Yukio Mishima is a man of many contradictions. A lover of honor and national pride, he dodged the draft in WW2. A critic of modern Japanese society, he is to this day one of the countries best selling offers. He got away with this kind hypocrisy based on the depth, breathtaking beauty, and stark brutality of his work. With 34 novels, 50 plays, and 35 books of essays, Mishima explored themes of sexuality, death, and an idealized form of Japanese nationalism. In 1970, he committed ritualistic seppuku after a failed coup attempt. Needless to say, he is a controversial figure.

It is not surprised then, that Mishima has been embraced by the experimental music community. He, along with Genet, was featured on artwork for English neofolk band Death In June. This kicked off countless noise bands using Mishima on album covers. Noise music's fascination with Mishima can be traced back to two commonly held ideas about him. One. That he was a fascist, which is untrue, and two, that he was a homosexual, which is very true. 

Fascism has, unfortunately,  always had a place within noise. Thanks to Boyd Rice it is common to fetishize it and play with it and Mishima is just a cog. A  literate person wore military a military uniform, let's slap him on our seven inch! It's a shame he was remembered this way, as his views were much more nuanced. He was certainly a nationalist, but his brand of nationalism was idealistic and he was well aware of that fact. Beauty and honor meant far more to him than political dogma. 

Homosexuality, at one time, was taboo and like all things taboo it was used by the noise scene as a sign of extremity. Mishima, like his muse St. Sebastian, became a gay icon. 

He's an interesting case, possibly a sad one. A man with a bibliography his size should not be regulated to symbols of 2d posing.