[citation needed] Decree 383, which made bilingual editions obligatory, in effect required such newspapers to stop printing due to the resulting high costs.
As a significant number of Japanese immigrants could not understand Portuguese, it became exceedingly difficult for them to obtain any extra-communal information.
Japanese-Brazilians were unable to travel freely or live in certain regions, such as coastal areas, without safe conduct from the authorities.
The Japanese Catholics Keizo Ishihara, Margarida Watanabe, and Massaru Takahashi founded the Pia ("pious"), a charity created with the approval of the church and the Brazilian government to help the poorer members of the diaspora.
He distributed pamphlets urging Japanese-Brazilian farmers to cease producing silk (used at time to make parachutes) and peppermint (menthol was used in the production of explosives).
With the end of World War II, Shindo Renmei refused to believe the official news of Japan's defeat.
Believing it to be nothing but American propaganda, Shindo Renmei's members established new goals: to punish the defeatists, to declare that Japan had won or was winning the war, and defend the emperor's honor.
In Shindo Renmei's eyes, the Japanese-Brazilian community was divided in two groups: Compounding the confusion, a number of deceivers produced fake Japanese newspapers and magazines with news stories about the "great victory" and started selling land in the "conquered territories".
Underground Japanese-language newspapers and magazines were published and secret radio stations were established to push this view.
They sent letters to their intended targets before a murder, urging them to commit seppuku – ritual suicide by sword – so that they could "regain their lost honor".
The killers often surrendered to the police soon after their crimes, explaining that they had nothing against Brazil or its people, and that they were not common criminals, for they killed only as part of their duty.
Bursts of violence against Japanese immigrants, belonging to Shindo Renmei or not, occurred mostly in towns on the countryside where they had large communities, such as in the region of Tupã, São Paulo.