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Family Ties: The Tojo Legacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

David McNeill
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The granddaughter of Japan's wartime leader Tojo Hideki has become one of his staunchest public defenders since emerging from obscurity a decade ago. But exactly who is she and why has she come in from the political cold?

There is no mistaking the impact of the family genes on Tojo Yuko: she has the same myopic, almond-shaped eyes, thin mouth and wide cheekbones as her grandfather, General Tojo Hideki, who led Japan to disastrous defeat in World War 2. She even affects his rigid military bearing.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 3 , Issue 11 , November 2005 , e22
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2005

References

Notes

[1] Onoda returned to Japan in 1974 after 29 years on the Philippine island of Lubang, where he fought as an army lieutenant. He was apparently unaware that World War II had ended. He was later pardoned by the Philippine government for killing at least 30 Filipinos and wounding about 100 others during peacetime.

[2] Tojo also criticized Ishihara Shintaro in a September interview on the right-wing Sakura TV channel after the Tokyo governor said that Tojo was not worthy to be worshipped as a god at Yasukuni because he had only used a 22- caliber weapon in his attempted suicide. See: http://www.ch-sakura.jp/onlinetv_sakura.php

[3] Of General Tojo's children, daughter Makie (nee Tamura) seems to have lived the most anonymous life. Her late husband, Major Koga, was one of the conspirators who tried to stop the Showa Emperor's surrender on Aug. 15, 1945. She remarried and became a case worker in the National Mental Health Research Institute.

[4] In an interview with Fuji Television on June 5, 2005, Tojo said her family reacted ‘coldly’ to the publication of the books. “I explained that I was not speaking as a member of the Tojo family but as an individual,” she said. The decision ended her relationship with her uncle Tojo Teruo.