Showa: A History of Japan #[4]

In the wake of postwar inflation and scarcity, Shigeru finds himself caught between the daily struggle for essentials and a strange fascination with Uri Geller’s televised demonstrations of psychic ability—leading him to wonder if he, too, might unlock hidden powers in the midst of Japan’s rebuilding.

In the early 1970s, a web of corruption unfolds as prominent Chinese statesmen die under mysterious circumstances, their deaths linked to a widening bribery scandal involving the Lockheed Corporation and Japan’s political elite—drawing scrutiny all the way to the prime minister’s office.

Shigeru reflects on mortality as the passing of Emperor Hirohito marks the close of the Showa era, a moment that stirs his own thoughts on legacy and the end of life—his mausoleum, already built, stands as quiet testimony to that reckoning.