Mishima Incident

Date: November 25, 1970 • Location: Tokyo, Japan

After failing to instigate a military coup to restore the powers of the Emperor of Japan, author Yukio Mishima and a member of his militia committed ritual suicide.

The Mishima incident occurred on November 25, 1970, when the Japanese author Yukio Mishima committed seppuku after calling on the Japan Self-Defense Forces to stage a coup d'état to abolish Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution and appealing to his own ideas and beliefs about reconstructing true national autonomy. The incident is sometimes called the Tatenokai incident , after the private militia led by Mishima whose members took part.