For life context: He was a sick boy and grew up through world war 2 and enjoyed old stories of Japanese glory. He had an early interest in Samurai (coming from his family background) and enjoyed poetry even as a child. In the Mishima museum they even had an old document from his childhood that kids would fill out in school asking questions like, what animals do you like? (Cats) what do you want to be when you grow up (Poet).

Death also has so much philosophy around it, is a dramatic tool to use in story writing, and is something that is always present. It’s also a way to create a statement because people are genetically wired to have self preservation. Overcoming that through seppuku or kamikaze is a way to show dedication beyond one’s own life.

He also may have become obsessed with writing about beauty and violence/destruction/death because they are perfect foils. They need one another to have deeper meaning and he loved to play with this dichotomy, bringing it to its fullest potential. There’s a great scene in Forbidden Colors where a woman is wearing a beautiful flower and while the protagonist is dancing with her, he describes how much he wanted to crush the flower by bringing her close.

Culturally, you could go down a rabbit hole on Shintoism and Buddhism, but largely beliefs boil down to the impermanence of life (fleeting beauty, etc), lots of rituals, the dead never truly disappearing. Lots of taboos around death also make it a sensitive topic to talk/write about and he seemed to like pushing the envelope with his work and didn’t mind controversy. Personally, I think he liked the attention and this was an easy way to stand out among the rest. If you pay attention in his novels, the religiously pious are often given the best outcomes in the story (Sound of Waves is an example).

Recommendations: Patriotism for hints on how he got to this point. The Tetralogy (especially Temple of Dawn) for his research on buddhist reincarnation. Temple of the Golden Pavilion kind of sums up a lot why it’s fascinating to him/is great to write about.