Thomas Lockley, the author of the controversial work of fiction African Samurai, has seemingly gone off the grid as the internet firestorm regarding his book has rapidly escalated. Now, it seems that he may be all but banished from Japan, as new reports come in that his contributions to Japanese media are being delisted, as well as his resume allegedly being scrubbed from Nihon University's website.
News broke today that there was a potential impending "diplomatic incident" on the horizon, as government offices in Japan have been flooded with letters by concerned citizens. It seems that the Japanese people have begun to take notice of Lockley's claims, as well as his involvement in Ubisoft's upcoming game, Assassin's Creed: Shadows.
While Lockley claimed to tell a historically inspired tale of Yasuke, the "black samurai," it has been revealed over the past few weeks that Lockley's telling of Yasuke is almost entirely fiction, and based very little on actual historical data.
To make matters worse, Lockley has been caught editing Wikipedia and Encyclopedia entries regarding the subject of Yasuke, seemingly to support the narrative that he constructed in his book. As more people have begun looking into Lockley's deceptive attempts to alter history, he has seemingly fled all of social media, likely to avoid facing mass backlash from Japan and Westerners alike.
Now, a new report is stating that not only has a program on NHK called Black Samurai: Yasuke, the African Samurai Who Served Nobunaga been removed from the media site, but Lockley's resume at Nihon University has allegedly been scrubbed from their website as well.
The initial report making these claims has now been community noted on Twitter/X, claiming that he is still visible as a faculty member at Nihon University. While Mr. Lockley may still technically be listed on their website, the damage that he has caused with his false claims can not be undone. The petition to cancel Assassin's Creed: Shadows currently sits around 92k signatures and shows no signs of slowing down.