Takei, Takeo

[FIRST JAPANESE PUBLICATION ON THE ATOMIC BOMB, PUBLISHED IN SPITE OF US CENSORSHIP] 原子爆彈 [Genshi Bakudan, i.e.: Atomic Bomb].

Tokyo: Domei Tsushinsha, September 1945. Octavo (21 × 14 cm). Original printed self-wrappers; 32 pp. About very good; uncut and unopened copy with wide margins; less than usual toning of the cheap newsprint. Item #55882

First edition of the first long-form report on the atomic bomb published in Japan, a little over a month after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, written by science journalist Takeo Takei (1910–1981) for Domei Tsushinsha, the official news agency of Imperial Japan. The report opens with the discussion of Japanese surrender on August 10, 1945 as a result of the dropping of the atomic bomb, and goes on to explain the scientific principle of the bomb’s destructive force, the political implications of the event, the history of the new weapon, and the scientific significance of its creation. The volume closes with an overview of American public opinion on the bomb, quoting newspaper article excerpts from American newspapers such as The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, The Sioux Journal (Iowa), and The Indiana Blue Star. The report also includes statements on the bomb made by Churchill and Truman over radio broadcasts, with the majority of the information about the bombings in this report evidently gathered from the English language radio broadcasts that the author translated into Japanese. The volume is marked as printed on September 15th and released on September 20th, one day before the introduction of comprehensive censorship on Japanese publications by American occupying forces. Marked as one of 200,000 copies, the volume is very rare and was likely suppressed immediately after release for containing information about the destructive force of the atomic bomb, with the text quoting reports of 500,000 killed or severely wounded by the two blasts. The news agency Domei Tsushinsha was officially closed shortly thereafter on October 31st, 1945.

With factual information about the atomic bomb being exceedingly difficult to obtain and publish in the immediate aftermath, only one eye witness account of the events by Yōko Ōta (1906–1963) predates the publication of this journalistic volume. A writer from Hiroshima, Ōta was in the city on August 6, 1945 when the bombing occurred. Her account “A Light as if at the Bottom of the Sea” was published in the newspaper Asahi Shimbun on August 30, 1945, but her novel about the event “City of Corpses” released later that fall was censored, and not published in full until 1950. A scientific volume with the same title as this one was published by the Japanese physicist Ryōkichi Sagane in October 1945 and was also censored. In 1995 a re-print of this volume was published by the widow of Takeo Takei (not to be confused with an illustrator by the same name) with additional notes.

This volume not in the University of Maryland Prange Collection of Japanese censored publications from the occupation period, which does contain the volume by Ryōkichi Sagane.

See also: Braw, Monica. Atomic Bomb Suppressed. New York, Armonk, 1991.

As of September 2026, KVK, OCLC show two copies in North America.

Price: €4,500.00

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