#new shinbashi building

[luminanthalide]

[kohakuriver]

Spirited Away Twitter Q&A Translations

Multiple theories debunked/confirmed and we're given answers on how Haku and Chihiro can meet again! Ghibli finally answered a lot of popular questions!

When the official Ghibli twitter was first active back in 2022, it held a Q&A during a Spirited Away rerun. I don't think anyone's ever posted about it on here so I thought I'd share these translations I found! Most of these answers are completely new information about the movie. Here's a site that archived all the tweets and trivia.

The credit to these translations and notes go to atrociouscheese.

Q: Is it true about the rumors that "Spirited Away" has an subsequent story about a phantom after, and that it was shown only in some movie theaters? Or is it just an urban legend?

A: It's an urban legend. Miyazaki: "At first, I was planning to start from Chihiro's house. Chihiro's room was a path for yokai, and she talked about going to a bathhouse with my mother. But I quit because it felt dull. So it would be interesting if such rumors were circulating!"

Q: Why did you decide on the title "Sen and Chihiro's Spirited Away"? (referring to the Japanese title of Spirited Away which is: Sen to Chihiro Kamikakushi) Were there any other candidates for the title?

A: At the stage of the completed proposal that was drafted on November 2, 1999, it was "Sen's Spirited Away". At some stage, the movie was titled "Sen and Chihiro's Spirited Away" because it was about Chihiro's story.

Q: What is the meaning of the mysterious Daruma-like rock in front of the tunnel?

A: The image board says "Stone person (actually a frog person)"...

Q: Do you have any plans to build that tunnel in Ghibli Park?

A: I asked Goro, who is building the acclaimed Ghibli Park under construction.

Goro said: "I'm making 'that tunnel' in 'that work'~ (laughs)"

Q: The mother feels a little cold to Chihiro. I've always been wondering if there's any reason or if she's a cool person by nature.

A: Animation director, Masashi Ando, said that he wanted to not have the image of father and mother that appear in Miyazaki's work, and he said that he set it with an awareness of "a person who is cool and not in a place where family harmony is disturbed".

Q: How did the main character come to be named Chihiro?

A: Chihiro was modeled on Miyazaki-san's friends who were around 10 years old at the time (including some of their names). After the first preview, Mr. Miyazaki was there before anyone else to hear the children's impressions of the film.

Q: I'd like to know more in detail about the objects and places you used as references in creating this work.

A: There is no specific location "here". Mr. Miyazaki recalls the places he once visited and draws while imagining places he cannot remember. The restaurant district in the mysterious town that appears at the beginning of the film was said to have been drawn with an image of the entertainment districts of Yurakucho and Shinbashi.

Q: Are Kamaji and the working soot sprites (Japanese uses makkuro kurosuke) the same species? Or are they similar but different?

A: The official name of makkuro kurosuke is "Susuwatari". That's what it says on the storyboard, so it's not wrong to say that it's the same species. Initially, there was a plan that rice and sesame were their favorite foods, but now konpeito became their favorite.

Q: Are the characters portrayed in human form like Lin, human? Or are they other creatures?

A: The employees of the bathhouse are frogmen for the men and female slugs for the women. This is symbolic of the fact that to the new employees joining Ghibli, all the uncles look the same. Lin may look human because she is a close senior. Doesn't that happen to you?

Q: I want to know more details about of the chicks who are crammed in the bath!

A: It's a chick god called "Otori-sama." By the way, the one who is also soaking in the hot water is the "Cow Demon." According to Miyazaki, he thought, "Today's Japanese gods must be having a hard time," and that's how the bathhouse was born, where gods and yokai can heal their fatigue. 20 years later, the bathhouse may be even more prosperous now...

Q: Why did Radish spirit (Oshira-sama is used here) follow Chihiro upstairs?

A: The spirit became interested in Chihiro and got on the elevator together with her, but they didn't like Yubaba's room, so they descended immediately (it's written in the storyboard).

Q: How many years ago was the world of the bathhouses set from now?

A: It's modeled on the "pseudo-Western" buildings that were popular from the end of the Edo period to the beginning of the Meiji period, so it can be interpreted as after that.

The actual model is Studio Ghibli. To work for Studio Ghibli, you have to go to Toshio Suzuki on the top floor and say, "Please let me work" (laughs).

Q: I really like the flood-like atmosphere of the flowers in the scene where Chihiro slips through the flowers before eating rice balls. Did you change the expression technique for only that scene?

A: For that scene, the flowers are drawn with paint and are then animated to have depth on the computer.

Q: I felt that the onigiri that Haku gave Chihiro were white rice balls, but did they contain any contents inside?

A: The storyboard says, "3 onigiri (without seaweed)". I'll leave it to your imagination to see whether it contained any ingredients in them (not that there was any wasabi).

Q: How many years has Haku lived approximately?!! He looks like a boy, but...!

A: His appearance is about 12 years old, but his actual age is unknown. He's kind during the daytime when Yubaba is sleeping, but is cold at night. According to Miyazaki, Chihiro is like falling in love with a manager. "What was that about last night?"

Q: Is No Face (Kaonashi is the original Japanese used)'s movement a little cat-like...? I personally think that, but are there any animals that you used as reference?

A: I don't have any "animals" as a reference, but the staff at that time said, "I felt like I was collecting the obsession that everyone had, the parts of people that were sick."

Q: I want to know the rating of the bathhouse bills! I wonder how many kinds there were and what rank of the tag Kasuga-sama was.

A: There are no ratings, but the efficacy of hot water is different for each tag.

Q: Is No Face a god? Is there a reason why they couldn't enter the bathhouse?

A: No Face is not a god, but Miyazaki said at the time that "No Face is inside everyone."

Q: Do many Ghibli staff have special feelings for Chihiro? Were there any celebrations among the staff on the 20th anniversary?

A: The studio does not do so-called "anniversary celebrations". Miyazaki and Suzuki's idea is to do what is in front of them without looking back on the past.

