The issue of Primer Ministerial visits to Yasukuni Shrine honoring Japan's war dead has reverberated in Japan's domestic and international politics since the first such visit nearly two decades ago. The criticism of Prime Minister Koizumi's several Yasukuni visits by the Kyoto philosopher Umehara Takeshi makes clear not only the breadth of political opposition to such visits, but the ways in which the issues intersect with century-long conflicts over the relationship between the Japanese state and religion, both Buddhist and Shinto. This essay likewise raises important questions about who should be enshrined in war and peace memorials: should they respect only the dead of one's own nation, as in the case of Yasukuni and Washington's Vietnam Memorial, or should all who died in war on all sides of the conflict, as in the Okinawa Memorial?