ABSTRACT
Yoko Tosaku’s major concern was the movement of “surplus population” from Japan to the three districts of colonization. The attempt at establishing similarities and kinship between the Japanese and the Filipinos, not only bespoke ease of assimilation and adjustment of the Japanese settlers in the Philippines but also justified Japan’s mission of helping fellow Asians referred to by some scholars as Pan-Asianism, a cherished project of Asian unity under Japanese leadership and inspiration. A prominent writer of the late nineteenth century, Fukumoto Makoto was known to his readers by a number of pen names, like Nichinan Koji and Fukumoto Nichinan. Born in 1857 at Fukuoka, a center of discontent among post-restoration landless or propertyless samurai, he came from approximately the same area as Suganuma Teifu which might indicate that both were exposed to similar miserable realities. Fukumoto’s concluding statement epitomizes the prevailing Japanese nationalist-activists’ aspirations which simultaneously expressed neo-imperialistic goals.
