Genysha

Tyama Mitsuru (center), Kodama Yoshio (rst row, second

from right) on a meeting of the Black Ocean Society (Gen'yosha),
1929

The memorial of Gen-ysha

The Dark/Black Ocean Society ( Gen'ysha)

was an inuential Pan-Asianism group and secret society active in the Empire of Japan, and was considered to
be an ultranationalist group by GHQ in International Military Tribunal for the Far East.* [1]

The tactics which the Gen'ysha was prepared to use to

achieve its goals were also far from peaceful. It began as
a terrorist organization, and although it continued to recruit disaected ex-samurai, it also attracted gures involved in organized crime to assist in its campaigns of
violence and assassination against foreigners and liberal
politicians.* [4]

Foundation as the Koysha

In 1889, the Gen'ysha strongly criticized the unequal

treaty revision plan drafted by foreign minister Okuma
Shigenobu. A Gen'ysha member threw a bomb which
wounded him severely.* [5] In the election of 1892, the
Gen'ysha mounted a campaign of intimidation and violence with the tacit support of the Matsukata administration to inuence the outcome of the election.

Originally founded as the Koysha by Hiraoka Kotar

(18511906), a wealthy ex-samurai and mine-owner,
with mining interests in Manchuria, Toyama Mitsuru, and
other former samurai of the Fukuoka Domain, it agitated
for a return to the old feudal Japanese order with special privileges and government stipends for the samurai
class.* [2] The Koysha participated in the various exsamurai uprising in Kysh against the early Meiji government, but after the suppression of the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877, it abandoned its original goals, joined the
Freedom and People's Rights Movement, and formed a
political organization to agitate for a national parliament
instead.

One of the primary targets of the Gen'ysha were the

many Chinese secret societies, some of which were very
hostile to Japan. However, the Chinese secret societies
had a shared goal with the Gen'ysha in wanting the overthrow of the Qing dynasty.* [6] In 1881, Mitsuru Toyama
sent over 100 men into China to gather information and
to inltrate these secret societies. One of the rst and
most detailed histories of the secret societies was written by Gen'ysha member Hiraya Amane, who assisted
in the establishment of the Gen'ysha's Chinese headquarters in Hangzhou. The Gen'ysha not only provided
funds and weapons to the secret societies, but also arranged for refuge in Japan for leaders exposed by the Qing
government. The Gen'yosha established a large network
of brothels across China (and later throughout Southeast
Asia) to provide meeting locations, and also to gather information. In addition to being a protable side-business,
the brothels provided opportunities to gather useful information for the later blackmail or subversion of patrons.
However, although blackmail and bribery were often re-

Foundation as the Gen'ysha

In 1881, the Koysha changed its direction again. This

time, the declared aims of the Gen'ysha wereto honor
the Imperial Family, respect the Empire and to guard the
rights of the people. However, its true agenda was to
agitate for Japanese military expansion and conquest of
the Asian continent. The true agenda was reected in its
new name of Gen'ysha, taken after the Genkainada strait
which separates Japan from Korea.* [3]
1

7 NOTES

sorted to, more often information was obtained by em- 4 In popular culture
ploying prostitutes highly skilled in extracting information for their clients. The Gen'ysha even established a The Black Ocean Society is mentioned several times as a
training school for such agents in Sapporo in Hokkaid. front for the worldwide Cthulhu cult in game supplements
Another sphere of Gen'ysha activity was Korea. The released by Chaosium and Pagan Publishing in support of
Gen'ysha established a task force to prepare detailed to- their Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green role playing games.
pographical survey maps of Korea in secret, in anticipa- It is also presented as a Japanese intelligence agency in
tion of a future Japanese invasion. The Gen'ysha also the appendix for TSR's Top Secret.
actively supported the Donghak Movement, knowing that
the uprising was likely to draw China and Japan into a In the BattleTech science-ction wargaming franchise,
war. The assassination of Queen Min of Korea in 1895 Genyosha is the name of a pair of elite units in the miliis believed to have been conducted by Gen'yosha mem- tary of the Draconis Combine faction, which takes much
bers, at the instigation of the Japanese Minister in Seoul, of its cultural and thematic inspiration from feudal Japan.
Miura Goro.* [7]
Originally ignored by the Japanese military, during the
First Sino-Japanese War and Russo-Japanese War, both
the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy
found the Gen'ysha s extensive intelligence gathering
network throughout East Asia to be invaluable. The
Gen'ysha network was also useful for the military in conducting sabotage activities behind enemy lines.
After the annexation of Korea in 1910, the Gen'ysha
continued to support eorts towards Pan-Asianism. Domestically, it formed a political party called the Dai Nippon Seisant (Greater Japan Production Party) to combat
the inuence of socialism in worker trade unions.
Towards its later years, the Gen'ysha was far removed
from its origins as a secret society, but had evolved almost to the mainstream of Japanese politics. A number
of cabinet ministers and members of the Japanese Diet
were known members, and mainstream political leaders,
such as Hirota Koki and Nakano Seigo emerged from its
ranks. It continued to exert considerable inuence on the
politics and foreign policy of Japan until the end of World
War II.
The Gen'ysha was disbanded by the American authorities during the Occupation of Japan.

Legacy

The Gen'ysha was the forerunner of a number of organizations which inherited and developed its ideology. It
also set the stage for the post-World War II ties between
right-wing politicians and yakuza organized crime syndicates.
Although modern yakuza share many of Gen'ysha's political and social philosophies, and although many of
Gen'ysha's members were drawn from yakuza ranks, the
Gen'ysha was primarily a political organization that often used criminal means to attain its goals, and was not a
yakuza itself, as some authors have claimed.

5 See also
Black Dragon Society

6 References
Min, Anchee (2003). The Last Empress. Houghton
Miin. ISBN 0-618-53146-7.
Gordon, Andrew (2003). A Modern History of
Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-511061-7.
Jacob, Frank (2012). Die Thule-Gesellschaft und
die Kokurykai: Geheimgesellschaften im globalhistorischen Vergleich. Wrzburg: Knigshausen &
Neumann. ISBN 978-3826049095.
Victor, George (2005). The Pearl Harbor Myth,
Rethinking the Unthinkable. Potomac Books Inc.
ISBN 1-59797-042-5.
Crowdey, George (2006). The Enemy Within, A
History of Espionage. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 184176-933-9.

7 Notes
[1] 1977
=History of Genyosha(written in Japanese)
[2] Crowdey, The Enemy Within, page 215
[3] Victor, The Pearl Harbor Myth, Rethinking the Unthinkable, page 128
[4] Crowdey, The Enemy Within, page 217
[5] Gordon, A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa
Times to the Present, page 92
[6] Harries, Soldiers of the Sun, The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army

[7] Min, The Last Empress, page 203

Media related to Genyosha at Wikimedia Commons

8 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

8.1

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Genysha Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geny%C5%8Dsha?oldid=716179385 Contributors: Charles Matthews, Dimadick,

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