Mitsuyasu Maeno

In the years after his death, Maeno's Roman Porno appearances attracted a cult following among enthusiasts of the genre. Nearly three decades after his death, Maeno was mentioned in Chilean writer Antonio Skármeta's 2003 novel, The Dancer and the Thief. In the novel, lead character, Ángel, meets his love interest in front of a Japanese cinema. The poster advertising Tokyo Emmanuelle and its cast, including Maeno's name, misspelled as "Mitsuyaso Mainu", becomes a point of connection between the two.

Kodama was unharmed in the attack and went on trial in June 1977. The trial was postponed. Before it had been concluded, on January 17, 1984, Kodama suffered another stroke and died peacefully. Shortly before his death, the right-wing leader had expressed the view that he was being punished for taking money from Lockheed, a company that had built aircraft to fight Japan during World War II.

Mitsuyasu Maeno (前野 光保, Maeno Mitsuyasu, c.1947 – March 23, 1976) was a Japanese actor who appeared in roman porno films as Soichiro Maeno (前野 霜一郎, Maeno Sōichirō). Outside of acting, Maeno was associated with the Japanese ultranationalist movement. In March 1976, he carried out a suicide attack on Yoshio Kodama, a multi-millionaire right-wing leader and leading figure in the Lockheed bribery scandals. Maeno attempted to kill Kodama by flying a plane into his home, but Kodama survived uninjured.

In contrast to the vocal right-wing, numbering approximately 120,000 in 1976, the "secret" or "romantic" rightists which Maeno joined harbored a hatred of Japan's 1947 "Peace Constitution", and idolized the samurai beliefs of bushidō. According to contemporary estimates, this group numbered between 10,000 and 30,000 in the mid-1970s.

Maeno had difficulty in getting work in film, and began appearing in softcore pornographic films because of the better money. By 1976, more than two-thirds of Japan's films were in the pink film genre in which Maeno appeared. Nikkatsu, Japan's oldest studio, had been specializing in these softcore pink films since late 1971, and by the time of his death he had appeared in about twenty of the company's roman porno films. He had most recently appeared in his best-known role, Nikkatsu's Tokyo Emmanuelle (1976), for which he received screen billing. In this film he made love to the popular actress Kumi Taguchi while flying a plane. The film was the half-Caucasian Taguchi's debut for Nikkatsu, having appeared previously in films for Toei, including Tokyo Deep Throat (1975). Tokyo Emmanuelle later became the first of Nikkatsu's roman pornos to be distributed in Britain.

In early 1976, Japan was scandalized by news of the Lockheed bribery scandals, and the involvement of the highest levels of Japanese political power, including Yoshio Kodama. Kodama had been confined to his house since suffering a stroke in 1975. He was accused of accepting more than seven million dollars from the Lockheed Corporation to bribe Japanese officials to facilitate sales of their airplanes.

In early March 1976, Maeno flew around Kodama's neighborhood in Setagaya, gaining knowledge of the area in preparation for an attack. On the morning of March 23, 1976, Maeno arrived in the western suburbs of Tokyo at Chofu Airport with two friends. All three were dressed in the uniforms of kamikaze pilots, and Maeno informed airport officials that they were renting two planes for a kamikaze segment of a film. The flight was to prepare publicity for a planned film on the suicide bombers. Before 9:00 a.m., the actor posed in his uniform, with white scarf, rising-sun images on his sleeve, and a headband in front of the Piper Cherokee plane he had rented.

In 1971, Maeno attended a meeting of ultra-nationalists in Tokyo's Okura Hotel. Featured at the meeting was "Song of the Race", a composition by right-wing leader, Yoshio Kodama. The lyrics to the song, which the meeting promoted as the new national anthem, called for an overthrow of the government and a restoration of Japan's World War II Imperial policies. Kodama had been associated with gangsters and ultra-nationalism since the war years and had served two years in prison as a Class A war criminal. One of the most powerful figures in post-war Japan, he was largely responsible for the yakuza's resurgence. Though Maeno had no real political connections, he came to admire Kodama as an ultra-nationalist leader.

According to his father, Maeno came under the influence of the right-wing and ultra-nationalistic philosophies of the writer Yukio Mishima. In November 1970, Mishima had attempted to incite the Self-Defense Forces to overthrow the 1947 Constitution of Japan. When his efforts to restore Japan to a wartime samurai ethic failed, Mishima performed ritual suicide.

Soichiro Maeno was born Mitsuyasu Maeno in 1946. He attended classes in acting at the University of California in 1967. Maeno was married twice, both marriages ending in divorce. His troubled personal life also included a suicide attempt.