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1925 Reunion in Japan

1925 Reunion in Japan

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After V-J Day, Osawa was tried along with 5,000 or so others as “Class B” criminals for their activities in support of the state during the war, and removed from power during the American occupation. He was restored just as he sent his son to Lawrenceville in 1951, in preparation for Princeton’s Class of ’57. In 1954, Toho released Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai, and the company’s business moved back into the international mainstream. It also unleashed Godzilla, borrowing from both King Kong and the nuclear fallout of the war, and Toho’s long-term financial success was assured; it remains Japan’s largest film company to this day. A year later, Osawa called class president Charlie Caldwell, and 10 years following Hiroshima and Nagasaki, repeated the invitation for the class to come to Japan.

On May 14, 1956, 18 classmates and their families arrived in Tokyo and spent eight days of astonishing cultural tourism under the guidance and planning of Osawa and the shepherding of Caldwell, including Kabuki, geisha, sumo, a reception at the U.S. embassy, and traveling 1,500 miles by train, plane, and bus with sightseeing, receptions, and parties at every turn. Osawa’s wife Tazuko presented the class with custom Happi coats festooned with tigers to wear over their blazers.

And, oh yes, Osawa appropriated a film crew from the studio and documented everything via a 23-minute professional-movie (credited as “A ‘Seaweed’ Osawa Production,” using his nickname going back to undergraduate days), along with a four-page spread in PAW, this was likely the best-documented mini-reunion in Princeton history. There was coverage in both Time and Life magazines. In Osawa’s name, the class established a scholarship for Japanese students at Princeton. The ’25-Princeton Club of Japan gala (shown in the movie) was also the kick-off for a big drive by the club to revive itself, including the establishment in 1958 of the Osawa Fellowships, which bring Princeton students to Japan each summer.