Q: I heard that most of the dishes that appear in the movie are made at least once, but was that big steamed bun (meat bun?) that Chihiro was chewing on also made by hand?

A: We don't cook all the meals that appear in the film. Miyazaki says, "Most of the food that appears in the movies are usually things I made and ate a long time ago."

By the way, the fried egg that appears in Laputa and Howl is said to have been drawn based on his memory of making a fried egg when he was a student, returning home from a long trip without any money and starving.

Q: Why is the name No Face?

A: At the drawing meeting at that time, Miyazaki said that Yubaba, No Face, and Chihiro are all "one aspect of the individual." Everyone has both good and bad points. I think he created a character called No Face as a symbol of human beings that cannot be drawn in a one-sided way (I answered seriously).

Q: When the film was released overseas, I was wondering what kind of responses and impressions people had about the unique concepts of Japan, such as Japanese gods and "spirited away/kamikamushi" had. Also, was it made in consideration of reactions from overseas at the time it was produced?

A: It varies from country to country. In some countries, the appearance of No Face became "silence", and other countries burst into laughter. Miyazaki does not make movies conscious of overseas reactions. Suzuki says, "If Japanese people make something that only Japanese people can do, it will become a global work."

Q: Why is Boh drawn so big?

A: It's a symbol of growing up as a child. It seems that Yubaba can't help but spend money on Bo.

Q: "Spirited Away" is the voice acting debut of Ryunosuke Kamiki, who has done voice acting in numerous anime. I heard that Ryunosuke was called to Ghibli's studio after recording his voice at home and sending in a tape because it was an audition. I would like to ask why you cast Kamiki in the role of Boh.

A: At first, people with big bodies were nominated for the voice of Boh. Miyazaki's face lit up the moment when he heard the voice of Kamiki who was eight years old at the time, he shouted, "This one, Mr. Suzuki!" and he decided.

Q: Please tell me how to distinguish between Yubaba and Zeniba.

A: At the image board stage, there was a clear difference between Zeniba and Yubaba. At the storyboarding stage, they thought it would be better to make them look exactly alike. One staff member said, "Yubaba has one wart on her chest and Zeniba has four warts on her chest." But I can't confirm it (laughs).

Q: Kamaji says that Zeniba is scary, but she is a gentle grandmother in the movie. Why did Kamaji say that Zeniba was scary?

A: People who look kind are the scariest when they get angry.

Q: Why did you make the scene of "I can't forgive you!" Dragon Ball-style? How did Yubaba hit such an orb?

A: The storyboard says "Dragon Ball style" (laughs). It's not clear why she was able to shoot an orb, but Miyazaki said, "Yubaba is an old woman who can swim in the air."

Q: I have a question about trains. Is there a reason why we used to come and return in the old days, but now we can only go one way? I would like to know if there are any settings.

A: During a drawing meeting, Miyazaki remarked, "All the employees of the bathhouse dream of saving money to open a store in the town beyond the bridge. Will they go for leisure? But if you get on the train you’ll never be able to come back and this will be gone.”

Q: Where was the scene that took the most time to draw?

A: If there are a lot of characters, the scene will take a lot of time, though I can't say in general that this cut took the most time. It is unclear what scene took the most time but Miyazaki often fixed Chihiro's small gestures, and in particular, Miyazaki seems to have, with all his effort, corrected the scene where Chihiro received the hair tie from Zeniba and tied her hair.

Q: What was the most difficult dubbing scene?

A: Kamaji, who is played by Bunta Sugawara, speaks a lot slowly, so it was difficult for Sugawara to get it on scale. Rumi Hiiragi was having a hard time with saying "one, OK?" from the line "one, OK? I can't call one flower a bouquet". And Miyu Irino tried many times with "Nigihayamikohakunushi"

(translation note: her line in Japanese, what "one, ok" sounds like is "ippon, ne." Japanese changes numbers when it comes to counting items, so one which is ichi becomes ippon when it comes to counting the bouquet. So instead of saying, "One, okay" she said "one okay") Additionally, I actually know what they're referencing and you can actually see the dubbing behind the scene difficulties they're talking about in this video uploaded on Youtube: video here

Q: How do you write Haku's real name "Nigihayamikohakunushi" in kanji (Chinese characters)? I am wondering if it is the characters for "amber river" (琥珀川) or "small white river" (小白川). I would like to know if there is a meaning to "Nigihayahimi"!

A: Although it is written in katakana in the setting, the name "Nigihayami" is said to be the composite of several gods including Nigihayahi (nigihayami-no-mikoto), the ancestor of the Monobe clan who fought against the Soga clan during the Asuka period, and Hayakitsuhiko, the river god and dragon incarnation.

Q: How did Chihiro find out that her mother and father were not inside the pig pen in the end?

A: I'm not sure of the reason, but please read the children's book called "Krabat", which Miyazaki was greatly influenced by.

Q: Is there any reason why Chihiro's hair tie sparkled brightly at the end?

A: That hair accessory is the only proof that Chihiro worked at the bathhouse. I think it can be said that it is a (choice by) stage direction to give that impression (of the sparkling).

Italics is my inference, but I'm not 100% sure.

Q: How many days did it take for Chihiro to get lost in the mysterious city, work in the bathhouse, and exit the tunnel?

A: Mr. Suzuki advocates the three-day theory. When her father and mother get into the car as if nothing had happened, the inside of the car is covered with dust, so the passage of time may be different here from the tunnel.

Q: Why is going into the tunnel different on the way back?

A: When I asked Noboru Yoshida, an art staff member, he answered, "It depends on the passage of time." Does that means that the "three-day theory" collapses...?

Q: Did Chihiro and Haku meet after that?

A: Haku was the spirit of the river that flows near the house where Chihiro used to live. If Chihiro ever visits the river...

