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This chapter examines the Cherry Blossom Society's rebellion of 1931. The Cherry Blossom Society, or Sakura-kai, was a clandestine organization whose activities precipitated a wave of military violence in the early 1930s. Before discussing how the Sakura-kai escalated the familiar patterns of military resistance into an outright rebellion, the chapter provides a background on its leader, Lieutenant Colonel Hashimoto Kingorō. It then considers the Sakura-kai's alliance with civilian nationalistic societies before turning to the March Incident, which was plotted by Ōkawa Shūmei. It also describes the Manchurian Incident and the October Incident and concludes with a commentary on how the March and October incidents opened a new phase in the history of Japanese military insubordination.

This book has shown how a culture of insubordination, an ideological pattern of rebellion and resistance, developed as a constant feature of Japanese military life from the Meiji Restoration onward. Tracing its roots in the shishi culture of the late Tokugawa period, military insubordination persisted into the 1870s and reached new heights during the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. It broke into two independent components: elite resistance to state policy and the shishi tradition of the mixed gangs. The book concludes with a discussion of three “bugs” that allowed the Imperial Japanese Army's rebellious culture to grow, prosper, and radicalize with the passing years: the first bug was the hazy political legitimacy of the Meiji regime; the second was the one-way nature of territorial expansion; and the third was the endless nature of territorial expansion.

This book examines the culture of rebellion and resistance in the Imperial Japanese Army. Drawing on fifteen archives in four different countries, along with other sources such as letter collections, testimonies, police transcripts, court documents, diplomatic cables, historical newspapers, memoirs, and interviews, the book refutes the notion that Imperial Japanese soldiers were blindly and unconditionally obedient to authority. It presents evidence showing that the Imperial Japanese Army was arguably one of the most disobedient armed forces in modern history. Indeed, it was normal for Imperial Japanese soldiers to rebel, resist, assassinate, and conspire. The book traces Japan's history of military insubordination to bolster its argument that rebelliousness was an integral part of Japanese military life from the 1860s to the 1930s.

This chapter discusses the murder of Queen Min of Korea by Japanese Lieutenant General Miura Gorō in 1895. On October 8, 1895, a group of Japanese officers, policemen, and civilians broke into the private apartments of Queen Min, hacked her to death with swords, killed several of her court ladies and burned their bodies on the lawn. The minister of the royal household was also slain, and the crown princess was beaten. This heinous act planned by Miura, the Japanese envoy, without the knowledge of the Japanese government. The chapter examines the assassination of Queen Min within its historical and political context before discussing how it brought together, with dire consequences, two distinct roads of military resistance to state policy. It also considers the trial and subsequent acquittal of Miura in Hiroshima.

After World War II, the U.S. military built vast installations and imposed occupation rule until 1972. For all the post-war years Okinawans have lived next door to American bases. As one result, large numbers of Okinawan women married American military men and immigrated to the U.S. Couples had to overcome stubborn resistance to their marriages from the U.S. military in Okinawa, and a legacy of discriminatory immigration laws in the United States, especially targeting Asians. Couples also faced racial prejudice living in the U.S., where interracial marriages were illegal in several states until 1967. Negative stereotypes about international marriages abound in American popular culture, such as James A. Michener’s 1954 novel Sayonara about an American airman and his Japanese fiancee. Yet many women interviewed in this study had successful marriages and fulfilling lives, demonstrating extraordinary courage and perseverance in adjusting to a markedly different society and culture. Many have formed local Okinawa prefectural associations throughout the U.S. for mutual support and participation with their families in Okinawan cultural events.