One hundred years on from Korea's Sam-il (March First) Independence Movement, this article outlines a number of factors that led to the mass mobilization of Koreans in sustained nationwide efforts to oust the Japanese colonizers from the peninsula. Although much of the pro-independence activism took place at the grassroots level in Korea, the movement also provided an opportunity for contemporaneous transnational commentators to publicly make known their disapproval of Japan's escalating imperial expansionism and its rigid colonial policies. In Japan, a number of concerned observers questioned the dominant mode of thinking at the time which pitted the colonial project as a noble and altruistic venture that would “civilize” Koreans. Criticisms ranged from a distrust of the empire's political motivations to the economic costs of running the colonies, and moral opposition based on humanitarian grounds. One Japanese commentator who demonstrated solidarity with the colonized Koreans was the art critic Yanagi Sōetsu 柳宗悦 (1889-1961), who published a number of impassioned appeals in an effort to demonstrate his indignation at Japan's occupation of the peninsula and to highlight the importance of acknowledging and protecting Korea's vast repository of extraordinary visual cultures.