Why I’m Writing Kabukimono
Logline: In U.S.-occupied 1950s Japan, a Japanese American armorer for the yakuza — scarred by his WWII internment — is pulled into a deadly game of loyalty and betrayal by a rogue CIA agent. Inspired by John le Carré’s A Perfect Spy.
The idea for Kabukimono came from a fascination I developed in college with a lesser-known part of history: the U.S. occupation of Japan after WWII. We hear a lot about the end of the war, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the aftermath in the U.S., but what about the people left behind in Japan?
During the occupation, American forces were everywhere. The CIA was working with unexpected allies — the yakuza, Japan’s organized crime syndicate — to fight off Communist influence. The U.S., supposedly bringing democracy and freedom to Japan, was cutting deals with criminals to maintain control.
Structuring Kabukimono as a memoir allowed for a deeply reflective, non-linear narrative that moves back and forth in time. Kenji’s memories of Pym and his own moments of conflict unfold like fragments, each scene peeling back a new layer of his struggle with identity, loyalty, and anger. As Kenji recounts his journey, we see the evolution of a man who begins as a disillusioned craftsman and ends as a quiet resistor, carrying forward Pym’s legacy of defiance.
