"The Japanese people began acquiring knowledge about Unit 731 as early as the 1950s, thanks in part to confessional accounts that some of the former Japanese soldiers returning from China published, and also to book-length studies of Unit 731 became a household word with the publication in 1981 of Akuma no hoshoku (“The Devil’s Gluttony”), written by popular author Moriumura Seiichi. This book offered in a gripping narrative the details of diabolical activities of Unit 731, and set in motion a nation-wide dialogue about Unit 731 and its legacy in postwar Japan. Meanwhile, Unit 731 as a subject of scholarly inquiry gained traction, and researchers in Japan as well as elsewhere came to produce a number of original studies that made extensive use of archival materials in China, Japan, the Soviet Union and the United States."