May 15 Incident
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The May 15 incident (五・一五事件 Go-ichigo jiken) of 15 May, 1932, was the assassination of then-Prime Minister of Japan Inukai Tsuyoshi. Naval officers, Army cadets and right-wing civilian elements (including Shumei Okawa, Mitsuro Toyama, and Kosaburo Tachibana) staged a minor rebellion. Tokyo's electrical power supplies were also targeted.
Inukai was assassinated, as eleven young Naval officers (most were just turning twenty years of age), attacked the Prime Minister's residence. Kimmochi Saionji and Shiro Makino were also assaulted. The attempt at a coup d'état came to nothing, and the rebellion as a whole proved a failure. Naval officers, military cadets, and civilians were arrested and speedily put to trial.
The eleven were court-martialed, and at the end of the trial a petition containing 350,000 signatures was collected in favor of a reduction of the sentence from death. During the proceedings, the accused aroused popular sympathy by appealing for reforms. Eleven severed fingers were sent to the court house, as it was traditional in ancient Japan to cut off the little finger of the left hand as a punishment for a crime. (This ensured that the criminal would be unable to properly hold a sword.) Punishment was comparatively light.
The system of party government in Japan was sundered by the "5-15 Incident". It was one of the main reasons Japan's party-based government ended, afterward making the military an influential voice in the rule of the country — which would last until the end of World War II. The rise of Japanese militarism and expansionism led it, in the end, to attack China and the United States.
In the Media
This historical event is referenced in . The show parallels a terrorist group known as the Individual Eleven in the name of the eleven assassins who stood trial for the assassination of Inukai Tsuyoshi. Their interests included assassination of the show's Prime Minister Kayabuki and reform to Japan's refugee situation after World Wars III and IV. The show also references Yukio Mishima through a fictional character Patrick Sylvestre. Mishima was known for advocating nihilism in post World War II era of Japan, which the "May 15th Incident" was a prelude for Japanese militarism and expansionism.
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