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Japan Forward
4 days ago
- General
- Japan Forward
Yasukuni Shrine Marks 80 Years of Peace, Honor, and Remembrance
In the early morning light of August 15, 2025, the 80th anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender, a steady stream of visitors makes its way through the towering torii gates of Yasukuni Shrine. Some wear solemn black suits, clutching photos or memorial tablets of lost relatives. Others, including smiling young couples in North Face t-shirts pushing baby strollers, chat quietly as they make their way through the crowd. While the mood is solemn, moments of warmth and laughter ripple through the lines of visitors. They have come to pay their respects on this landmark 終戦記念日 (End of War Memorial Day), honoring the souls of those who fell in the conflict. The atmosphere is one of hushed reverence, a blend of grief, gratitude, and quiet pride. "Every year, I make sure to come here on August 15," said a middle-aged father visiting with his young daughter. "As Japanese, we have a duty to pass on our history. It's important to teach the next generation about our past, especially a place like this." At 7:30 AM, as cicadas drone in the humid summer air, hundreds of people are already lined up to offer prayers. One by one, they approach the haiden (worship hall), toss a coin as an offering, and clap twice before murmuring prayers for the souls enshrined here. Yasukuni Shrine has been the central site for commemorating Japan's war dead since it was founded by Emperor Meiji in 1869. Its very name means "peaceful country" or "land of peace" in Japanese. Today, it enshrines the spirits of about 2.5 million individuals who gave their lives in conflicts from the 19th century through World War II. Among them are soldiers, nurses, factory workers, and others who served the nation, from the Boshin War (1868-69) to the Greater East Asia War of the 1940s. Each name is inscribed in the shrine's Yushukan museum rolls and remembered as eirei, guardian spirits of the country. Visitors to Yasukuni Shrine. August 15, 2025 (©JAPAN Forward) This year's commemoration carries special weight: eight decades have passed since the guns fell silent in 1945. Japan has enjoyed 80 years of peace and rebuilding, but the memories of war's sacrifices remain potent. Approximately 3.1 million Japanese, both military personnel and civilians, lost their lives in World War II. Emperor Naruhito, speaking at a separate official memorial ceremony in Tokyo, expressed, "I earnestly pray that the horrors of war will never be repeated." Those sentiments are shared by many who come to Yasukuni. They do not visit to glorify conflict. Instead, they come to mourn, to give thanks, and to pray that such tragedy never befalls Japan again. Many visitors to Yasukuni on this day are children or grandchildren of the war generation. The aged veterans and bereaved spouses who once dominated the grounds are now fewer each year. In their place, younger Japanese are stepping forward to carry the torch of remembrance. Parents can be seen explaining the significance of the shrine to their kids, ensuring that the stories of sacrifice are passed on. Nearly half of the attendees at the nearby Budokan memorial event in 2024 were born after the war, underlining the importance of preserving these lessons as the eyewitness generation fades. That same imperative is felt here at Yasukuni. "For me, it's simple," said a 33-year-old man from Kanagawa. "This is a sacred place to honor those who built today's Japan. Whether they were Japanese, American, or Chinese soldiers, everyone who fought back then contributed to shaping the world we live in. My visit is about gratitude, not politics." On this day, visitors include lawmakers and political figures who come in a private capacity to pay their respects alongside ordinary citizens. They emphasize that honoring those who gave their lives is a natural duty for any nation. Many offer prayers for peace and national prosperity, underscoring the shrine's role as a place of solemn unity. Among them this year was LDP Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama, who visited on August 14 to offer a tamagushi. "Three of my uncles were killed in the war," he explained to reporters. "I can't make it on the 15th, so I came today." On August 15 itself, Sanseito brought 88 members, including 18 national lawmakers, in its first-ever group visit to Yasukuni. Party leader Sohei Kamiya expressed gratitude to those who "fought to defend the country and to protect everyone," and pledged to work for politics that ensures Japan "will never again be drawn into war." Former minister Sanae Takaichi also attended. She stressed that honoring a nation's war dead "should never become a matter of diplomatic relations." At the same time, Former House of Representatives member Shuichi Takatori called it "very regrettable" that Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba did not attend in person. Agriculture Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, too, paid his respects. Koizumi is the first confirmed Cabinet member to do so since the Ishiba Cabinet took office, continuing a six-year tradition of ministerial visits on this day. Other lawmakers also visited, including former Economic Security Minister Takayuki Kobayashi and former Liberal Democratic Party Policy Research Council Chair Koichi Hagiuda. Members of a cross-party parliamentary group that makes an annual visit to the shrine were also present. Eighty years have now passed since the war's end – a span that has turned former battlefields into history lessons and personal tragedies into family lore. Yet, standing on these sacred grounds in 2025, one feels that the connection between past and present remains vivid and unbroken. Visitors to Yasukuni Shrine. August 15, 2025 (©JAPAN Forward) In a nation that has not seen war in eight decades, Yasukuni Shrine continues to serve as a touchstone of collective memory. It is a place where ordinary Japanese citizens come to contemplate the cost of peace. Each August 15, they renew an implicit pact: to remember those who sacrificed their lives and to ensure that their sacrifice was not in vain. A woman in her forties epitomized this. Visiting with her teenage daughter, she said, "My grandfather is enshrined here, and I want my daughter to know the importance of remembering." Her daughter, standing beside her, added quietly, "We learned about the war in school, and I hope something like that never happens again." Author: Daniel Manning
Japan Forward
4 days ago
- Politics
- Japan Forward
The Other Side of the Story is Waiting to Be Told
