In the first months of 2013, the rhetoric of the Zainichi tokken wo yurusanai shimin no kai (Citizens' League to Deny Foreigners Special Rights) or Zaitokukai has turned more and more extreme. The above quotes are representative of Zaitokukai slogans and placards in 2013. Now there are signs that anti-racism protestors and ordinary citizens are fighting back.

On April 28, a “Ceremony to Commemorate the Anniversary of Japan's Restoration of Sovereignty and Return to the International Community” was held in Tokyo. As the Abe government makes plans to revise the 1947 constitution, this celebration of the anniversary of the end of the American-led occupation of Japan in 1952 took on a special significance. This brainchild of Abe and other far right conservatives is more than just an attempt at a Japanese “Independence Day”. It casts the Constitution as a foreign imposition and frames postwar reforms as an affront to Japan's sovereignty and traditions.

The recent controversy over Osaka Mayor Hashimoto Toru's statement that the wartime comfort women system was “necessary to maintain discipline” and “needed to provide rest to … brave soldiers” shows that historical revisionism in Japan's public sphere is by no means limited to Abe Shinzo's Liberal Democratic Party. Abe is known to hold revisionist views and a firm belief that the current approach to history in Japanese education is “masochistic”, but since the December 2012 election, he and other LDP elites have tried (not always successfully) to maintain voter support by skirting controversy and focusing on the “economy first” approach of “Abenomics” which has spurred a stock market boom and proven popular with the public.

On May 27, Anand Grover, Special Rapporteur to the United Nations Human Rights Council, released a report on his November 2012 mission to Fukushima. The UN Council did their job – to protect – or at least clearly expressed their intention to do so. This article outlines the main conclusions of Grover's sharply critical report which is available for download here.

In the last several months, the Abe Shinzo government has favored a rhetoric of economic revival by using nuclear power at home and selling nuclear technology abroad. It appears, however, that only a minority of the Japanese public supports these plans. As the Asahi has reported, polls show that 58% of voters are opposed to Abe's nuclear plans with only 28% responding that the government should go ahead with restarts. Similarly, a poll carried out by Jiji News Service revealed that 58% “do not support” nuclear exports with only 24% in favor. With news of a new leak or system failure at the site of the Fukushima Daiichi cleanup coming every few weeks, it is little wonder that the population is skeptical about the safety and utility of nuclear power.

During the Battle of Okinawa, thousands of civilians were caught in the crossfire as U.S. and Japanese troops waged one of the final - and bloodiest - fights of World War Two. The combat lasted for more than three months, devastated the south and centre of the island and forced starving refugees to flee to the relative safety of the north. There, they turned to the place which had always sustained them during difficult times - the sea.

The pain of Okinawa's main island, forced to accept US military installations nearly seven decades after the end of the war, is relatively well-known. It took many years for it to resolve the splits and tensions created by base imposition and to adopt a united stance of opposition to any new base and demand for withdrawal of the US Marine Corps' Osprey vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. A similar pattern – imposition, split of local communities, heavy pressure from Tokyo – is being repeated in the islands deep in the East China Sea.

The Japanese House of Councillors election will be held on July 21, 2013. It now seems certain that PM Abe Shinzo's Liberal Democratic Party will follow its landslide win in the December 2012 House of Representatives election with another overwhelming victory. This essay summarizes the results of recent Japanese opinion polls in order to identify major election issues and assess what it is about the new iteration of Abe's LDP that has made them so popular with the public.

Miyazaki Hayao, director of famous animated films such as My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Princess Mononoke (1997), and Spirited Away (2001), is one of the most popular and influential media figures in Japan. The premiere of a new Miyazaki film is a major event and on July 20, Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises), his first project since the 2008 hit Ponyo (an eco-fable discussed here by Susan Napier), arrives in theatres across Japan.

On July 18, Japan's Softbank announced that it has formed a partnership with US Bloom Energy to enter the Japanese market and proceed from there through Asia. The good news comes at a time when an election victory prompts PM Abe Shinzo to embark on a bold and risky agenda of constitutional revision, military expansion and heightened conflict with China. Back in the early 2000s, Softbank CEO Son Masayoshi blazed a trail that led Japan to having the among the fastest and cheapest internet services in the world. Abe and Son appear to represent polar opposites in their approach to development, independence and power. In this short piece, I argue that while analysts have been dazzled by Abe's electoral triumph, Son's resilient and internationalist road could shape a very different and positive Japanese economic, technological and energy future than that envisaged by the PM.

The September 7 decision by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to award the 2020 games to Tokyo is potentially of monumental importance. That significance is not merely due to the fraught geopolitics of the so-called pivot to the Asia-Pacific or the collective angst of all those analysts waiting for Abenomics arrows.

