Hello, and welcome to your Japanese history of today, 22 August.

Today is the 5th day of Fukaki Kiri Matou (蒙霧升降), which translates to “Thick fog descends”.

Today is the birthday of Masatoshi Shima, a Japanese computer scientist and engineer born in 1943 who co-designed the Intel 4004, the world’s first microprocessor, in 1968.

Today is the anniversary of the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty. Signed in 1910, this treaty made Korea a part of the Japanese Empire. Japan retained control of Korea until the end of WWII. Japan basically already controlled Korea, but with this treaty they officially annexed the country. Both the UK and the US governments supported the move. The treaty was signed by the Korean prime minster, but Korean emperor Sunjong refused to sign it.

Today in 1942, Brazil joined the allies in declaring war on Germany, Japan, and Italy.

Today is the anniversary of the first killing of the Otaku Murderer. In 1988 Miyazaki Tsutomu made his first of four killings, luring Mari Konno, a four-year-old girl, into his car by promising to take her “somewhere cool” and then driving her to a forest where he strangled her and had sex with her corpse. He cut off her hands and feet to keep as mementos of the deed, then he ground up her bones and sent the powder along with baby teeth to her parents, along with a postcard taunting them. He killed three more young girls before he was caught and imprisoned. He was called the Otaku Killer by the media due to the discovery that he spent most of his time watching anime. (It’s becoming a common English word these days, but for those unfamiliar, otaku means something like geek, though the term is much harsher than geek is.) His arrest sparked a media backlash against anime, with many blaming the cartoons for making him a murderer. He was executed by hanging on 17 June 2008.

Here is a haiku for today by Issa, in which he engages in that age-old game of watching the clouds and looking for familiar shapes.

鬼と成り仏となるや土用雲
becoming a demon
becoming a Buddha
midsummer clouds
(translation mine)

Issa was being playful here, suggesting that Buddhas and demons are made of the same stuff, two sides of the same coin. As Mick Jagger would later put the same point: All the cops are criminals, all the sinners saints.

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	David LaSpina is an American photographer lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time. More?