[shiroomo]

new shinbashi building B1F

[tokyoshrine]

Nobody Knows About Aviation Shrine

When I first learned of the existence of this shrine, I thought, "This is so Tokyo! I felt that it was a very Tokyo-like shrine. But it was also meant to honor the souls of those who contributed to the aviation industry and were scattered in the sky, But it was also meant to enshrine the souls of those who had contributed to the aviation industry and had been scattered in the sky. It means to enshrine them in a place close to the sky.

It is a small god, but the number of enshrined is 6,367 pillars. We pray for their consolation, thanksgiving, and safety in the sky.

It is a sanctuary for those who do not know it because it is located in a building.

If you have to go to Shinbashi or near Uchisaiwaicho, please visit the sanctuary. There is also an aviation library in the same building, so if you like the "sky," it might be fun to take a peek there as well. Since it is an office building, it is closed during the year-end and New Year's holidays.

Click here for an introduction to the Aviation Shrine of the Japan Aviation Association. http://www.aero.or.jp/shrine/

Introduction to the neighborhood of Aviation Shrine. It is a sanctuary buried in a famous place. 4 minutes on foot Hibiya Park 6 min. on foot [Fujiwara Hidesato, who defeated Taira no Masakado, prayed for victory and dreamed of a white fox] Karasu-mori Shrine 6 minutes on foot Shimbashi Station West Exit Plaza (SL Plaza) 7 minutes on foot 【Salaryman's town, Shimbashi Machinaka Inari】 Zento Inari Daimyojin 10 minutes on foot [God of success in Ginza] Toyoiwa Inari Shrine 10 minutes on foot Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology 10 minutes on foot Toranomon Hills Mori Tower 11 minutes on foot to Toranomon Konpira Shrine (God of Sanuki) 12 minutes on foot 【Daimyo no Yashikami of Sendai Clan】Shimbashi Shiogama Shrine 12 minutes on foot from Hibiya Shrine 12 min. on foot 【Stone steps for success in life, meeting place of the Sakuradamon-gai no Hen】 Atago Shrine 17 minutes on foot to Tokyo Station 19 min. on foot to Shiba Daijingu Shrine (Ise Shrine) 20 minutes on foot to Fukishiro Inari Shrine (discovered in the Edo period) 20 min. walk from Zojoji Temple, the family temple of the Tokugawa Shoguns and a Buddhist temple where Ieyasu enshrined even on the battlefield. 22 minutes on foot National Diet Building 24 minutes on foot【Hie Shrine, the guardian deity of Edo starting from Edo clan】Hie Shrine 22 minutes on foot 【Birthplace of "Golden Nightshade" novelist, Momiji Ozaki】Shio Inari-taimeijin 22 minutes on foot to Shiba Toshogu Shrine, the shrine of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the god of victory and luck. 23 minutes on foot to Tokyo Tower, the symbol of Tokyo 23 minutes on foot to Saiwai Inari Shrine and Kasamori Shrine, which protect people from epidemics. 24 minutes on foot to Nishikubo Hachiman Shrine (Shrine recommended by Minamoto no Yorinobu, one of the "Four Heavenly Kings of Fujiwara no Michinaga") 25-minute walk from Maruyama Zuijin Inari Daimyojin Shrine (Inari shrine on top of an ancient burial mound) 26 minutes on foot【Name of a sword smith】Kukoku Shrine 26 minutes on foot【Inari shrine that came from the sea】Namiyoke Shrine 26 minutes on foot to Tsukiji Honganji Temple (Oriental architecture, sacred place of open Buddhism) 27 minutes on foot to Shinkoin Temple (Ryuoh of Golden Fortune and Otake-san, a saint of the Edo period) 27 minutes on foot【God of work luck in Hamamatsucho】Sanuki Inari Shrine and Kohaku Inari Shrine 29 minutes on foot【Settled at the Akabanebashi South intersection】Fushimi Sanbo Inari Shrine 29 minutes on foot to Otemon Gate of the Imperial Palace

[dsknsk]

Human Skin, Fox Heart

Summary: One day, a nobleman with his valet arrives in the Capital. Although he is the talk of the town, no one has ever caught a glimpse of what he is really like. That is, except for you. After saving his precious vase, you have become his personal maid. However, weird incidents have been popping up all over the Capital, like people dying after having their hearts torn out, and strange screaming at night. When you find out the cause of these oddities, you wish you had not known it...

Word count: 3825

Warnings: Graphic description of death (one instance), implication of possession - This is my Halloween story, y'all. Also Tumblr doesn’t have line breaks anymore so I apply them manually.

@singingonmyojileyka​

AO3 version

'You know, Futaba, you are right.', Tatsuomi says. 'It's kinda strange. With all people who live in the Capital...'

Tatsuomi and you are in Milk Hall Raccord. It has been quite some time since he had time to let you catch up with the things he hears. 

'Well, I'm kind of happy that I have you. But...' You tell your friend that you have been feeling lonely recently.

'It's not like your loneliness is your fault. If no one sparks your interest...' And he shrugs.

'...yeah.' 

It stays silent for a bit, when an idea pops into your head. 'Sorry, I have to go now. It was nice talking to you, Tatsuomi!' You wave him goodbye as you prepare to exit Milk Hall. 

'You take care!' He waves you goodbye too.

Once outside the building, you make your way to Kanda Shrine. 'It's a crazy idea, but...' you think. 'People have been asking the gods for only they know how long...'

You arrive at the shrine and pick up an incense stick and light it. The fragrant aroma rises up as you kneel down in prayer. 'Please send someone my way who I will genuinely love...', you pray. 'Please...I have been waiting for so long...anyone...even if they were a fox, I would not care...'

You have to clench your teeth to prevent crying. When you end your prayer, you stand up and walk back. As you overlook the Capital, it looks like nothing has changed at all.

------------------------

A week later.

You wake up to the sounds of ruckus outside. 'W-what is happening...' You quickly get dressed and go outside. 'What's the noise about?' you ask a random person on the street. 

