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For Japanese soldiers in the Pacific War, yielding to the call to soldiering meant adhering to the principles of the kokutai. Underlying this all-encompassing ideology was a requirement to accept death as the ultimate act of loyalty to the emperor. Since the Meiji Restoration, the citizens of Japan had been told that death in war was a noble and glorious deed, and that sacrificing one’s life for the emperor, a living god no less, was to achieve true purification, for the soldier involved and for his own and his family’s wider reputation. Under the kokutai the rewards for a glorified death were death’s recognition as an ultimate sign of honour, masculinity and virility, and on a spiritual level, death in war promised eternal deification to those who died in accordance with the teachings of the kokutai.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Language, Communication and Culture
Research Group:	Cultural Studies
Research Field:	Asian Cultural Studies
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding Knowledge in Languages, Communication and Culture
UTAS Author:	Eaves-Young, V (Dr Victoria Eaves-Young)
ID Code:	83377
Year Published:	2012
Deposited By:	Asian Languages and Studies
Deposited On:	2013-03-12
Last Modified:	2013-07-24
Downloads:	2 View Download Statistics