- A fervent Japanese nationalist, he was fascinated by pre- WWII Japanese history and the idea of an unconquered, Imperial Japan. This lead him to attempt a coup to restore the Emperor to his pre-1945 power. After the coup failed, Mishima committed ritual suicide.
- He excelled in bodybuilding to the extent that he used to show off at his gym by lying on a weight-lifting bench and moving a coin up and down his abdomen without using his hands.
- One motivation for Yukio Mishima's devotion to body-building was his self-consciousness about his height: 5'1". (1.55m). When arranging his marriage (which he did just to appease his traditionally-minded parents), he stipulated that his bride must not be interested in his work and must not be taller than him.
- Before his first marriage in 1958, he was briefly engaged to Michiko Shoda, the future Empress Michiko.
- His body of work includes 40 novels, 18 plays, 20 books of short stories, at least 20 books of essays and one libretto.
- The Japanese erotic artist Tsuyoshi Yoshida aka Go Mishima (1924 - 1988) allegedly took his artistic pseudonym from Yukio Mishima. The two were friends from 1955 until the writer's ritual suicide in 1970.
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