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Associated Press

A renowned Japanese plastic surgeon known for his extreme political views has purchased at auction for US$275,000 a memoir by Japanese Emperor Hirohito offering his recollections of the second world war.
The 173-page document was sold Wednesday at Bonhams auction house in Manhattan for nearly double its expected top price.
“It should have been in Japan, but it ended up overseas,” Dr Katsuya Takasu said in Tokyo.
“So it feels like it’s finally coming back.”
Takasu said he wants to give the memoir to the only grandson of current Emperor Akihito, but said there is a limit of 150,000 yen (about $1,300) on gifts to the imperial family.
He has no plans to show the work to the public or the media, and said he’s trying to figure out a way to get it to Akihito’s grandson.

Takasu is well known in Japan for his chain of clinics, television appearances and books that feature before and after pictures of his own physical transformation.
Takasu was a member of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, but the organisation terminated his membership last month after the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a Jewish human rights group, pointed out his use of social media to praise Adolf Hitler and deny the Holocaust and the Nanjing massacre.
Hirohito dictated the memoir to his aides soon after the end of the war. It was created at the request of General Douglas MacArthur, whose administration controlled Japan at the time.
The document, also known as the imperial monologue, covers events from the Japanese assassination of Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin in 1928 to the emperor’s surrender broadcast recorded on Aug. 14, 1945.

Its contents caused a sensation when they were first published in Japan in 1990, just after the emperor’s death.
The two volumes are each bound with strings, the contents written vertically in pencil. It was transcribed by Hidenari Terasaki, an imperial aide and former diplomat who served as a translator when Hirohito met with McArthur.
The monologue is believed among historians to be a carefully crafted text intended to defend Hirohito’s responsibility in case he was prosecuted after the war. A 1997 documentary on Japan’s NHK television found an English translation of the memoir that supports that view.
The transcript was kept by Terasaki’s American wife Gwen Terasaki after his death in 1951 and then handed over to their daughter Mariko Terasaki Miller and her family.


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Auctions

Celebrity Japanese plastic surgeon who praised Hitler buys pencil-written memoir of Emperor Hirohito for US$275,000

The 173-page document offers the emperor’s recollections of the second world war and was dictated to several of his aides soon after the war ended

FILE--Gen. Douglas MacArthur, left, poses with Emperor Hirohito during the Japanese emperor's visit to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo in this Sept. 27,1945 file photo. On Thursday, Jan. 7, 1999, the nation observes the 10th anniversary of Hirohito's death. (AP Photo/file)

The post-war memoirs of Japanese Emperor Hirohito. The two-volume, 173 page document fetched $275,000 at an auction in New York. Photo: AP

Japan’s shortest serving post-war prime minister Tsutomu Hata dies at 82

Tsutomu Hata sings a country western tune at a charity event in Tokyo in 1994. File photo: Kyodo

Japanese politician Tsutomu Hata (C) is seen in this file photo bowing in parliament in Tokyo amid the applause of Ichiro Ozawa (R) and other fellow lawmakers when he was named prime minister in April 1994. Hata, who headed a coalition government for two months and eventually retired from politics in 2012, died Aug. 28, 2017, at age 82. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo

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Asia

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The 173-page document offers the emperor’s recollections of the second world war and was dictated to several of his aides soon after the war ended


Legacy of war in Asia

Celebrity Japanese plastic surgeon who praised Hitler buys pencil-written memoir of Emperor Hirohito for US$275,000

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The 173-page document offers the emperor’s recollections of the second world war and was dictated to several of his aides soon after the war ended

The 173-page document offers the emperor’s recollections of the second world war and was dictated to several of his aides soon after the war ended