Over many years textbooks and conservative educational policies such as “moral education” have been central to the discussion of the propagation of Japanese nationalism. These are important facets of the persistent efforts to raise national sentiment. In recent years, however, new avenues for inculcating nationalism have emerged. This essay examines two such examples to gauge the role of popular culture in creating “love of nation” among children and youth.

For more than three decades, historical memory controversies have been fought over Japanese school textbook content in both the domestic and international arenas. In these controversies, Japanese textbook contents, which are subject to Ministry of Education examination and revision of content and language prior to approval for use in the public schools, repeatedly sparked denunciations by Chinese and Korean authorities and citizens with respect to such issues as the Nanjing Massacre, the comfort women, and coerced labor. In 2007, the most intense controversy has pitted the Ministry of Education against the residents and government of the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa. The issue exploded in March 2007 with the announcement that all references to military coercion in the compulsory mass suicides (shudan jiketsu) of Okinawan residents during the Battle of Okinawa were to be eliminated. The announcement triggered a wave of anger across Okinawan society leading to the mass demonstration in Ginowan City of 110,000 Okinawans addressed by the top leadership of the Prefecture. It was the largest demonstration since the 1972 reversion of Okinawa, exceeding even the response to the 1995 rape of a twelve-year old Okinawan girl by three US GIs.

While the debate about the use of children in war is relatively new, the practice is ages old. Long before education became a right rather than a privilege it was common for boys to be recruited into the military in roles that saw them face death at the front line. Joining the army or navy was the accepted fate of many young lads from poorer backgrounds, and in that respect, the boys who carried armor for Spartan hoplites or stood watch on a juggernaut at Jutland had much in common. Nowadays, insurgents and pro-government militia groups throughout the world use brutal coercion to recruit children. Boys and girls are forced to carry supplies, act as spies, messengers or lookouts, and in extreme cases, even to serve as human mine detectors or to take part in suicide missions. In addition to those who volunteered at a young age, ending up as drummer boys at Waterloo or Gettysburg, and the contemporary boy soldiers compelled to fight by their masters in Sierra Leone, East Timor or Angola, there is a third category, a group caught up in a whirlwind of nationalist fervor, “willingly” answering the call to face an invading enemy portrayed by propaganda as being bent on total destruction.