History is messy. Sometimes, it’s loud, aggressive, and smells like gasoline. If you look back at the 1960s and 70s in Japan, you won't find anything quite as jarring or misunderstood as the Throw Away Your Books Rally. People hear that name and think it’s about illiteracy. They think it's some anti-intellectual bonfire. It wasn't. Honestly, it was the exact opposite. It was a desperate, artistic scream for people to stop reading about life and start actually living it.
Shuji Terayama is the name you have to know here. He was a poet. A director. A provocateur. He basically ran the underground scene in Tokyo with his troupe, Tenjo Sajiki. In 1967, he released a book titled Sho o Suteyo, Machi e Deyo—which translates to "Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets." It wasn't just a book; it was a manifesto that eventually birthed a film and a cultural movement that still makes people uncomfortable today.
Why the Throw Away Your Books Rally happened
Post-war Japan was a pressure cooker. You had this generation of youth who were stuck between the traditional values of their parents and the hyper-capitalist, Western-influenced future that was being built around them. Everything was becoming institutionalized. Schools were factories. Books were seen as cages. Terayama looked at this and decided that the only way to find "truth" was to physically leave the library and hit the pavement.
He wasn't saying books are bad. That’s the big misconception. Terayama loved books; he was a prolific writer. But he hated the way people used them as a shield. You know that feeling when you've spent four hours scrolling through travel vlogs but haven't left your couch? That’s what he was fighting, just with paper instead of screens.
The "rally" wasn't always a singular event with picket signs. It was a series of theatrical interventions. Terayama’s actors would literally bring the play into the streets. They’d harass bystanders, startle people in cafes, and turn the city into a stage. They wanted to break the "fourth wall" of reality.
The 1971 Film and the Visual Chaos
If you want to see the Throw Away Your Books Rally in its most distilled form, you have to watch the 1971 film. It is a psychedelic, jagged masterpiece. It starts with a guy staring directly into the camera for minutes, just waiting for the audience to get bored or angry.
- The film uses high-contrast greens, reds, and yellows.
- It features a protagonist who is essentially a nobody, dealing with a broken family and a sense of total aimlessness.
- The "rallying" happens in the edit—it’s jumpy, aggressive, and refuses to let you be a passive observer.
Terayama used the film to show that even cinema could be a trap. He wanted the audience to realize they were sitting in a dark room watching flickering lights instead of experiencing the world. It’s meta. It’s confusing. It’s brilliant.
📖 Related: What Does a Stoner Mean? Why the Answer Is Changing in 2026
Beyond the Book Burning Myths
People love to compare this to historical book burnings. Don't do that. It’s a lazy comparison. Those burnings were about censorship and erasing ideas. Terayama’s Throw Away Your Books Rally was about the liberation of the self.
He was influenced by the Situationist International movement in Europe. These guys believed that modern life had become a "spectacle." We weren't living; we were just watching a representation of life. Terayama’s rally was an attempt to smash the spectacle. He once said that a book is like a "graveyard of words." To make them live, you have to take the ideas into the street and test them against the wind and the rain.
The Influence on Street Theater
The legacy of this movement changed how Japanese art functioned. Before Terayama, theater was something you watched in a fancy hall. After the Throw Away Your Books Rally philosophy took hold, "Angura" (underground) theater exploded.
- Performances happened in tents (the famous Black Tent Theater).
- Actors interacted with the audience in ways that were often physically confrontational.
- The city of Shinjuku became a living gallery.
It was chaotic. Sometimes the police got involved. But for Terayama, the police arriving was just part of the play. It was all "real."
The Counter-Culture Context
You can't talk about the Throw Away Your Books Rally without mentioning the Zenkyoto—the All-Campus Joint Struggle League. These were the student radicals of the late 60s. They were barricading universities. They were fighting the police with staves and Molotov cocktails.
Terayama was a bit of an outlier here. While he shared their frustration, he thought their politics were sometimes too rigid—almost like another "book" they were following too closely. He wanted a revolution of the imagination, not just a change in government. This created a weird tension. The radicals thought he was too "artsy," and the establishment thought he was a dangerous lunatic.
👉 See also: Am I Gay Buzzfeed Quizzes and the Quest for Identity Online
He was kinda both.
Why this matters in 2026
We are currently living in the most documented, least "lived" era in human history. We have more information in our pockets than Terayama had in his entire library, yet we are arguably more disconnected from our physical environments than ever.
The Throw Away Your Books Rally is more relevant now because "the book" has been replaced by the "algorithm." We follow the instructions of the feed. We go to the places the map tells us to go. We eat the food the app recommends. Terayama’s advice would be to delete the app, throw the phone in a drawer, and go walk until you get lost.
Actually lost. Not "Google Maps rerouting" lost.
Nuance: Was Terayama a hypocrite?
Some critics at the time pointed out that Terayama was a bit of a contradiction. He told people to throw away books, but he kept writing them. He told people to leave the theater, but he spent his life building a theater company.
But that’s missing the point. He was using the medium to destroy the medium's hold over people. It’s like a doctor telling you to stop taking medicine once you’re healed. The book was the medicine; the street was the health.
✨ Don't miss: Easy recipes dinner for two: Why you are probably overcomplicating date night
Actionable Insights from the Terayama Philosophy
If you’re feeling stagnant or like you’re just a spectator in your own life, you don't actually have to burn your library. But you can apply the core tenets of the Throw Away Your Books Rally to break out of the digital or intellectual rut.
1. Practice "The Drift" (Dérive)
Set aside two hours. No phone. No destination. Walk out your front door and make turns based on visual interest alone. If a blue door looks cool, go toward it. If an alley smells like jasmine, follow it. This breaks the habit of "functional" movement.
2. Physicalize Your Learning
If you’re reading about gardening, put the book down and go touch dirt. If you’re reading about social issues, go volunteer or talk to someone outside your bubble. The rally was about the transition from theory to muscle memory.
3. Embrace the Uncomfortable
Terayama’s theater was designed to make people feel "un-safe" (psychologically, not physically). Do something that makes you feel a bit exposed. Speak up in a meeting where you’re usually silent. Dress in a way that feels like a costume. Break your own character.
4. Question Your "Scripts"
We all have scripts. The "good employee" script. The "disappointed child" script. The Throw Away Your Books Rally was about tearing up those scripts. Identify one social expectation you’re following just because it’s "written down" and deviate from it for a day.
The reality of the Throw Away Your Books Rally isn't found in a Wikipedia entry or a dusty film archive. It’s found in the moment you decide that your own experience is more valuable than someone else's description of it. Terayama’s work was a flare gun fired into the dark of the 20th century. Even now, the light hasn't quite faded. You've just gotta be willing to look up from the page to see it.