Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast episode 589, The All Seeing Eye, Part 6.

And now, at long last, we have arrived at the age of the modern Japanese conspiracy theory.

By the late 1970s, anti-communist red scaerbating had lost a lot of its political currency.

There were, of course, still people like Akkao Bin,

who, literally until the day he died in 1990, continued to hold public rallies against the

communist threat to Japan, while also, of course, insisting, among other things, on the complete

justice of Japan's behavior during World War II and the illegitimacy of post-war

democracy. But by the 1980s, nobody took that sort of thing particularly seriously anymore.

The Communist Party, meanwhile, was not exactly the great revolutionary menace it had been in ages

past. The main controversy it was involved in was a

wide-ranging political battle over whether or not its chairperson, one of the very few women

elected to office in the 1980s, Doi Takako, was allowed to wear her signature hat during meetings

of the diet, which had strict dress codes, including no hats.

If you're wondering, she did not win that one.

But of course, this didn't mean conspiracism itself was gone.

The focus of the conspiracies simply shifted, unfortunately not to questions about Doi Takako's hat.

What is she hiding in there?

The public demands answers.

Instead, by the 1980s, Japan's conspiracy theory circuit, so to speak, had started to converge a lot more with others around the world.

One of the many benefits, and I can't possibly put enough air quotes around that word in this context,

of modern mass media, making it far easier to connect with people all over the world.

And as a part of that global exchange of conspiracies, starting in the 80s you see a mainstreaming

...