We offer our heartfelt prayers that the souls of all the war dead may rest in peace. Today we mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the war. Japan lost 3.1 million compatriots in the Pacific War, which at the time was known as the "Greater East Asia War." On land, sea, and air, Japanese soldiers and sailors fought hard to protect their ancestral homeland and their families. But in the end they met defeat. We want the story of this unprecedented major conflict to be passed on as we console and honor the war dead. That is our duty as descendants. Yet the attitude we adopt and content of the stories we pass on have become points of contention. I feel like it would be unbearable to continue living. Please forgive me. Even now, the noble figures of the young tokotai ( kamikaze ) pilots loom before my eyes through the tears. Your heroic faces, covered in blood, press forward. I can see the pitiful expressions of those who perished in the war floating there before me. The voiceless cries of voiceless people reach my ears. Painful images of our compatriot soldiers, separated from us on far-flung foreign shores, pierce my breast like a needle. We will never defile your precious blood. These are excerpts from an editorial published in The Sankei Shimbun two days after the end of the war. It was entitled "Apologies to the War Dead." The person who wrote that editorial was undoubtedly expressing pent-up feelings and addressing in writing "individual people" whose existence were very real to him. The Allied firebombing of Tokyo on the night of March 9-10, 1945, caused at least 100,000 mostly civilian deaths. As the end of the war approached, reports on the war and editorials flooded the Japanese media. But there was an enormous difference in impact compared to those that appeared immediately after the war. Now that it has been eight decades since the end of the war, it will take considerable effort to pass on the story of how things really were. Moreover, there are serious problems that need to be addressed. Many reports condemn Japan's war as an act of aggression. They barely mention historical facts that could lead to a different perspective. For example, the October 1943 mobilization of students is reported as a tragedy. However, postwar Japan turned a blind eye to the historical significance of the Greater East Asia Conference (Dai Toa Kaigi), the world's first summit of people of color held in Tokyo the following month. That meeting featured a call for racial equality. The Greater East Asia Conference (1943) in front of the National Diet Building, Tokyo. The conference brought together the leading collaborators and Japanese administrators for their conquered territories. (public domain) Despite that Japan was on the brink of defeat, heads of state, prime ministers, and members of the royal families of seven Asian countries, including (as an observer) the head of state of the Provisional Government of Free India, gathered in Japan's capital. Anyone claiming that the participants were forced by Japan to attend does not comprehend the prevalent racism and resentment felt by Asian people at the time against Western colonial rule. The Atlantic Charter signed two years earlier by the United States and Great Britain endorsed the right of people to choose their own desired form of government. But then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's position was that this right only applied to Europe and did not apply to European colonies in Asia and Africa. The greatest influence that modern Japan has had on the world is found in its contribution to racial equality. Japan's triumph in the Russo-Japanese War was the first instance in modern history in which a nation of non-Caucasians defeated a "White country." It gave encouragement to diverse peoples of color in Asia and Africa. And it stimulated the independence and modernization movements in their homelands. At the Paris Peace Conference after World War I, during the drafting of the League of Nations Covenant, Japan proposed inclusion of a clause on the elimination of racial discrimination. This world's first proposal for racial equality failed due to opposition from Western countries. But this protest by a non-Caucasian nation was still a major historical event. That background explains why Japan went to war under a banner calling for Asian liberation and racial equality. Here I would like to repeat a story I already wrote about three years ago in this news column. In 1955, Japan was invited to the first Asian-African Conference (Bandung Conference) held in Indonesia. Japan's delegation was warmly welcomed by the delegations from other countries. The Japanese in attendance heard comments like the following: "It (our independence) is thanks to Japan." Others commented that, "Today's Asia exists because Japan made great sacrifices and fought bravely for the peoples of Asia." This is according to the testimony of former United Nations Ambassador Toshikazu Kase. He served as Japan's acting representative at the conference. It is significant that representatives from newly independent countries spoke about the war Japan had fought just 10 years before in the context of its contribution to their own independence. However,, the story of Japan's struggle for racial equality has not been valued in postwar Japan. There have, however, been many reports of Japan's cruelty and recklessness. If we continue to view the war dead as only unfortunate victims or condemn them as invaders, our prayers will not reach their spirits. There is no doubt that war by its very nature is a tragedy that produces many victims. Nevertheless, there are many different meanings to the path a country takes, including regarding war. We must break away from the one-sided condemnation of Japan that continues out of inertia. Instead, we must make a conscious effort to learn in a balanced fashion about the path our predecessors followed. In 2025, we also mark the 130th anniversary of Japan's victory in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95. It is also the 120th anniversary of victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. We should carefully consider the significance of those conflicts in Japan's modern history. Chinese Coast Guard vessels marauding in waters near the Senkaku Islands, Ishigaki City, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. Japan today finds itself in a very harsh security environment. Strengthening defense capabilities alone is not enough to enhance deterrence and protect peace. It is also essential that the public and Self-Defense Force personnel learn about the efforts of their predecessors and develop the spirit to emulate them. We are living in an age where peace cannot be maintained with the kind of "postwar pacifism" that rejects a willingness to fight even when fighting becomes necessary. No sitting prime minister has visited Yasukuni Shrine since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did so in December 2013. The country needs to see Japan's Prime Minister and Cabinet members bow before the war dead. They cannot allow themselves to be intimidated by interfering foreign nations or unfair accusations from leftist elements. After all, worship at Yasukuni represents fulfillment of a solemn pact made by the nation of Japan with the spirits of those who made the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of their country. (Read the editorial in Japanese ) Author: Satoshi Sakakibara, Chief Editorial Writer, The Sankei Shimbun