I am an admirer. I love your beauty and your strength, your serenity and your energy, your creativity and your traditions. Beyond that, I am deeply grateful to you for providing me with at least part of the education and experience that allowed me to follow a diplomatic career, one it is true which is over.

Long ago in my teenage years, nothing gave me more joy than reading. Finally the day came though when I wanted to have the type of adventures I had been reading about, so I dropped out of college and hitchhiked around the world. It was in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan that I met a young Japanese musician and reporter who was writing about nomadic peoples. Because I spoke a little Farsi I was able to help him negotiate a price for a horse and guide that was agreeable to all. That was the beginning of my Japanese karma. In fact we later met again by chance in Istanbul. At that point we decided to return to Europe together, where he had once performed as a musician and still seemed to have quite a few girlfriends. When it was time for him to return to Japan he invited me to come along. I was though at the moment deeply involved in learning French with a beautiful young woman, and said if he didn’t mind I would try and come later.

On August 9, 1945, President Truman, who had just returned to Washington from the Potsdam Conference, addressed the American people in a radio report:

Grassroots conservative groups led by Gambare Nippon began marching in the streets of Japanese cities beginning in 2010, but this year rightwing activism has notably intensified, coinciding with the establishment of the second Abe administration. Gaining the most notoriety is a group called the Zaitokukai or “The Citizen's Association That Will Not Permit Special Privileges for Resident Koreans.”

On September 10, 2013, the Tokyo Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper that has raised its profile considerably through its detailed, critical reporting of the Fukushima nuclear crisis and issues related to nuclear power post-3.11, ran an article which offered a concise and powerful summary of the major issues facing Tokyo and Japan looking forward to 2020 and the hosting of the Tokyo Summer Olympics.

The Japanese weekly Shukan Kinyobi and The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus jointly interviewed Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick, co-authors of The Untold History of the United States, a 10-episode documentary series (broadcast on Showtime Network, 2012-13) and a companion book of the same name (Simon and Schuster, 2012), on August 11 in Tokyo. It was the 8th day of the duo's 12-day tour of Japan, right after they visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki to participate in the 68th memorial of the atomic-bombing on August 6 and 9 respectively, and before they visited Okinawa, to witness the realities of the continuing US military base occupation and resistance to it. Stone and Kuznick, relaxed with a few late-afternoon drinks between two large public events in Hibiya, Tokyo, talked about the importance of learning and teaching history, the “thread of civilization” as a people's “weapon of truth,” to defend against the power of the American empire, whose image has been molded on the continuing distortion of history and glorification of past wars. This applies to Japan and its government's denial of aggression in its past wars, too. The interview ranges widely over their five years of collaboration on the Untold History.

On October 17, 2013, Osaka Hannan University Professor Shimoji Masaki spoke at Berkeley on the efforts of anti-nuclear activists in Osaka to fight against government plans to burn radioactive waste from Fukushima. He also detailed his arrest and detention by Osaka police. Shimoji was arrested in December 2012 and held without charge for 20 days for speaking publically and handing out educational material on the dangers of radiation. He sees the arrest as a sign of the increased use of the police and arbitrary arrest to bully and intimidate anti-nuclear activists into silence. No criminal charges were brought against Shimoji, but this incident and other examples of harassment of activists by the police and other agents of the state are having a chilling effect on public discussion of the health effects of radiation and the state of Japan's nuclear infrastructure.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Wall Street Journal on October 25, 2013, Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo outlined his plan to enhance Japanese leadership in Asia. He meant leadership on multiple fronts, including the economy, military affairs, and regional engagement. Abe insisted that his interactions with regional representatives showed that “Japan is expected to exert leadership not just on the economic front, but in the field of security in the Asia-Pacific.” He lamented Japan's economic malaise of the past two decades, arguing that it has led to an “inward-looking” country, in which students are reluctant to study overseas and the public is unenthusiastic about providing aid to other countries. He linked his still quite vague economic reforms with a vision of productive resurgence: “By regaining a strong economy, Japan will regain confidence as well, and we'd like to contribute more to making the world a better place.”

Languages of politicians have always been treasure troves of lies and deception. But watching a number of new Japanese phrases the Abe Administration spews out one after another, I started to think that perhaps we even need a special new dictionary for this administration alone.

Exotic stereotypes have long been a feature of reporting on Japan and this year has been no exception. In October this year, the British Observer newspaper carried a long article on why young Japanese people have stopped having sex. The story was read millions of times and triggered criticism and rebuttals from, among others, Bloomberg columnist William Pesek, who said in as much as the sex drought existed, it was driven by economic, not cultural factors.