[Japan] Sekigun Pamplet No. 3

Sekigun (the Red Army). Pamphlet No. 3 (only published). Issued by Nagata Hiroko and Takita Osamu. Special issue, manifest poster-journal. Tokyo 1972 (Bureau of Pornography of the Kansaigakuin University). One sheet of off-white newsprint (56 x 42 cm), printed recto/verso in red. Text and ills., text in Japanese, w. occasional English words.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Kansaigakuin University was the breeding ground for various types of student activism : Zenkyôtô, Zenagakujichi, Seikyô and Sekigun (Red Army, which was the most active). At the culmination point of the struggles, the Red Army students pressed the editorial office of the university newspaper to print this parody with the logo of the Red Army replacing the official logo and to place the name of the Red Army in large print on the front page. This was similar to the logo of the journal of the Japanese communist party Akahata. Unfortunately, the picture of the love-making couple placed over a large image of a Marihuhana leaf on the front page went too far for the authorities, and the participants were arrested and the journal was forbidden. Rare.