KOBAYASHI Yoshinori

Yoshinori Kobayashi (born in 1953) is a well-known comedy-manga artist. His series of political comics, “Gōmanism Sengen (ゴーマニズム宣言),” first appeared in 1992. At the beginning of the series, his “anti-hegemonic” attitude appealed to some liberal audiences. However, he became an iconic figure as a “revisionist” of Japan’s modern history who criticized Japanese postwar academia for forcing a “self-torture historical view” on the Japanese people. For this, liberal fans left him, and he gained popularity amongst radical nationalists, who had raised their voices in the online space. But later, he started criticizing the cyber-nationalists who have inflamed anti-South Korea and anti-China discourses for ignoring historical knowledge, calling them “fake right wingers'' (2015 interview).

As for constitutional discussion, he has claimed Japan should specify the status of the Self Defense Forces as the military to regain its sovereignty and be independent from the US. Kobayashi argues that the security bills would make Japan more dependent on the US. As of December 2020, he supports a lawmaker of the Democratic Party for the People (国民民主党), Yamao Shirori, who calls for constitutional revision from a “liberal” perspective. Yamao aims to confine the sphere of Japan’s self-defense right to its individual self-defense, excluding its collective self-defense; this highlights differences between him and online radical nationalists. Kobayashi insists that Yamao’s direction would bring Japan independence from the US and match his “conservative” claims. Kobayashi’s publication information and blog articles are available on his website.