about a terrible illness that is befalling our great nation. That illness, I am sorry to say, is spiritual pollution. It is, as the title of this article states, the decay of our traditional values.

Our culture is a truly ancient and proud one. We have many values, traditions and rituals. But one particular aspect is of great importance to me, Reiji Mitsurugi. That, my beloved soldiers and citizens, is the nature of the Japanese gentleman.



The rest of the world is a very rough-and-tumble place. Men are vulgar and brutal. They would rather fight and sling insults than have a reasonable, civilized debate. It is a cultural thing, no doubt. Their cultures don't value gentlemanly nature as much as our Japanese society does. I believe another major contributor is monolingualism. Here in Japan, we speak both English and our acrolectic Japanese. This familiarity with several tongues teaches us to appreciate the value of good language.

But I write this article not to praise the Japanese gentleman, but to express my fear for him. I worry that he is not long for this world. Part of it has to do with the recent influx of immigrants, especially refugees from North Korea, who are not familiar with our ways. I don't begrudge this of them, of course. They did not have the good fortune of an upbringing in our enlightened society. But I write both to these immigrants and our native Japanese who may be influenced by them. Riff-raff is not the Japanese way. We are polite. We are respectful. We are articulate. We resolve our differences with gentlemanly debate, often over a cup of our delicious traditional tea, prepared in the ancient way. To abandon such values is to abandon Japan.

Another part of my concern, though, comes not from the immigrants but from our own people. I worry that our ancient language is being forgotten and our traditional customs left behind. No doubt popular culture is in no danger, as cartoons and comic books are more popular than ever. But I speak of our true Japanese culture. I speak of the ancient arts of calligraphy, of literature, of poetry and theater. With these things in mind, we here at the Taishou (that is, me, Reiji Mitsurugi) will now begin a series of articles focused on the traditional culture of our beautiful nation. We do this in hopes of promoting the ways of the Japanese gentleman, in hopes of restoring our national discourse to the proper level.

特に重要なことは伝統的価値� ��を厳守することである