The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.
© KYODOCabinet minister Takaichi, more than 90 lawmakers visit Yasukuni Shrine
TOKYO©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.
The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.
© KYODO
59 Comments
Login to comment
CAPTAIN
Not a good look! Then again they're a bunch of old men.
Tim Sullivan
Groupthink in action - I bet more than a few of them think it's a complete waste of time.
Moonraker
Yes, if they all go together it will dilute their individual exposure and responsibility, thus calling into question the courage of their convictions. What is worse than cowardly nationalists? They are the sort that send out other people's children to fight.
Yrral
Cult,wonder why they are at the mercy of others,
Moonraker
With resolute faces, walking in their socks.
itsonlyrocknroll
What is the spiritual takeaway? Motivation? Inspiration? the resurgent innovativeness to reform and restructure?
The Government of China in many respects the mirror image of Imperial Japan, a back to the future horror story.
With 21st C weapons of mass destruction developed and available to make the devastation of Hiroshima Nagasaki appear inconsequential.
The media loves to wallow in these rather ridiculous spectacles.
The economy is bumping along the bottom, food inflation is eye wateringly prominent, the scourge of depopulation.
What Yasukuni Shrine whispers, from past spirits of those who lost their lives for a national policy, echo into the here and now?
Yrral
I do not care,but I do not want a bunch of insecure Japanese leaders,leading the US to a war,that not winnable and not in the American public interests
kennyG
Cabinet minister Takaichi, more than 90 lawmakers visit Yasukuni Shrine
So What?
Meiyouwenti
In his recent visit to the US, Kishida visited the Arlington National Cemetery and paid respect to the America’s war dead. He refused to do the same to those who died for Japan. What kind of PM is this guy?
Tim Sullivan
Tojo's ghost is more likely to be hanging around Sunshine City, the site of the former Sugamo Prison. A stone monument in East Ikebukuro Central Park marks the site where Tojo and his friends were hanged. The inscription reads “永久平和を願って” or “Wishing for Eternal Peace.”
DanteKH
Just imagine for a second, German leaders, like Merkel and Scholz visiting Hitler's, Nazis and Gestapo's tomb, offering their respects.
It is EXACTLY what those soulless Japanese leaders are doing by visiting the Yasukuni shrine, the place of all of the Japanese war criminals and murderers.
kennyG
The media loves to wallow in these rather ridiculous spectacles endlessly.
Leave them alone
kennyG
Yasukuni is not just a Tojo's tomb
Jeremiah
Why not build a memorial for the innocent war dead with a chapel in which visitors can reflect on the horrors of war? And leave Yasukuni Shrine to the heathens?
itsonlyrocknroll
It is not the shine that is the issue, look again at the picture, the average age?
Are these lines of stale ruling government, a political establishment reprehensive of a past best retired, where is the next generation of leadership?
kennyG
Ever been to Yushu-Kan and read those innocent war-deads' letters to beloved family?
They believed and promised " come back to Yasukuni and meet each others at Yasukuni
u_s__reamer
"I offered my gratitude with respect to the spirits of those who lost their lives for a national policy," Takaichi told reporters..."
Sure, especially since that policy was Japanese imperialism brutally implemented on bayonet-point by a fascist military government and paid for with 30 million wasted Asian lives and 3 million+ young Japanese lives. Takaichi and the other old men of his right-wing ilk obvious;y identify not with the victims of that war of aggression but with the old men who sent the flower of Japanese youth to die for nothing on the battlefields of China and the Pacific.
Mr Goodman
But why isn't the photo of Sanae ?
wallace
The crimes of the Imperial Army are well documented and were presented to the Tokyo trials. The guilty were hung. Revisionism will not change that.
itsonlyrocknroll
The Yasukuni Shrine is a distraction, a rather inappropriate tourist attraction.
To gawp at.
A past unfortunately celebrated, however best left forgotten outside a classroom
A taste of the future is for all to witness in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The next generation has shunned political democratic inclusion.
Mr Goodman
What nonsense are you writing ?
During the Showa era more perished than Hitler and the third Reich !
Peter14
It is not big deal. Most families in Japan will have relatives interned there, including politicians. They are not going to stop visiting shrines over a few convicted criminals, and most buried there are not criminals, just family members who did their duty decades ago.
deanzaZZR
A leopard cannot change its spots after all.
Tim Sullivan
The uncomfortable truth may be that Japan is constantly looking to the past because it doesn't have much of a future.
Aoi Azuuri
Prewar Japan's militarism is never past.
Japan's SDF invite Japanese far-rightists repeatedly, young members take lectures from them who repeat warlike remarks, and begun to use the words or expressions that justify and beautify the then invasion war.
Education ministry allowed to use "new textbook" including description such as unscientific Japanese-Supremacism or beautification of Kamikaze Attack with historical revisionism.
Many prefectures and cities provide personal informations of teenagers without permission of themselves or their family to SDF.
Plural economy groups rapidly strengthen to value arms industries as same as prewar, virtually demand even abolishing pacifism constitution despite economy groups.
