Growing up, Mishima was a weak and bookish boy. After travelling to Greece & witnessing Greek sculpture, Mishima said “Greece cured my self-hatred and my loneliness and awoke in me a will to health in the Nietzschean sense.”
This will to health led him to adopt a bodybuilding regimen of three workouts a week, which he did for 15 years. What did Mishima see in Greek sculpture? Why did Greek sculpture inspire him to begin bodybuilding?
This video will argue that the statues of ancient Greece captured some of the highest ideals of antiquity. Upon witnessing them, Mishima became convinced that sun and steel was necessary to rekindling the ideals of Japan’s past.