The New Sun #[nn]

In 1933, artists Taro Yashima and Mitsu Yashima settle with their baby in a Tokyo neighborhood where life is rooted in the rhythm of labor and community. As their son thrives in the sunlight and they grow closer to the people around them, the couple finds inspiration in the daily lives of the workers, planting gardens and dreaming of art that captures a deeper truth.

After the political police shut down the day nursery, the Yashima baby falls ill and dies. Mitsu Yashima, grieving, resolves to stop crying—she is carrying another child. That night, Taro Yashima returns home with a bunch of daffodils, only to find three Tokkoka thought police waiting. They’ve already taken his wife, and now they take him too, leading him to the Tokkoka prison.

In the suffocating darkness of a wartime prison cell, Taro Yashima endures relentless abuse from guards and fellow prisoners, clinging to memories of his son and fleeting visions of his wife. As days blur into a haze of fear and isolation, his mind becomes a fragile sanctuary where love and loss echo through the silence.

In the shadow of a brutal regime, Taro Yashima bears witness to a world where guards act with animalistic cruelty and prisoners—many jailed for minor offenses—reveal a deeper humanity. When Doctor Yama is imprisoned for defending Mitsu Yashima, a pregnant woman subjected to torture despite her condition, Taro is torn between helplessness and hope, haunted by her screams and the desperate wish for their unborn child to survive.

In the quiet tension of wartime Japan, Taro Yashima and his family face growing fear as the Tokkoka thought police descend upon their lives, turning neighbors into threats and home into a place of suspicion. With his mother-in-law’s quiet strength and the weight of unseen scrutiny, Taro is dragged into a harrowing ordeal where survival means writing his own past—under the watchful eyes of the chief of police.

Taro Yashima recounts his roots in a Japan where feudalism crumbled, tracing his family’s journey from a humble Samurai home to his father’s medical practice rooted in equality. Growing up among country people, he cherishes the land and his childhood friends, even as he dreams of the sea and the stars—picturing himself as an admiral, yet finding his soul in painting.

In this intimate chapter of his life, Taro Yashima recalls a youth shaped by rigid discipline and quiet rebellion—where harsh drill instructors measured worth in obedience, and art felt like a forbidden dream. After his mother’s passing, he returns to a city where old friends are broken by hardship, yet he finds new purpose in the colors of Impressionism. At a pivotal moment, his father, Dr. Yashima, offers a rare, quiet affirmation: "It is as difficult to be a real artist as it is to be an admiral."

In "Where are We Going?", Taro Yashima navigates a journey from the rigid halls of Tokyo’s Imperial Art Academy to the quiet suffering of his home village, searching for meaning beyond formal training. Amid the struggles of poor farming people and the weight of a changing Japan, he finds unexpected hope in the voices of railroad workers—echoes of resilience that stir something deep within him.

Taro Yashima, newly married to Mitsu, finds his artistic purpose in the lives of ordinary people. Immersed among working people and army personnel, he and his fellow progressives create powerful exhibitions that celebrate everyday resilience and resist the rising tide of militarism and fascism.

In the wake of the Manchurian Incident, Taro Yashima reflects on a time when progressive artists, underground leaders, and dissenting voices faced increasing repression from the police. As freedom of expression collapses and cultural work is silenced, he contemplates the enduring power of ideas that no crackdown can extinguish.

Taro Yashima endures a harrowing ordeal after being beaten by Tokkō police and thrust into a brutal military training regime, where drillmasters enforce obedience through fear. Trapped in a system designed to break the spirit, he struggles to hold onto his sense of self—until the distant sound of his wife’s cries from the women’s cell reaches him in the silence.

In the stark winter of a wartime internment camp, Taro Yashima endures haunting dreams alongside fellow prisoners, where survival hinges on fragile choices and shifting alliances. As the days grow colder, he watches helplessly as his wife Mitsu, nearing childbirth, faces the uncertain fate of release—her survival a fragile hope amid the bleakness. The weight of their shared ordeal presses on, and the cost of their endurance feels like it may have been too great.

In the stark reality of incarceration, a shared sense of brotherhood emerges among prisoners, forging bonds across short-term sentences and varied backgrounds. Through a self-published news bulletin, they rally one another to stand together, using words as both a tool and a lifeline.

In a stark prison camp, a trolley union organizer’s strength fades as hunger takes hold, and his fellow inmates, including Taro Yashima and Dr. Yama, begin to fear the worst. When Dr. Yama tells the guards the man is near death but might survive with milk, a single bottle appears in the night—passed hand to hand, shared in silence, and met with a quiet, trembling gratitude. The act becomes a quiet testament to what might yet be possible.

In spring, Taro Yashima reflects on the children, farmers, and workers he’s known—ordinary people whose dignity and hope remain unbroken despite the war’s shadow. As the nation pushes its people toward conflict, he sees a path not in obedience, but in collective struggle toward a Japan and an Orient built by the people themselves. With quiet resolve, he chooses to write a confession not as surrender, but as a step back into the life he believes in.

Taro Yashima, released after a false confession, returns to a world reshaped by war and loss. Passing the house where he once planted a poppy with his wife, he feels the weight of the factories and the promise of a new beginning as he heads to her parents’ home beneath a sun that seems to glow with quiet hope.