'Oh, it's because a nobleman is going to move into the Capital!', they say. 'He's from house Yuri. Today is the day of his arrival!' 

'Oh!', What they say, strikes you as interesting. 'Where will he arrive?'

'At Station Shinbashi. But you have to be quick if you want to catch a glimpse. There's a lot of people who want the same thing.'

Ignoring their warning, you hurry to Shinbashi. You have to see this, not in the last place because this could be a sign that the gods heard your prayer. 

When you arrive at Shinbashi, you notice that the passerby was right. 'There are indeed a lot of people here...most of them press, I think.' With some hardship, you gradually make your way through the crowd, just as the train arrives. The people around you cheer loudly, almost making you deaf. 

Not long after, a man in a purple, fur-lined suit steps out of the train. After him is his valet, a man with blue hair and an icy look. Instead of walking out, he turns around and waits for his baggage to be brought to him. Two servants from the railway personnel load the suitcases and boxes out one by one. You see that they keep doing that, and stack them outside. 

'I wonder how many more stuff he has...' you think as you see something happen right in front of you. The top box is about to fall off, and while people around you are running away, you quickly catch the box and then bring it to the valet. 'This fell off.' you simply say. The valet grabs the box and puts it somewhere else. As your hands touch, you feel that his fingers are as cold as that stare of his. A shiver runs down your spine.

The crowd follows him until they reach his new house, a big manor. As he gets his stuff there, you see that most people walk away. You kind of want to do that too, but having fought a way to the front, you decide to leave when the majority is gone. But...

'Hello, miss. What is your name?' Right as you see a chance to leave, the man approaches you.

'F-Futaba Saotome. Why are you asking me, mister Yuri?' You try talking as polite as possible.

'Well, I admired your action when you caught that box. I would like to thank you by offering you a privilege. Would you like to become my personal maid?'

'But you already have a personal valet, right?' You are both enticed and confused by his offer.

'Yes, but I am going to need someone around my new home who already knows the city.', he says. 'And I have been waiting to find someone competent enough to be my personal maid and I immediately knew it when I saw you saving that expensive vase. Feel free to think my offer over. I will be patiently waiting.' There was a vase in that box ? Wow, no wonder he wants you on it. But he makes it clear to you that he isn't forcing you to do anything. 

'Yes, I would love to.', you answer. 'When do I start, sir?'

The nobleman smiles. 'Thank you for accepting my offer. And oh, you can just call me Toichirou. Come along.' And he moves towards the entrance. 

------------------------

In the next few days, you try your best to keep Toichirou happy and content. You consider yourself lucky that your father taught you some manners as a kid. Your hard work luckily does not go unnoticed as you come to know more and more about Toichirou: he prefers fur-lined clothing and hates dogs. Toichirou takes a liking in you and although you still get the shivers whenever his valet Shizuki looks at you, the manor becomes a second home for you. Until, one day...

'Take care, okay?'

'I will, thank you!'

Toichirou has sent you home earlier today. Although you are his personal maid, Toichirou understood that you liked sleeping in your own bed better. 

'It's been a week already since I got this job...', you think as you walk back home. 'And the gods must have blessed me with Toichirou's company. This is most certainly a result of my prayer!'

You enter your house and as the night falls, prepare to head to bed. 'It's been a long day...'

Right when you think you're about to doze off, you hear something.

'What's that?' you frown, until it sounds again. 

'...screaming. Terrible screaming.' You get out of bed and open the curtains. '...not in my neighborhood. But the sound certainly carries quite far...'

The screaming is disturbing enough for you to decide to move into the guest bedroom at the other side of the house. It works: you hear it much less now.

------------------------

The next day, you go to Toichirou's mansion again. As you want to open the door, you see someone already there. '...Flowers?' A postman is delivering some flowers to Shizuki. 

'Good morning.', you say. 'I see that master Toichirou has received some flowers?' 

'That would appear so, yes.' Shizuki says as he takes them inside. You follow him and close the door behind you. 

'They're really lovely.', you comment. 'They smell nice. Should I put them in a vase and place it in the living room so we can all enjoy them?' you offer your assistance as a maid is to do. 

But Shizuki declines. 'No, master Toichirou never puts any flowers he receives in vases.'

That confuses you a little. 'But he has so many beautiful vases!', you say. 'What does he do with the flowers, then? It would be a shame to just...throw them away, right?'

'He dries them.', Shizuki picks one flower and presses it in an encyclopedia. 'That way, their beauty can be preserved.' 

With that, you help him drying the flowers. You still think it is unusual, but it has its charm. 

------------------------

You have a double duty that day. Toichirou is having a visit of several officials, whom he hopes to receive at a banquet that night. And so, everything needs to be cleaned up, sorted out, and the silverware has to blink like a mirror. But a few hours later, the hall is packed with people.

'My first party at this place, and...wow.', you think as you pour some sake in a cup. 'It doesn't even matter that I have duty today. It's awesome seeing all of this in itself...' 

As you walk through the entire hall to serve guests, you overhear their conversations. One in particular catches your ear and you decide to listen to it in secret.

'You heard the screaming last night too?'

'Yes I did...and then, it just...stopped?'

'That's true. I heard that when it stopped, the person who was screaming was found on the ground, dead.'

'...oh...'

'They say it was a horrible sight. Their eyes were still open, they had frothing at the mouth...it was unsavory.'

You flinch. That is an interesting talk, you think, and just when you think it can't get worse, you are soon proven wrong. 

'That wasn't the only thing.'

'Huh?'

'I got this from the outskirts, but apparently people have died too.'

'And this was not an epidemic?'

'No, their...it's almost too gruesome to say, but...their hearts were torn out.'

'By a wolf?'

'Must have been...'

------------------------

After the party cleanup, you turn to Toichirou and Shizuki. 'I am so sorry if this offends you, milord...but I was wondering if any of you heard of people dying under strange circumstances at night?' 

Toichirou tilts his head. 'You do not offend me at all. Indeed, Shizuki and I have heard of those heinous things. But we do not know who or what is behind this either.'

