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The Tatenokai or Shield Society was a private militia
in Japan led by the right-wing author
Yukio Mishima. Mishima founded the Tatenokai in
1967, recruiting its membership primarily from the staff of Ronso
Journal, an obscure right-wing college newspaper. In an unusual move,
the Tatenokai was granted the right to train with the nation's armed
forces, the
Jieitai. In
1970, a group of Tatenokai briefly seized control of the Jieitai's
headquarters and attempted to rally the soldiers to stage a coup d'etat
and restore imperial rule. When this failed, Mishima and
Masakatsu Morita, the Totenokai's main student leader, commited
seppuku or ritual suicide.
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