The Untold Tale of the Brothers in the Dark: The 1970s, the Intersection of the Media and the Silencing of Speech

The Untold Tale of the Brothers in the Dark: The 1970s, the Intersection of the Media and the Silencing of Speech

In the early 1970s, Japan was enveloped in the afterglow of rapid economic growth, but behind this affluence lay a contradiction. In the field of journalism, freedom of speech was formally guaranteed, but in practice, the economic capital was censoring itself in the name of "self-regulation. It was in the midst of such an era that Ryo Takenaka wrote a "heretical manuscript.

Tetsuya Kato was the younger brother of Hibari Misora and a gangster. When he lost his life in prison, neither the public nor the press turned a blind eye to his death. Takenaka appealed that "human deaths should be treated equally," no matter what their background, and wrote a letter of condolence to "Weekly Playboy. However, the manuscript was rejected for publication. The reason for the refusal was not editorial policy, but rather a "business decision. The publisher as a corporation, fearing protests and complaints, was becoming imbued with a structure that excluded "inconvenient speech" in advance within itself.

This refusal illustrated the inseparable relationship between entertainment and the underworld, as well as the influence of a national star like Hibari Misora. Hibari was a symbol of the postwar entertainment industry, and behind her success was the presence of a gang that controlled the entertainment business. The existence of his younger brother, Tetsuya Kato, can be seen as confirmation of this structure. The media, however, chose to remain silent and did not report the story.

Takenaka spoke angrily. Takenaka said angrily, "Freedom of speech is killed not outside the state, but inside the corporation." If the editorial department decides that it is a "business problem," no matter how sincere the words are, they will never make it into print. What he faced was not direct pressure from the system, but rather the silencing of speech by "discovery" and "fear" within the company.

This was not so much a defense of the gangs, but rather a resistance to the structure in which the moment one attempted to talk about the "shadow of society" that is the gangs, even that talk was silenced. In an age when mass society only sees what it wants to see and shuts its ears to what it does not want to know, Takenaka's writing was solitary.

This incident in the 1970s was a precursor to the subsequent silence surrounding the issue of collusion between the entertainment industry and gangsters, and the ironic reality of "freedom from the press. The voices of the unspoken, the manuscripts that were never written, the truths that were erased. These questions are still being asked today, submerged in the darkness of the times.

Don't be silent. Don't let them be silent. Let your voice, your words, light up the darkness.