'Someone should walk you home.', Shizuki proposes. 'A guard could go with you.'

'That is a kind offer, but I do not need it, thank you.', You say as you take a bow. 'I will be off, then.'

'Yes. Good evening and take care.'

------------------------

The next nights more or less are like that. The screaming is there again, everytime from another side so you have to switch bedrooms regularly. The incidents become a prominent theme in the Capital, but they do not scare you as much as they should. With a soldier as a childhood friend, you know some techniques. You're far from a professional, but you know enough to shake off an average sized man. 

And then, that night comes.

The screaming seems to be everywhere, no matter where you sleep. 'I can't catch sleep anywhere...let's hope it's better at Tatsuomi's place, then.'

You know it's stupid. But still, potentially risking your life, you decide to go outside. You make sure to bring a large knife from the kitchen just in case. Of course, you hope it won't be needed. You get dressed and step outside into the night.

'Tatsuomi will help me...', You hope that with every fiber of your body. But you weren't that tall and realized those weren't a lot of fibers. 'Luckily, I know where he lives.' Even at night, you can find your way in the Capital. It is there that you hear voices you know.

'Huh...' You silently move towards the source of the voices until you hear them clearly.

'Thanks, master. Do you have targets set for tomorrow night?'

'You bet I do.'

'Toichirou...and Shizuki!' you think as you can make out their silhouettes against the city shadows. But you cannot believe your eyes. 

Toichirou and Shizuki approach a passerby. Before they even notice the two, Shizuki jams three sharp ice crystals like daggers through their throat. Then, Toichirou grabs their chest forcefully with a claw-like hand, and then tears their heart out. You can see blood around their hands and their mouth. 

'They...they are...?',

Thoughts are racing through your head. You see that Toichirou now has fox ears and nine fox tails trailing behind him, colored purplish white, matching his hair. Shizuki is holding the bloodied ice crystals in his hand. 

'...disgusting! So they are behind these incidents? But, why? Whatever they are, they are not human!'

You do not hesitate and go out of the city, towards the Hinterlands. 

'I don't know...but they may help...' You run, and keep running, until you're almost of breath and you see the entrance to the Shrine of the Hidden God. You climb the stairs and enter the shrine.

'It's me, Futaba.', you say. 'Yura! Gaku! Are you there?' 

From the backroom, two nearly identical men come walking towards you. 'My, my. A guest at this hour.', Yura is the first to speak. 'But something tells me about thou, that thou art in trouble. Tell me what the issue is.' He sits down, and Gaku follows suit.

You explain everything to the two men. '...and I have not stopped running until I reached the Shrine.' You know Gaku and Yura because the latter is a hermit who has helped you more than once with his helpful ailments. Gaku is his twin brother who you can ask for help with any kind of mechanical problems, from a broken watch to a cartwheel that fell off. 

'That's a strange story, but we don't have any reason not to believe you.', Gaku comments when you are done explaining. 'You haven't come for nothing, we know what is happening around here.'

'Tell me.' You want to know. 

Yura does so. 'Hast thou ever heard of creatures called 'Ayakashi'?' 

You don't really know. 'In stories, yes...'

'Then, those stories are based upon the very reality.', Yura closes his eyes and clasps his hands. 'Thou hast met two Ayakashi. These fascinating creatures come in various shapes, but never human. No, they can appear human as a disguise to blend in with society. But in order to, they have to consume human hearts. That is the only way they can look human.'

'So they are killing because...' You don't finish your sentence, but the two know what you mean. 

'Yes.', Gaku continues his brother's explanation. 'From what we have heard from you, Shizuki is a Snow Spirit, and those are responsible for multiple freezing incidents. People have been dying from hypothermia from just seeing one undisguised. They're also called Snow Woman, but not all of them are female as you may have noticed. And Toichirou...' Gaku averts his gaze.

Yura takes over. 'When a fox has lived 1000 years, it will gain a soul, grow another eight tails and become a Fox Spirit, or, more commonly, a Fox Demon. These tricky beings sometimes possess people, who will become crazy until they die, screaming and yelping like a fox. But, being foxes, they are manipulative and draw people to them. They are easily one of the most powerful Ayakashi in existence.' 

With all of this, you grow a bit paranoid. 'Look like humans, eh...'. You scratch the back of your head. You weren't able to see that Toichirou and Shizuki were anything out of the ordinary before. 'H-how could I know if someone is an Ayakashi or not?' You're still very uncomfortable with the thought that your employers are monsters.

Yura stands up and rummages in a cabinet. Gaku answers your question. 'All Ayakashi are, regardless of form or disguise, unable to smell flowers. This is a sure-fire way to know if someone is an Ayakashi or not.' Gaku holds up his index finger. You blame yourself a bit for not suspecting anything, but stop before it grows out of hand.

'Now you say it. They never kept flowers in vases. They always dried them 'to preserve their beauty'.' You now know that they probably did that because they are unable to smell them.

Yura is done rummaging in the cabinet and turns to face you again. He is holding three small flasks labeled with colors: red, yellow and blue. 'Taketh these along.', he advises you. 'If thou art attacked by the Fox Demon and the Snow Spirit, throw them. If they try to run, do the same. The content of these flasks is sure to be of assistance.'

You gladly take the flasks from Yura's hands. 'Thank you so much. But I cannot go back now. Can I spend the night here?'

'Of course you can.', Gaku, who has been sitting all this time, finally stands up like his brother earlier. 'Follow me.'

------------------------

As he is done bringing you to the guest room and giving you some instructions, he walks to his and Yura's room. 

'Good performance, Gaku.', Yura whispers. 'That was quite the personal subject.' He picks up a heart he has been hiding in his room, and Gaku opens a drawer to reveal the same. 'After all, it was a little rude to intrude during our midnight snack.' Yura takes another bite.

