Many documentary films produced after the Great East Japan Earthquake demonstrated a link with the past—i.e., Japan’s prolonged postwar period— through the issue of nuclear power. For example, X Years Later and X Years Later 2 (Hoshano wo abita X nengo; Hoshano wo abita X nengo 2, Ito Hideaki, 2012 and 2015) confront head-on the issue of nuclear power by layering the state of Japanese society after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011 against the backdrop of American nuclear tests conducted at Bikini Atoll from 1954 to 1958 and other radioactive contaminations and their aftereffects in the Pacific. These documentary films attempt to expose from a contemporary perspective the fact that tragic accidents caused by nuclear power, and many social issues associated with them, have been hidden from the public version of history in the name of the anti-communist policy under the Cold War regime—and, by extension, the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty.

This military alliance, in effect since 1951, stipulates, among other things, the presence of U.S. military forces in Japan for the security of both nations, and is sometimes referred to as the Japan-U.S. Alliance, or as the Anpo joyaku or just Anpo in Japanese. The 1960 revision of the treaty was highly disputed in Japan, and widespread opposition to its passage led to the massive Anpo protests, the largest protests in Japan’s modern history.