War of Traps: Power Corrupts Absolutely

I started watching a Japanese political drama called “War of Traps.” It’s a very good tv series which I recommend to get an insight into Japanese politics. 

Washizu is a loyal lieutenant and secretary to a Senior minister in the Japanese government. He does everything he can to support him. Until his son is hurt and he is betrayed by his minister.  He starts to see how corrupt and broken things are. 

“Do the powerful get anything they want? Must the weak accept everything? I’m not having any of it. They’ll get what is coming to them. I will teach them how much it hurts to get stomped on. I will teach them.”

He gathers his team and slowly uses his position to rise through the political ranks. He even joins the Japanese Diet and becomes special advisor to the Prime Minister, punishing his enemies along the way. It is a literal war of political traps he sets and escapes from. He becomes the power behind the throne. 

“I used to suck it up when I was mistreated. But when I got power, people started to bow down. People listened to me. Truly a good feeling. I wanted to help people. I had to be coercive at times to do so. I thought power made me virtuous but I was just being possessed. Possessed by power and authority.”

But he destroys his relationship with his beloved family along the way. His son becomes alienated to him and his wife divorces him. All a result of him getting lost in the pursuit of power. He eventually wakes up and sacrifices his career to take down a corrupt Prime Minister. 

“I looked it up. The fate of a bamboo grove when it dies after blossoming flowers. The grove dying allows more sunlight to reach the soil and then new bamboo plants sprout and grow. 

Soon an even stronger grove sprout.”

The point is sometimes you need massive change to improve things. “When the old perish, the new will sprout. Something new, and something beyond imagination. Cover up injustice to uphold the status quo? Politics like that should disintegrate.”

I guess this is a lesson we need to learn here in the Global West. We need a rejuvenation of our system. New blood, new energy and it’s coming. 

“The weak have their own way of fighting.” Remember that.