'Agreed.', Gaku is, like his brother, holding a human heart in his hands. They will make sure Futaba won't notice anything. Good Ayakashi know how to hide their tracks. 

------------------------

You prepare to return the next day. 'I'm ready.', you decide. 'I think I can face them. Toichirou cares about his reputation. Killing your personal maid won't make a good impression.' 

Yura nods, but is still careful. 'Still, thou hast to be aware as to where thou decideth to tread. Thou does not want to have Ayakashi at thou wrong side.' 

You hide the large knife from before in your clothing, and Gaku secures the sharp side so it doesn't accidentally hurt you. When you're home, it will go into the kitchen again. You trust in the flasks Yura gave you.

'Remain on guard.', Gaku advises. 'If things are going wrong, immediately return to here.' 

'I will do that.', you promise him. 'And I will remember it.' You already head outside, and wave goodbye. The twins do that too, until you're out of sight.

------------------------

You have barely arrived home, and you already see Toichirou and Shizuki visiting you. You sigh and go to open the door. 

'We wondered where you were, but you're still here. That's a relief.', Toichirou speaks. 'You didn't forget that you are my personal maid, right?' 

'Of course I did.', you act. 'Let me just grab my stuff.'

You move back into your house and bring the three flasks, along with some ordinary things in your bag to lessen suspicion. 

'Okay, I got my things.', you say. 'I would love to work for you again.' You can feel the taste in your mouth go sour when saying that.

It is almost as if nothing has changed. Except, this time, their inhuman characteristics are so much more obvious to you. But you pretend to be oblivious and do your best to satisfy Toichirou as from before that one night. 

But as the night falls, you know it will never be like back then.

'Ah, that should be my time to leave.', You say as you see the time on the clock. 'I shall now take my leave.'

'Great work.', Toichirou smiles. You can now see his small fangs as he does that. 'I missed having you around. But hey, take care.'

'I certainly will.'

As you say that, you wonder if he would know that you already know who they really are, but you don't continue your sentence and just decide to leave.

But you do not go home after leaving the manor. Instead, you keep watch outside of it. 

'I will end this tonight.', you think. 'I'll follow them towards their next target.'

Not long after, you see that they leave the house. You can barely make up their figures, but as they act like passerbys, they keep a conversation going. You don't care about the subject and follow them. 'Whoever is next, I can prevent their death...', you hope. 'But I know this route...' The worst realization dawns on you.

They're headed towards Tatsuomi's house.

As they near it, you grab the flasks and run. Suddenly hearing you behind them, Shizuki and Toichirou run. 

'Hold it there right now!' you shout as you run after them. 

You chase them towards the Hinterlands and throw a random flask, the blue one. It transforms into a thorn hedge surrounding the Ayakashi, buying you some time. Toichirou transforms into a fox and crawls his way out, while Shizuki summons a blizzard to carry him over it. 

'Too easy...' you think as you keep chasing them and see that the thorns have disappeared as soon as you near it. They are faster than you and as you think that the gap is too big, you throw the red flask. A river appears in front of them, making them halt for a short moment. But Shizuki touches the water and freezes it. Then, they both quickly run to the other side. 

'Damn...' You have one flask left: the yellow one. And you really hope that this one is going to work. Just like the thorns, the river disappears once you near it. You have chased them almost to the Shrine, and you certainly don't want Gaku and Yura saddled up with your ordeal than they already are. With that, you throw the last flask.

An enormous fire lights up the area, completely engulfing them in flames. There is no way they can get out as you come close, breathing heavily. You can taste iron in your throat, but you don't mind. You look up, just in time to see them disappear in the fire. 

'I am sorry, Toichirou.', you confess. 'You were what I thought was the answer to what I prayed for so long ago. I was foolish to believe you. But you are a true monster.'

The last thing you see in the flames, is Toichirou smiling at you. When the flames die down, there is nothing left of the two Ayakashi. 

'...not even ash...' you wonder. 'Did they really die...?' 

But the nobleman and his valet are nowhere to be found.

------------------------

A few weeks later.

'But I'm fine now.', you say. You haven't told Tatsuomi about the two Ayakashi, but you have told the rest. That they disappeared without a trace from the Capital, and that you retroactively retired from your job as personal maid. That no one but you knows what happened. 'I'm fine with being on my own, I guess. It has its own charms.' 

You and Tatsuomi walk out of Milk Hall. Tatsuomi looks up. '...hey.' he mumbles under his breath. You look up to see what he refers to. 

'...snow?', Delicate snowflakes are making their way to the ground. 'That's a bit early.' You hunch over to preserve warmth. 

'I don't know.', Tatsuomi says. 'It's winter. But I don't remember hearing anything about that it would snow today.' 

Although the snow still baffles you in a positive way, he walks you home. As you turn the corner near your home, you see something from the corner of your eye. 

'Tatsuomi, look!' You point at a purplish white fox. It looks at you, and you think it's smiling at you. 

'What?', Tatsuomi looks in the direction you pointed at in confusion. 'I don't see anything.'

'Oh, nothing.', You shrug as it runs away. 'Let's get home now.'

------------------------

This story is based on an old Korean legend called 'The Fox Sister'. I also gained some inspiration for this story by watching part of Painted Skin 2 while in China. With this I was interested in viewing Ayakashi from a different side, one that is darker. The idea for Toichirou coming to live in the Capital and then manipulating people to serve him, is also partially inspired on the fact that in certain areas, the amount of foxes living in the city is higher than in forest areas. That is mainly due to them being omnivores, the fact that larger predators can't survive in a city and being rather cute, so that people give them food - much in the same way Toichirou manipulates people.

[amselchen2]

mystery spot @ New Shinbashi Building, Tokyo by Marco Murata Via Flickr: Leica M MONOCHROM(Typ246)+Voigtländer Nokton classic 35mm F1.4 S.C. VM II

[hangorin]

＜声明＞水戸、武蔵野ー「聖火」リレー抗議者への不当逮捕に抗議する！

Statement: Protest against unjustified arrests of torch relay protesters at Mito and Musashino!

