[1] Born in the city of Fukuoka, Nakano went on to attend Waseda University for four years, writing a number of articles for the journal Nihon oyobi Nihonjin (Japan and the Japanese) before graduating in July 1909.

Despite this opposition, however, Nakano would remain committed to working within political parties and the diet, rejecting the violent coups and putsches of young officers.

[2] Embracing an intuitionist, autonomist view of the individual, Ōyōmei thought emphasized the following of what one identifies as "good" or "just", over wealth and obedience to corrupt authorities.

But though the leaders of the restoration had been united in a heroic effort against despotic government, a split occurred in which men valuing liberty such as Saigō were sidelined and instead, the Meiji oligarchy allowed Western ideas to flood into the country, eroding Japan's unique spirit and creating a system of oligarchic-bureaucratic rule which was opposed to popular will.

After election to the diet in 1920, Nakano would join a generation of younger, reformist politicians, eventually aligning with Inukai Tsuyoshi and the Kakushin Kurabu (Reform Club) in 1922, but later believed no serious change could be made outside of one of the two major parties and transfer to the Kenseikai in 1924.

Following the Manchurian Incident, Nakano admired the plotters, contrasting their decisive action with the Tanaka cabinet's wavering between hardline policy and capitulation to the United States on China issues.

Eventually, he would join the Taisei Yokusankai, but left in late 1940 in protest over the restraints imposed on it by conservative forces, primarily the zaibatsu and party politicians.

[4] He also began writing for his school magazine during this time, taking the pen name Masakata, and helped to establish a martial arts centre for pupils called Shimbukan.

[6] During the Xinhai Revolution, Nakano expressed his support of the revolutionaries against the criticism of figures such as Yamagata Aritomo and travelled to Shanghai on a business trip, meeting Sun Yat-Sen.

When the Taishō Political Crisis began, Nakano used his position at the Asahi to become a scathing critic of Katsura Tarō and cabinet, compiling his letters into a book in 1913.

What he saw in Britain he believed to be signs of decadence, and in 1917, he would write an article condemning the hypocrisy of the West, which preached justice and self-determination while perpetuating oppression in their colonies.

[12] In 1927, the Kenseikai Wakatsuki cabinet called a truce with their rival, the Seiyūkai, officially out of respect for the beginning of the new Emperor's reign but in truth over uncertainty over what results the nation's first elections under universal suffrage might bring.

During Tanaka's time as Prime Minister, Nakano would launch a barrage of criticism against the man, attacking him over his heavy-handed foreign policy towards China and Manchuria, as well as showing weakness before the United States.

Upon the formation of the Kokumin Dōmei, the party platform called for the establishment of a "controlled economy", "aiming at the guarantee of the masses' livelihood".

[19] In his campaign for a reconstruction of Japan, Nakano would also forge ties with military men such as Kanji Ishiwara and advocate heavily for the recognition of Manchukuo.

As 1932 passed, so did the sense of impending crisis which had convinced him to break away from the hopefully soon-to-be irrelevant establishment parties, and tensions which Adachi increased.

Of particular frustration to Nakano was Adachi's refusal to wear the blackshirt, the party uniform, because he thought it looked silly, and his support of the Okada cabinet.

In the next month, Nakano met with Adolf Hitler and Joachim von Ribbentrop, where he told the German dictator that China's Nationalist Government was on its deathbed.

[25] On a visit to China that same year, the Seiyukai and Minseito attacked Nakano in the diet, eroding his support and forcing him to resign, though he would later be re-elected in 1942.

In his struggle against the growing monopoly of power by high civil and military officials and privileged capital, he even adapted the theme of anti-semitism to the Japanese scene.

Recalling Hitler's claim that Germany's defeat in the Great War had been due to Jewish domination of finance and administration in collusion with the German and Austrian bureaucracy, he drew an analogy with the control of the wartime Japanese economy by bureaucrats and their capitalist collaborators in state-backed economic agencies, coining the concept of "yudaya-shugi" (Jewish mentality) to describe them.

[22] His increased fortunes in this time were aided by the fall of Yonai cabinet and Japan's signing of the Tripartite Pact, vindicating his pro-Nazi views.

He would end up resigning his IRAA position in December, however, after Konoe capitulated to pressure from zaibatsu and diet members in bringing traditionalists into the cabinet and weakening the organization's political role.

[28] Among the reasons for Nakano's anger at Tōjō were the harsh regime of economic controls led by the bureaucracy and Japan's decreasing fortunes in the Pacific War.

He reached out to men such as Konoe Fumimaro, Tanabe Tadao, who was an officer on the Planning Board, Matsumae Shigeyoshi, Hatoyama Ichirō, and Prince Higashikuni.

[31] Before Nakano committed suicide, the portraits of Hitler and Mussolini in his room were replaced with a statue of Kusunoki Masashige, a samurai known for his intense loyalty, and a biography of Saigō Takamori, a figure he had admired for all of his life.