The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F_ck

Another few years went by and the Philippine locals, sick
of being terrorized, finally armed themselves and began
firing back. By 1959, one of Onoda’s companions had
surrendered, and another had been killed. Then, a decade
later, Onoda’s last companion, a man called Kozuka, was
killed in a shootout with the local police while he was
burning rice fields—still waging war against the local
population a full quarter-century after the end of World War
II!
Onoda, having now spent more than half of his life in the
jungles of Lubang, was all alone.
In 1972, the news of Kozuka’s death reached Japan and
caused a stir. The Japanese people thought the last of the
soldiers from the war had come home years earlier. The
Japanese media began to wonder: if Kozuka had still been
on Lubang until 1972, then perhaps Onoda himself, the last
known Japanese holdout from World War II, might still be
alive as well. That year, both the Japanese and Philippine
governments sent search parties to look for the enigmatic
second lieutenant, now part myth, part hero, and part ghost.
They found nothing.
As the months progressed, the story of Lieutenant Onoda
morphed into something of an urban legend in Japan—the
war hero who sounded too insane to actually exist. Many
romanticized him. Others criticized him. Others thought he
was the stuff of fairy tale, invented by those who still
wanted to believe in a Japan that had disappeared long ago.
It was around this time that a young man named Norio
Suzuki first heard of Onoda. Suzuki was an adventurer, an
explorer, and a bit of a hippie. Born after the war ended, he
had dropped out of school and spent four years hitchhiking
his way across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, sleeping on
park benches, in stranger’s cars, in jail cells, and under the
stars. He volunteered on farms for food, and donated blood
to pay for places to stay. He was a free spirit, and perhaps a
little bit nuts.