※The English version is available after the Japanese version. Please scroll down.

＜声明＞水戸、武蔵野ー「聖火」リレー抗議者への不当逮捕に抗議する！オリンピック・パラリンピック弾圧を許さない！五輪を即時中止せよ！

梅雨明けと同時に猛暑、４度目の緊急事態宣言下の東京では、連日1000人を超えるコロナ感染者数、コロナ・パンデミックのど真ん中にある。

まさに無謀とも言えるこの状況下、7月23日から東京オリンピック・パラリンピックが開催されようとしている。

私たちはパンデミック以前から2020東京五輪の開催に反対してきた。それは、オリンピック・パラリンピックが「平和の祭典」などではなく、「排除の祭典」であり��IOC始め五輪貴族、開催都市やその国の政府、スポンサー企業、開発業者等々、一部の人たちの利益のために、私たち民衆の生活を破壊して、生きることさえ困難にするものだからだ。

コロナ・パンデミックはそのことをより鮮明にした。

「復興五輪」を掲げた東京大会が、コロナを理由に一年延期され、新たに「コロナ克服五輪」の装いで開催強行を目指し、3月25日には一年遅れで福島Jビレッジから「聖火」リレーがスタートした。「福島」を利用し切り捨てる五輪の政治に福島の人々は怒り心頭、以後、長野・・・沖縄、広島・・・静岡、神奈川、千葉、茨城、埼玉、東京、「聖火」が訪れる全国津々浦々で抗議行動が起こっている。「聖火」で祝祭を演出し、盛り上げようと言う目論見は見事に破綻した。

隠し、封じ込めることのできない民衆の怒りに、権力は暴力を対置、7月4日、茨城県警は、水戸市の「聖火」リレーで、トーチの火に水鉄砲で水をかけようとした人を逮捕、二週間経つ現在も不当な勾留が続いている。（※7月21日釈放の報）

また、開会式予定一週間前の7月16日、武蔵野市で開催された「聖火」点火セレモニーに抗議した一人が「威力業務妨害」で不当逮捕された。ふたりとも命を蔑ろにして強行する五輪に対して、真っ当な怒りをぶつけただけに過ぎない。

2020東京五輪は、空前絶後の警察官6万人を動員、都庁を訪れたIOCバッハ会長警備には、 自衛隊まで出動させるという物々しさだ。

過剰な警備と不当な弾圧は、無謀な開催を強行するものたちの後ろめたさの証明でもある。

二人に対する見せしめ弾圧に私たちは満腔の怒りを表明する。

「聖火」リレーだけではなく、毎週金曜日の組織委員会前で、札幌・東京の「テスト大会」で、バッハ会長宿泊の高級ホテルに、バッハの広島訪問に、歓迎レセプションの迎賓館に・・・、新橋で、新国立競技場周辺で、新宿都庁前で・・・、連日抗議行動が起こっている。

民衆に「犠牲」を払わせても五輪を開催するIOCや日本政府に対して、もっともっと大きな怒りが今、爆発寸前なのだ。

私たち反五輪運動の仲間のAさんに対しても、警察による嫌がらせ、執拗な監視・付きまといという人権侵害がずっと継続している。

オリンピック反対の声をあげる人々を抑えこむために、ちょっとした隙を突き、徹底的に嫌がらせをする。理不尽な人権侵害を絶対に許さない！

警察と軍隊に守られなければ五輪はできない。どれだけ弾圧しても「聖火」の現場、五輪会場に、沸き起こる抗議の声は封じ込められない。

権力は肝に銘じよ。不当な弾圧を今すぐやめろ！

茨城県警と警視庁は二人をいますぐ解放しろ！

オリンピック弾圧粉砕！

「聖火」を消せ！オリンピック・パラリンピックを中止しろ！

NO Olympics Anywhere

2021年7月20日

オリンピック災害おことわり連絡会 反五輪の会

Statement: Protest against unjustified arrests of torch relay protesters at Mito and Musashino!

We denounce the suppression of the movements against the Olympic and Paralympic Games! Cancel the Olympics immediately!

We are in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 1,000 COVID-19 new cases every day in Tokyo under the fourth state of emergency.

The Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games are slated to start on July 23, under conditions that are truly reckless to play sports. We have been opposing the hosting of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics since long before the start of this pandemic. It's because the Olympics and Paralympics has been the "Celebration of Exclusion", rather than the "Celebration of Peace." The IOC, the Olympic aristocracy, the host city, its government, corporate sponsors, developers, and others, are destroying the lives of people and making their lives more difficult for the benefit of a few. The COVID-19 pandemic has made this clearer than ever.

On March 25, after a year of postponement, with its renewed guise of "Recovery from COVID-19", the torch relay started from Fukushima J Village. The politics of the Olympics only used "Fukushima" for its own benefit and ignored the reality of Fukushima. The people of Fukushima are furious. Since then, there have been protests in Nagano, Okinawa, Hiroshima, Shizuoka, Kanagawa, Chiba, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, and many other places across the country where the torch visited. The plan to create a festive atmosphere with the torch has failed miserably.

The anger of the people cannot be hidden or contained. On July 4, the Ibaraki Prefectural Police arrested a person who used a toy water gun to spray water on the torch at the Mito torch relay. The police are still unjustly detaining the person for two weeks now. (※She was released on July 21!) Also, on July 16, a week before the scheduled opening ceremony, one person who protested against the torch ceremony in Musashino City was unjustly arrested for the suspected "forcible obstruction of business". The both of individuals who were arrested were merely expressing their anger against the Olympics, which are being forced on them while disregarding life.

An unprecedented 60,000 police officers have been mobilized for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Even the Self-Defense Forces were mobilized to provide security for the IOC President Bach when he visited the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building. The excessive security and unjustified suppression are the proof of guilt felt by those who are recklessly forcing the Games. We express our anger at the arrest of the two protesters to set warning.

