¹ Moral education will become an official school subject from 2018 in elementary schools, and 2019 in junior high schools. This is a major change from the subject's present informal status. This has long been a neo-nationalist goal, one harshly criticized by progressives as a key step toward resurrection of the subject of Shūshin (moral training) in pre-war Japan. In the face of strong opposition, the government made the subject an official part of the curriculum in March 2015.

² Fujioka Nobukatsu, a leader of the revisionist history movement, is quoted in the July 21, 1996 issue of Sankei Shimbun saying, “If this problem continues, children will be taught an incorrect history, one that characterizes the Japanese as an unprecedentedly cruel, lewd, and dumb people.” His use of the terms, “children” and “lewd” (kōshoku), is indicative here; unlike previous controversies on history textbooks that focused on high school textbooks, this case was about textbooks for students at the compulsory junior-high school level, in which all students are required to learn Japanese history. (Japanese history has not been a required subject for high school students, although the policy is likely to change from the next course of study by the Ministry of Education). This fact, combined with the age of targeted children and the nature of the topic related to sexual violence, may all be contributing factors to why this issue was considered so important by many neo-nationalists. Based on my field research with Japanese neo-nationalists, the sexual nature of the “comfort woman” issue seems to be a key factor in their resistance against official recognition that these crimes took place.

³ “28-nendo Chūgaku Kyōkasho, Ikuhōsha Shea Nobasu Kōmin 1.4 bai, Rekishi 1.6 bai” Sankei Shimbun, October 16, 2015.

⁴ Ikezoe Noriaki, “Ikuhōsha kyōkasho no kageni shushō grūpu,” Shūkan Kinyōbi, June 5 issue, 2015.