# Naoki Hyakuta

Naoki Hyakuta (百田 尚樹, Hyakuta Naoki, born February 23, 1956) is a Japanese former novelist, television producer, and politician. He is the co-founder and leader of the Conservative Party of Japan. Hyakuta is particularly known for his 2006 novel The Eternal Zero, which was adapted into an eponymous 2013 film. Other books of his, several of which have also been adapted into films, include Bokkusu and Monsuta. From 2013 to 2015, he served as a governor of the public broadcaster NHK.
Hyakuta is known for his right-wing political views, including his denial of Japanese war crimes before and during World War II, particularly the Nanjing Massacre.

## The Eternal Zero

In 2006 Hyakuta's novel The Eternal Zero was published. It became a best-seller, with four million copies sold. It was made into a popular 2013 movie. The novel was criticised by Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki as being "a pack of lies" about the war, leading to Hyakuta speculating that Miyazaki "wasn't right in the head".

## As NHK governor

In 2013, Hyakuta was selected by Shinzō Abe as one of 12 members of the board of governors of Japan's national broadcaster NHK. This came after the re-election of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) led by Abe. Hyakuta had supported in his bid to re-assume leadership of the LDP the previous year. The selection of Hyakuta as an NHK governor caused some criticism, but the diet approved Hyakuta's appointment in November 2013. His historical views denying the Nanjing Massacre sparked extended controversy after his speech in support of Toshio Tamogami's bid for the Tokyo governorship in 2014 bought renewed attention to his rightist views. He resigned as a governor in 2015.

## Political career

On June 12, 2023, Hyakuta declared that if the LGBT Understanding Promotion Act, which was still being discussed and debated in the National Diet, were to pass, he would run for the Japanese House of Representatives and form a new political party. Four days later, on June 16, the bill was passed by the House of Representatives and became law. Consequently, he announced the formation of the Conservative Party of Japan on September 1, 2023 with Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura as its Vice President and journalist Kaori Arimoto as its Secretary General.

## Historical views

During a speech on March 3, 2014, in support of Toshio Tamogami's bid for the governorship of Tokyo, Hyakuta stated that the Nanjing Massacre "never happened", and stated that the Tokyo War Crimes Trials were a "sham" to cover up US war crimes such as firebombing and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He also stated that he didn't see a need to teach such things to children, as they should be taught what a great country Japan is. He said that claims about the Nanjing Massacre were brought up at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals only to cancel out the war crimes the US had committed. A press officer at the US embassy in Tokyo described Hyakuta's views as "preposterous".
In 2014 as an NHK governor he claimed that it was wrong to state that ethnic Koreans were forcibly brought to Japan during the Japanese colonial period.

## Defamation suits

Hyakuta wrote a book called Jun'ai (2014) in memory of his recently deceased friend, the radio and TV show host Yashiki Takajin. The book, written as if it were a work of reporting, portrayed Takajin's daughter and his manager as callous, cruel individuals who abandoned him in his final days. Takajin's manager and daughter both sued for slander. Hyakuta claimed that although all the persons named were real, the book was a "fiction." He had relied heavily on uncritical interviews with Takajin's widow, and did not mention her bigamy in the text of the book, only admitting to it later. After multiple appeals, in December 2017 the Supreme Court of Japan found that Hyakuta had slandered Takajin's daughter and ordered 3.65 million yen paid in compensation. In November 2018 the Tokyo District Court found that Hyakuta had slandered Takajin's manager as well, ordering an additional 2.75 million yen in compensation and a written apology.

## Plagiarism

His 2018 book Nihon Kokuki (日本国紀), hailed by the publisher as "the ultimate overview of Japanese history", was discovered to contain fictitious statements as well as plagiarism from sources such as Wikipedia articles, the latter being admitted by the author himself. Author Yasumi Tsuhara [ja] criticized it as "a book praising one's own country filled with copy-and-pasted excerpts from the web."

## Promoting forced hysterectomy to encourage child birth

On November 8 2024, Hyakuta discussed the declining birth rate issue on the program "News Asahi 8 o'clock!" He stated that the only way to reverse Japan's rapidly falling fertility rate is to change the social structure.
Hyakuta suggested policies such as "prohibiting women from not attending university after the age of 18," "banning women who are single at 25 from ever getting married," and "performing a hysterectomy on women who have not given birth by the age of 30."
The suggestions prompted public criticism. Hyakuta claimed that the media misinterpreted his words and he is merely "making suggestions based on science fictions".