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‘Why on earth is something as important as this not in the textbooks?‘ - Teaching Supplements, Student Essays, and History Education in Japan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
Extract
After a short introduction contextualizing revisionist history in Japan and controversies over the representation of imperial and wartime violence in Japanese textbooks, this piece presents translations of a wide variety of student writing projects and classroom resources from progressive educators. Focusing exclusively on textbooks results in a limited view of what actually goes on in Japanese classrooms. This collection highlights some of the ways that critical educators have resisted revisionism and brought vivid discussion of controversial issues to the classroom.
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References
Notes
1 “Asahi Shimbun Yoron Chosa”, Asahi Shimbun, March 17, 2009. Only 9% of Japanese surveyed believe that Japan's circumstances will be better in the future, demonstrating a record low in confidence in the country's political direction.
2 Watanabe Shoichi, Nihonjin no Hinkaku, Tokyo: KK Bestsellers, 2007, p. 140. Watababe denies most Japanese wartime violence in his writing.
3 Yayama Taro (ed.), Manga Nihon no Mondai – Gaiko-hen, Tokyo: Fusosha, 2006. Manga images presented in this essay are “quoted” for purposes of criticism.
4 “Rightists Arrested over Harassment of Schoolchildren”, Asahi Shimbun, August 11, 2010.
5 For example, Saotome Katsumoto has written frequently about the lack of knowledge of Tokyo students concerning the air raids on the city in 1945. Matthew Penney, “‘The Most Crucial Education’: Saotome Katsumoto and Japanese Anti-War Thought” in The Asia-Pacific Journal.
6 See here.
7 For example, see Mark Selden, “Japan, the United States and Yasukuni Nationalism: War, Historical Memory and the Future of the Asia Pacific” in The Asia-Pacific Journal.
8 “Shuinsen de Jushi suru Seisaku, ‘Nenkin, Iryo’ 55% Nikkei Yoron Chosa”, July 23, 2009.
9 Sugiyama Katsumi, Gunji Teikoku Chugoku no Saishu Mokuteki, Tokyo: Shodensha, 2000, p. 26.
10 The Asahi Shimbun only archives new articles on its website for a short time. The article is reproduced here.
11 Abe Shinzo and Okazaki Hisahiko, Kono Kuni wo Mamoru Ketsui, Tokyo: Fusosha, 2004, p. 140.
12 “Kyokasho Mondai: ‘Tsukuru-kai’ Kyokasho Kakudai”, Mainichi Shimbun, August 5, 2009.
13 Fujioka Nobukatsu, et al., Atarashii Rekishi Kyokasho, 3rd ed., Tokyo: Jiyu-sha, 2009, p. 9.
14 Ibid., p. 9.
15 Ibid., p. 150.
16 Ibid., p. 7.
17 Ibid., pp. 172-173.
18 A provisional English translation of the statement is available here.
19 Ibid., p. 178.
20 Ibid., p. 199.
21 Ibid., p. 214.
22 Chugakusei no Rekishi, Tokyo: Teikoku Shoin, 2006, 2009, p. 191.
23 “Ikuhosha Saitaku, Kouritsu 409kou”, Sankei Shimbun, September 2, 2011.
24 Atarashii Rekishi Kyokasho, p. 199.
25 Chugakusei no Rekishi, p. 204.
26 For discussion of the history of textbooks in postwar Japan and the domestic and international disputes that surround them see, Yoshiko Nozaki and Mark Selden, “Japanese Textbook Controversies, Nationalism, and Historical Memory: Intra- and Inter-national Conflicts” in The Asia Pacific Journal.
27 As part of its push on territorial issues, the editors of the New History Textbook have started development of kyozai about Japan's territorial disputes with plans to distribute them to schools. “‘Senkaku, Hoppo Ryodo ha Nihon-ryo desu’, Tsukurukai ga ‘Ryodo kyoiku’ kyozai'”, Sankei Shimbun, January 30, 2011.
28 Nisho Kanji, Tokyo: Seishun Shuppan-sha, 2004, p. 201.
29 Yamada Akira (ed.), Rekishi Kyoiku to Rekishi Kenkyu wo Tsunagu, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2007, p. 25.
30 Ibid., p. 34.
31 Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth About History, New York: W. W. Norton, 1995.
32 American air raids that took place in the hours leading up to the surrender, launched with full knowledge that advanced surrender negotiations were taking place, have served as a powerful metaphor for the arbitrary brutality of bombing in postwar Japan. Some of Japan's most prominent progressive intellectual and cultural figures including activist-author Oda Makoto and manga artist Tezuka Osamu witnessed air attacks on the eve of surrender and made the experience a foundation for their anti-war writings.
33 Senbei translates as “rice cracker”. Senbei futons are mats that are so worn and poorly padded that they can feel like rice crackers.
34 Here, Yamazaki seems to have conflated two separate events described in Chugoku no Tabi (p. 231), neither of which is backed up with credible testimony or other evidence. In 1972, relations between Japan and China had just been restored. In the years since, progressives have made efforts to translate witness testimony and differentiate between verified and unverified accounts. In the early 1970s however, a great deal of rumor was reported as fact. For analysis of this problem see, Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, “The Nanking 100-Man Killing Contest Debate: War Guilt amid Fabricated Illusions, 1971-1975”, in Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 26. No. 2, Summer, 2000.
35 For an abridged English translation of Honda's writings and commentary on the surrounding controversy see, Honda Katsuichi, The Nanking Massacre: A Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan's National Shame, trans. Karen Sandness (New York: East Gate, 1999).
36 There is an English translation of the work available: Higa Tomiko, The Girl with the White Flag, trans. Dorothy Britton (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1990).
37 Many families of Korean victims of the Comfort Women system and forced conscription have been unwilling to talk publically about that history because of trauma and social stigmas. See C. Sarah Soh, The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory and in Korean and Japan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008).
38 Abe returned to office in 2012 and visited Yasukuni in December 2013, sparking outcry in China, Korea, and elsewhere.
39 C. Douglas Lummis, “Ruth Benedict's Obituary for Japanese Culture”, in The Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, July 19, 2007.
40 Survey from the Jun 4, 2013 issue of the Tokyo Shimbun, summarized here. Revision is favored by core conservatives, but support for Abe and “Abenomics” does not equate to support for the LDP revisionist and military agenda.