Recent years Japanese rulers' aiming is not only deterrent.
But, most Japanese public are crazy for famous major league baseball player.
Yrral
Victors write history
Nibek32
Who cares. They are paying respect to fallen Japanese soldiers. All those people did was follow orders and die for their country.
Gabriel Sheffield
The hypocrisy among numerous commentators is truly remarkable. In the United States, there's a glaring contradiction: while many condemn slavery, there's a simultaneous reverence for figures like Robert E. Lee, a general who fought against the nation to uphold slavery. Arlington National Cemetery is a resting place for individuals involved in significant atrocities, including the use of nuclear weapons on civilians. Despite this, there's little objection to American politicians visiting Arlington to honor those who perished for the nation's freedom. Every society venerates its war heroes, even those who are contentious figures.
u_s__reamer
All those people did was follow orders and die for their country.
No, they died for the Japanese government, a clique of old men who for their own egos drove millions of young males to their death wiping out a generation which left millions of females without a male partner for life.
Hervé L'Eisa
It's quite simply respecting the War-dead. Yes, that includes some (many) who would be considered war criminals today. It's no different than any other country giving respect to their war dead.
smithinjapan
It's all good. These bottom-feeders know full well the South Korean government is superior to them in terms of moving beyond things, and that they won't react poorly to them visiting the graves of some of the worst mass murderers in human history. But hey, don't ask them to go see Oppenheimer!
2020 vision
The Koreans still protest about the comfort women literally every week and have made videos of exchange students saying "Dokdo is Korean."
Alan Harrison
Is this really news anymore? These old men will be dead in a few years
Simon Foston
Hervé L'EisaApr. 23 10:34 pm JST
No, it is different.
Simon Foston
Nibek32Apr. 23 09:18 pm JST
They're LDP politicians. They have fewer scruples between them than a swarm of locusts. You must be very naive
Simon Foston
. If you think they care at all about the fallen soldiers.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Are you sure it is Americans complaining?
Considering Arlington was built on his property specifically to make it so he could never return, I think it is appropriate. Also his statues are generally coming down these days.
robert maes
Not by “ some “ neighbors but all. And are you sure Japans militarism ( a nice term for the war crimes committed by Japan) is in the past ?
WoodyLee
Every nation has it's cemetery where it buries it's leaders and national figures, Japan is no different. So why is this always in the news???
wallace
Japan has been at peace for 75 years.
deanzaZZR
@WoodyLee Did you skip over the Class A War Criminal bit?
Simon Foston
WoodyLeeToday 02:05 am JST
Where is Japan's? It's not Yasukuni.
The media does what the government wants, so why do you think?
Fighto!
Actually, longer - Japan has been peace-loving for 79 years. And that will never change.
Mr Goodman
There's nothing heroic about the former expansion of Asia by the imperial forces and bombing pearl harbor or getting nuked twice in response.
FYI There's convicted war criminals there so not really heroic
kurisupisu
I can’t write comments that will not be deleted of the enshrined souls’ actions whilst in life.
However, what is blatantly obvious is that there is a push to have military forces in Japan expand in the present.
Mr Goodman
That must be why peace agreements still haven't been signed and problems with neighbors on all sides ?
deanzaZZR
@Fighto! A thoroughly imposed peace, yes.
elephant200
Japanese just can't accept the history of their own disastrous defeat even after 79 years.This is not a peace loving nation should be !
u_s__reamer
Right-wing nationalists of whatever ilk are trouble wherever and however they get into power: world history 101. The world, now threatened by a capitalist-made ecological disaster, is showing signs of going into a worrying political tailspin led by such history-blind politicians like this solipsistic LDP faction whose Yasukuni gaslighting only highlights the failure of post-Hiroshima history education in Japan.
Mr Goodman
I find the majority of Japanese to be polite and peace loving apart from the octogenarian males and the entire LDP
u_s__reamer
All those people did was follow orders and die for their country.
No, they died for their government. It's a fundamental error of semantic hygiene to confuse a government for a country, but it's a conflation that politicians who serve the ruling class rigorously employ to gaslight people into blind obedience. Japan's war dead died for a government policy of Japanese hegemony over Asia.
elephant200
These old men does not represent Japanese people, they were funded by Unification Church and their political agenda. Most if them took money from UC!
TheLizardKing
Good for them!
Peter14
What "peace agreements" are you referring to? Russia did not sign with the allies at the end of WWII and Russia was only at war with Japan for less than one month. Thanks to continued refusal to return Japanese islands, no peace treaty has been signed between them but what other treaties do you refer to, since you mentioned the plural?
The problems with neighbors on all sides? I was not aware of issues with nations to the east or south, but the ones to the west and north are well documented and are thanks to belligerence by China, North Korea and increasing tensions with Russia. Japan does have territorial issues with South Korea, however Japan and South Korea are working together with the US to reinforce stability in the region despite Chinese ill intentions.
Simon Foston
TheLizardKingToday 01:13 pm JST
Yes, what's good for them is their primary motivation.
kennyG
These old men does not represent Japanese people
Funny.... in every sense when visiting here in a long time