The Flame of Righteousness Lit Up Shibuya: Iwataro Takahashi and the Postwar Night (1946)

The Flame of Righteousness Lit Up Shibuya: Iwataro Takahashi and the Postwar Night (1946)

In January 1946, angry voices echoed through the burned-out Shibuya district of Tokyo. It was a place where the boundaries of order had become blurred, a place between lawlessness and hope. In the chaos that enveloped the city after the defeat of the war, demobilized soldiers and black market traders were swirling around, and a war broke out. The Shibuya Incident - it was a night that exposed the way of life of the chivalrous men who were willing to stand up for what they believed in.

At the center of this turmoil was Iwataro Takahashi, the sixth generation of the Ochiai family of the Hon Kokushikai. He had distinguished himself as a young boy in the Gurentai (gangster corps) and united the expositors of the Kanto region to reestablish the Hon Kokuritsu Kai and raise the banner of humanity in a postwar society without order.

The war in Shibuya began with a clash with the Kansai Gurentai and developed into a huge brawl that mobilized as many as 130 Kanto chivalrous men. With wooden swords, bamboo spears, and pistols flying about, the police were unable to stop it, and even the U.S. military was deployed. That night, Shibuya was like a small battlefield.

But Takahashi was not just a violent man. His actions were marked by righteousness and a strong sense of conviction. The memory of a man who never abandoned honor and justice in the midst of a turbulent world - that is the flame that was left behind that night.