Masashi Daidoji (1948–2017) was a former member of the extremist organization East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front. Born in Kushiro, Hokkaido, he belonged to its “Wolf” cell and participated in the 1974 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries building bombing and other corporate bombings. The Mitsubishi bombing killed eight people and injured many others. Arrested in 1975, he received a death sentence that became final in 1987. He wrote haiku and letters while imprisoned and died of multiple myeloma at the Tokyo Detention House in 2017. Collecting his prison poems, “Kan Ikki: Daidoji Masashi Zenkushu” (A Single Coffin: The Collected Haiku of Masashi Daidoji) addresses remorse over his crimes, memories of his hometown and friends, detention-house life, and his feelings about approaching death. The poems also turn toward the victims of his crimes and people killed in natural disasters. The collection won the haiku category of the Japan One-Line Poetry Grand Prize in 2013. Published after his death, “Saishu Gokuchu Tsushin” (Final Prison Correspondence) gathers letters he sent to people outside the detention house. His reflections on his crimes, capital punishment, illness, and events in society document his exchanges with others as he confronted his responsibility for the harm he caused and his approaching death.
