Ryoma and Masayoshi per the Wall Street Journal:
Celebrated in History,
Ryoma Moves Japan
By YUMIKO ONO and ROBERT A. GUTH
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
TOKYO -- Masayoshi Son, Japan's billionaire Internet investor, had long dreamed of seeing the hero of the Japanese tech elite. So, he led about 15 entrepreneurs on a pilgrimage 380 miles south of Tokyo -- not to a Web guru, but to a bronze statue of Ryoma Sakamoto, a kimono-clad samurai who was assassinated more than 130 years ago.
"I am a huge fan," explains Mr. Son, president and chief executive officer of Softbank Corp. "Ryoma transformed his era."
Mr. Son, a trendsetter in Japan's technology scene, has a finger on the nation's political pulse as well. Ryoma, as the samurai is fondly known by most Japanese, was a revolutionary who helped spark one of the great events in Asian history: the toppling of Japan's feudal government in 1867, in favor of a new leadership that modernized the nation. Soon after, Ryoma was killed by unknown assassins at the tender age of 33. Today, he is just about the only political figure in Japan who gets any respect.
Fans flock to Ryoma's grave site in Kyoto. He was recently named the most popular political leader of the past 1,000 years, in a poll by the newspaper Asahi Shimbun. In recent months Ryoma has appeared in ads for accounting software and life insurance. He is celebrated as the first Japanese man to take his wife on a honeymoon. He was fashion-forward, one of the first Japanese to wear Western boots.
"He picked his nose in public!" marvels Yasushi Onishi, a 37-year-old textile-company worker, who isn't sure where he came by that bit of information.
It may seem odd that one of the world's more placid populaces is turning to a murdered rebel as a role model. But the Ryoma revival comes as Japan struggles through a 10-year economic slump. And after a decade of dithering, most Japanese politicians are viewed here as dinosaurs in blue suits.
Their leadership is under the scrutiny this month, when Japan holds elections to the lower house of Parliament. The head of the old guard, burly Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, riled millions recently when he declared that Japan is a "divine nation centered on the emperor" -- a remark echoing the militaristic rhetoric that led Japan into World War II. But his ruling Liberal Democratic Party may yet retain power, because the opposition is a snooze, too.
So, many Japanese are turning to their rich history for inspiration. "We need somebody who can help us get out of this crisis," says Takeyoshi Nakako, a Website designer and the founder of the Club to Study the Aims of Ryoma, one of at least 50 such groups in Japan. "No one can make this happen. But Ryoma can."
Born in 1835 as the son of a low-ranked samurai warrior, Ryoma -- the name means Dragon Horse -- was among a group of young rebels in the 1860s who plotted to overthrow the backward shogunate and open Japan to the world. But he became famous in 1966, as the hero of a best-selling historical novel, "Ryoma on the Move." Author Ryotaro Shiba depicted Ryoma as an idealist with bold dreams, a sense of humor and an ability to get things done.
The novel has inspired a generation of techies who see Ryoma as a hip forefather, in part because he founded a trading firm -- one of Japan's first start-up companies. The Sony Ryoma Sakamoto Research Club, whose 25 members are mostly Sony Corp. employees, requires aspiring members to read all eight paperback volumes of "Ryoma on the Move." Only then may they join such activities as overnight excursions to discuss Ryoma.
The unofficial high priest of the cult may be Softbank's Mr. Son, whose company has a 23% stake in Yahoo! Inc. and on June 6 won a bid to buy a failed Japanese bank. Mr. Son read "Ryoma on the Move" when he was 15. A year later, he traveled alone to the U.S. despite opposition from his family, he says, because going overseas was Ryoma's unfulfilled dream. Three years ago he led the Ryoma pilgrimage, after hearing about the Ryoma statue and an adjacent museum.
Last year, the 42-year-old mogul was cast in the role of Ryoma in an amateur play that likened the samurai to today's venture capitalists. Mr. Son ended up missing the curtain because of a delayed flight, but he donned a kimono and joined a discussion after the play. He linked Ryoma's dream of reforming Japan to his own dream of remaking Japan with technology.
"He was just so cool," said Mr. Son, to an audience of 600. "I wanted to live a life like that, put my life at stake for something."
The old guard, it turns out, has its own Ryoma establishment. Keizo Obuchi, the power-brokering prime minister who died last month, said on his Web site that he was "head over heels in love" with Ryoma. His government plastered Ryoma's face on a pamphlet about its reform plans. The conservatives' claim on Ryoma annoys Mitsuo Shimizu, a political activist in Kyoto. "Even those who don't have the Ryoma spirit within them are trying to associate themselves with Ryoma," fumes Mr. Shimizu, who posts his own views on reforming Japan on his Web site, called the Heisei Ryoma Association.
Even denizens of Japan's rust belt are looking to Ryoma, though not for revolution. Akikazu Nakamura, 73, a former executive at Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd., says Ryoma guided him through the manufacturer's incremental reforms in the early 1990s, inspiring such ideas as a plan to encourage engineers from far-flung departments to work together on problems.
Now, a new crop of young Ryoma fans is emerging, inspired not by the novel or the history books but by "Hey! Ryoma" comic books in 23 volumes, a compilation of a weekly series that ran in magazines between 1987 and 1996. The cartoon Ryoma is a bushy-browed warrior with a kind heart and awesome swordsmanship that hurls opponents into somersaults.
Kengo Orita, a 21-year-old sporting a screw-shaped earring and bleached hair, recently trekked up a steep hill in Kyoto to visit his hero's grave, a hangout for many young fans. The narrow gravestone, enclosed in a small shrine, is surrounded with bouquets of flowers and rows of marble tiles bearing handwritten messages including: "We need people like you, Ryoma."
Mr. Orita, a worker at a fashion house, has admired Ryoma's iconoclasm ever since he bought the 23 comic books and read them all in one go. Lighting a stick of incense and bowing his head in silent prayer, Mr. Orita says he is overwhelmed by emotion just to be here. "It's giving me goose bumps," he whispers.
Write to Yumiko Ono at yumiko.ono@wsj.com and Robert A. Guth at rob.guth@wsj.com
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