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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
Tahara Soichiro's Nihon no sengo (Japan's postwar), a recent work of Japanese popular history from one of the country's best-selling and most widely read journalists, bears the provocative subtitle “Were we mistaken?” [1] This question, asked of the entire postwar period, is representative of a significant current in contemporary Japanese thought - the idea that Japan has strayed from the “correct” path and failed to live up to international “norms”. In recent years, Japanese debates about war and peace, on both sides of the ideological divide, have been influenced by this view. Conservatives play up the idea that the Japanese constitution, which explicitly forbids participation in armed conflict and the maintenance of military forces, means that the nation has not been able to play a role in world affairs appropriate to its economic might. Progressives criticize the Japanese government's failure to adequately apologize and compensate the victims of colonialism and war for aggression and atrocities. In both views, Japan is abnormal, and incapable of living up to “universals” - either the “universal” right to self-defense and duty to participate in international conflicts like the “war on terror”, or the necessity to inculcate the view that “war is wrong” and the idea that past crimes must be dealt with honestly in the public sphere.
[1] Tahara Soichiro, Nihon no sengo (Japan's Postwar) Vol. 1 (Tokyo: Kodansha, 2005).
[2] Tabuchi, H, ‘Japan seeks to amend pacifist constitution.’ Available at:
[3] Saotome Katsumoto, Kataritsugu senso: 15 nin no dengon (Passing on the war: the testimony of 15 people) (Tokyo: Kawade Shobo, 2002), pp. 3-4.
[4] Saotome Katsumoto, Saotome Katsumoto (Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Senta, 2004) pp. 252-3.
[5] Saotome Katsumoto, Kataritsugu senso, p. 3.
[6] Ibid., p. 3.
[7] Ibid., p. 3.
[8] Ibid., p. 4.
[9] Saotome Katsumoto, ‘Ima senso o kangaeru’ (Considering war now), in Iwanami Shoten Henshubu ed. Boku-tachi no ima (Our now), (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2002), p. 67.
[10] Iwanami Shoten Henshubu, ‘Iwanami jyunia shinsho no hossoku ni sai shite (On the occasion of the start of Iwanami Junior Shinsho)’, in Iwanami Shoten Henshubu ed. Bokutachi no ima (Our now) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2002).
[11] Saotome Katsumoto, Tokyo ga moeta hi (The day Tokyo burned) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1979), p. 212.
[12] Kitayama Osamu, “Senso wo shiranai kodomotachi,” (The children who do not know war) in Nihon no uta (Japanese songs), vol. 4 (Tokyo: Nobarasha, 1998), p. 123.
[13] Yoshida Yutaka, Nihonjin no Sensokan (Japanese views of war) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1995), pp. 106-8.
[14] Saotome, Tokyo ga moeta hi, p. 209.
[15] Ibid., p. 210.
[16] Ibid., p. 204-5.
[17] Ibid., p. 206.
[18] Erna Paris, Long Shadows - Truth, Lies and History (London: Bloomsbury, 2001).
[19] Saotome, Tokyo ga moeta hi, p. 206.
[20] Saotome Katsumoto, Betonamu 200 man nin gashi no kiroku: 1945 nen nihon senryo no moto de (A record of the starvation of 2,000,000 in Vietnam: 1945 under Japanese occupation) (Tokyo: Otsuki Shoten, 1993).
[21] Ibid., pp. 7-9.
[22] Ibid., p. 8.
[23] The figure of 2,000,000 dead that Saotome uses has been challenged. It was the figure accepted by the Vietminh, but in 1945, Vietnamese government officials estimated the total dead at around 400,000. In addition, while Japanese rice requisitions were a major factor behind the famine, typhoon damage and the disruption of rice transport as a result of American bombing were also contributing factors. Ogura Sadao, Monogatari Betonamu no Rekishi (The Story of Vietnamese History) (Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1997), pp. 345-346.
[24] Saotome Katsumoto, Betonamu 200 man nin gashi no kiroku, p. 177.
[25] Ibid., pp. 129-44.
[26] Ibid., p. 180.
[27] Saotome Katsumoto, Ikiru koto to manabu koto (Living and learning) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1997).
[28] Ibid., pp. 8-10.
[29] Ibid., pp. 9-10.
[30] Ibid., p. 12.
[31] Ibid., p. 13.
[32] Ibid., p. 14.
[33] Saotome Katsumoto, Senso to kodomo- tachi (War and children) (Tokyo: Otsuki Shoten, 2003), p. 2.
[34] Nishio Kanji, Kokumin no rekishi (History of the people of the nation) (Tokyo: Sankei Shimbun-sha, 1999), p. 768.
[35] Kibata, Y. ‘Kokumin no rekishi no seiozo to nihon teikoku shugi (The view of the West of history of the people of the nation and Japanese imperialism)’, in Kyokasho ni Shinjitsu to Jiyu o’ Renraku-kai (ed.) Tettei hihan: kokumin no rekishi (A complete criticism of history of the people of the nation) (Tokyo: Otsuki Shoten, 2000), pp. 245-7.
[36] Kobayashi Yoshinori, Sensoron (Tokyo: Gentosha, 1998), pp. 27-34.
[37] John Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986).
[38] Laura Hein, Mark Selden, ed., Censoring History: Citizenship and Memory in Japan, Germany, and the United States (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2000).
[39] Rathenow, H., “Teaching the Holocaust in Germany”, in Ian Davies ed. Teaching the Holocaust - Educational Dimensions, Principles and Practices (London: Continuum, 2000), p. 73
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