The Allied Occupation of Japan I: The Blue-Eyed Shōgun

Plus: 1,000 Japanophiles!

Eighty years ago tomorrow, General Douglas MacArthur flew into Atsugi Airbase, just outside Tokyo. As anniversaries go, the moment is rarely placed up there alongside Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima and Japan’s surrender. But it should be. This was the beginning of the Allied Occupation of Japan, which over the course of nearly seven years radically reshaped the country. If you go to Japan now, in all sorts of ways you’ll encounter the fruits of this turning-point period in its history.

I’m going to explore that radical reshaping across the course of my first ‘deep-dive’ series. We’ll look at the Occupation of Japan from five very different perspectives, starting with MacArthur himself: the ‘blue-eyed shogun’ (aoi me no shōgun) as some in Japan took to calling him. Later, we’ll take the view of an infamous gangster, a path-breaking pop star, a legendary manga artist and a celebrated entrepreneur - the founder of Sony, no less, which started out during the Occupation stealing fuel from the US …