It's tempting but generally unwise to use Mishima as an example of anything but his own tortured soul. From day one, his writings have been suffused with longi

It's tempting but generally unwise to use Mishima as an example of anything but his own tortured soul. From day one, his writings have been suffused with longing for a "beautiful death" (his autobiography Confessions of a Mask has a striking scene where he describes having his first ever orgasm when he sees a picture of St Sebastian pierced by arrows), and the military trappings he acquired towards the end of his life seem to merely have been stage decoration for his own suicide.