Photo/Illutration Screenwriter Aki Kajiwara, who recently published her autobiography titled “Bakudanhan no Musume” (Bomber’s daughter), in Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward on July 30 (Kae Morishita)

The subject of screenwriter Aki Kajiwara’s latest script was someone she was familiar with but whom she had never met.

Kajiwara, 52, knew what long-time fugitive bomber Satoshi Kirishima looked like from an early age because his wanted poster often appeared beside the poster of her father.

With a first-hand view of the life of a fugitive, Kajiwara finished the first draft of “I Am Kirishima” in five days.

Her father, a tall actor with chiseled features, was wanted by police for his involvement in the “Shinjuku Christmas tree bombing incident” carried out by a leftist group called “Kuro-heru (black helmet) Group.”

In 1971, a pipe bomb disguised as a Christmas tree in a paper bag exploded at a police box in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward, causing serious injuries to a police officer and wounding six passers-by.

Kajiwara was born while her father was on the run.

She recalls how her father, whose name she didn’t even know, lived on edge at their home. The family slept with travel bags by their pillows so that they could quickly run away at any time.

She asked her father only once why he planted the bomb.

The actor said he wanted to change the world with the power of theater, but that wasn’t enough.

He surrendered to police in 1985, when Kajiwara was a sixth-grader.

Kajiwara decided to become an actress to pursue her father’s dream of acting.

In 1990, Kajiwara made her big screen debut in “The Cherry Orchard.” She later appeared in “The Rocking Horsemen” and many other movies and TV drama series.

But demand for her dropped after she turned 30, and she thought her acting career was over.

She wrote her first screenplay for her own film project with Miho Miyazawa, who also had a role in “The Cherry Orchard.”

In “Ichigo Chips,” Kajiwara plays an agent who supports a once-popular female cartoonist (Miyazawa). She appears alongside Renji Ishibashi, Yoshino Kimura and Carrousel Maki.

But her screenplay was almost entirely rewritten, underscoring her inexperience as a screenwriter.

She learned the craft of scriptwriting from Hiroshi Kashiwabara, a famous screenwriter and the husband of Kajiwara’s former agent.

Kajiwara wrote the screenplay for an episode in the “Detective Conan” TV anime series in 2007.

She told only a close circle of confidants and business associates about her father.

Kajiwara was praised for the screenplay she wrote for “No Place To Go,” a 2022 film directed by Banmei Takahashi in which a bomber appears.

She also teamed up with Takahashi for “I Am Kirishima,” which was released in Japan earlier this year.

Kirishima, a member of an extremist group, set off bombs at major companies in 1974 and 1975 and then disappeared.

In February last year, police identified a 70-year-old man who died of stomach cancer in a hospital as Kirishima.

According to investigative sources, the man was admitted to a hospital in Kamakura under the name Hiroshi Uchida. But on Jan. 25, he disclosed his real name to hospital staff, saying, “In the end, I want to die as ‘Satoshi Kirishima.’”

Kajiwara was encouraged by an editor who was involved in “I Am Kirishima” to write her autobiography.

Although she was uncertain at first, she published “Bakudanhan no Musume” (Bomber’s daughter) from Bookman.sha in June.

Deep in her heart, she says she has always wanted to write a screenplay based on her life as the “daughter of the bomber.”

She said it would be a story about her family, including: her father who was released from prison and returned to her mother after many twists and turns; her mother, who was at the mercy of her father, but persevered through a life of difficulties; and her grandmother who watched over the family with affection.

Kajiwara said she was afraid of her father’s comrades when she was younger. But after she became an adult, she started joining support activities for socially vulnerable people.

She wants society to be more tolerant.

Although she thinks her father’s method to change the world was wrong, she said, “I think he did his activities to make society better for oppressed people.”

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