Tokyo protesters demand reckoning with Japan's wartime aggression

A crowd of Japanese citizens assembled near Shinjuku Station in Tokyo on Friday evening for an anti-war rally, urging the country to confront its history as an aggressor and voicing opposition to the Takaichi administration's drive to expand the military and revise the Constitution.

Participants directed sharp criticism at Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, saying she has shown scant remorse for the wars Japan waged in the past. One demonstrator said Takaichi has "almost no reflection on the war Japan launched in the past" and has even indicated she will not reflect on it.

Another participant pointed to gaps in how the subject is taught, saying that during her student years almost no one instructed her about Japan's history of aggression. She said she only learned recently what the country had actually done, and argued that people should be taught the real historical facts.

Others framed accountability as a precondition for moving forward. One speaker said Japan should take responsibility for past crimes, offer apologies and provide compensation, adding that only on that basis can the same mistakes be prevented from recurring.

The rally also took aim at the government's reluctance to dwell on wartime history. A participant said the Japanese government repeatedly urges the public to stop looking back, but rejected that position, arguing that when irreparable mistakes have been committed, a country should spend its entire life considering how to take responsibility and how to keep history from repeating.

Anti-war signs were on display at the gathering, which underscored the participants' firm opposition to the administration's ongoing military expansion and constitutional revision efforts. Demonstrators stressed that Japan must reckon with its wartime crimes to avoid repeating them.