In addition to the torch relay, there have been daily protests; Every Friday, in front of the Organizing Committee, at the "test games" in Sapporo and Tokyo, at the luxury hotel where Bach is staying, in Hiroshima where Bach visited, at the Geihinkan (State Guest House) where the welcome reception was held, in Shinbashi, around the New National Stadium, in front of the Shinjuku Metropolitan Government Office.... We are on the verge of an explosion with anger against the IOC and the Japanese government for holding the Olympics even at the expense of the people.

A-san, one of our friends in the anti-Olympics movement, is also being harassed by the police, and is being subjected to relentless surveillance, stalking, and other human rights violations. In order to suppress those who speak out against the Olympics, the police are taking advantage of the slightest opportunity to thoroughly harass them. We will never tolerate such unreasonable human rights violations!

The Olympics cannot be held without being protected by the police and military. No amount of suppression can contain the protesting voices at the sites of the torch and at the venues of the Olympics. The people in power should keep this in mind. Stop this injustice now!

The Ibaraki Prefectural Police and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department must release the two persons now!

Shut down the Olympic crackdown!

Extinguish the torch!

Cancel the Olympics and Paralympics!

No Olympics Anywhere

July 20, 2021

[arakawalily]

Introducing New Nico Nico, a delicious restaurant in the New Shinbashi Building ニューニコニコの暖簾をくぐれば、猛烈デザイナーニューリリーも、ついニコニコしちゃいます‼️ 「ニューニコニコ」さんは、まだここが闇市だった昭和22年に女将さんのおじさんが「ニコニコ」として創業したそうです。昭和46年に再開発でニュー新橋ビルとなり、ニューニコニコとなった歴史があります。 どんな時も、いつもニコニコ笑っている方がいいとおじさんがつけた店名だそう❣️ サラリーマンパラダイスの、ニュー新橋ビル‼️戦後の新橋には闇市が広がって、日本最大規模だったマーケットは昭和46年にビルとして再開発された。この地下��からは、活気ある戦後のグルーブがビンビン伝わります。 昭和喫茶にゲームセンターが連なり、完全に時が止まっていて、そのお向かいにある、ニューニコニコさん。通路の店壁面に貼られたグッとくる手書きスタイルがしびれます。 すぐ出る煮込み牛モツ煮込みはトロトロでした‼️一発目はまずこれに限ります。濃厚で柔らかい牛もつ、ご飯おかわりしたいのを我慢しました。 #ニューニコニコ　#新橋グルメ　#新橋エモビル　#新橋レトロ　#新橋駅前ビル　#新橋ランチ　#新橋カフェ　#新橋グルメ　 　#ニュー新橋ビル　#新橋駅前ビル #新橋駅前ビル1号館 #エモい　#デザイナー　#キャラクターデザイン #キャラクターデザイナー　#キャラクター　#ロゴ　#ロゴデザイナー　#荒川リリー　#lilystudio #グルメデザイナー　#昭和レトロ　#レトロ喫茶店　#新橋レトロ　#エモい写真　#エモい #東京ノスタルジー #シブビルナウ #昭和建築 #レトロビル #昭和感 #昭和好きな人と繋がりたい　#チーズ天使 (ニュー新橋ビル) https://www.instagram.com/p/CKvF6GMApmf/?igshid=187e6wt7i4f8u

[miggey29]

1. The Imperial Palace

The chief attraction of Tokyo's Marunouchi district is the Imperial Palace with its beautiful 17th-century parks surrounded by walls and moats. Still, in use by the Imperial family, the Imperial Palace stands on the site where, in 1457, the Feudal Lord Ota Dokan built the first fortress, the focal point from which the city of Tokyo (or Edo, as it was then) gradually spread. As famous as the palace is the Nijubashi Bridge leading to its interior, a structure that takes its name ("double bridge") from its reflection in the water. Other notable features include the two-meter-thick wall surrounding the palace and its gates, one of which leads to the East Higashi-Gyoen Garden. Tours of the Imperial Palace are available (pre-registration required) and include the Kikyo-mon Gate, Someikan (Visitors' House), Fujimi-yagura ("Mt. Fuji View" Keep), the East Gardens and Inner Gate, the Seimon-tetsubashi bridge, and the Imperial Household Agency Building (be sure to plan ahead). Another fortress that can be visited is Edo Castle (Chiyoda Castle), built-in 1457 and located in Tokyo's Chiyoda district.

2 Ginza District: Shop 'til you Drop

Ginza is Tokyo's busiest shopping area and is as iconic as Times Square in New York, and much older: it's been the commercial center of the country for centuries and is where five ancient roads connecting Japan's major cities all met. Lined by exclusive shops and imposing palatial stores, the Ginza district is also fun to simply wander around or, better still, sit in one of its many tea and coffee shops or restaurants while watching the world rush past. At weekends, when everything is open, it's a shopper's paradise as traffic is barred, making it one of the world's largest pedestrian zones; come nightfall, gigantic advertising panels on its many buildings bathe Ginza in bright neon light. It's also where you'll find the famous Kabuki-za Theatre (see #12 below), home to traditional Kabuki performances, as well as the Shinbashi Enbujō Theatre in which Azuma-Odori dances and Bunraku performances are staged.

3 National Museum of Nature and Science

Located in Tokyo's Ueno Park, the superb National Museum of Nature and Science (Kokuritsu Kagaku Hakubutsukan) opened in 1871 and is one of the country's oldest museums. Now completely renovated and modernized, the museum houses a vast collection of materials related to natural history and science, including many fascinating interactive displays on space development, nuclear energy, and transportation, allowing visitors a unique insight into the latest scientific and technological advances. Highlights of the Japan Gallery (Nihonkan) include numerous exhibits of prehistoric creatures, the history of the Japanese people, including traditional customs and outfits, while the Global Gallery (Chikyūkan) features many excellent scientific and technology displays, including robotics and vintage vehicles.

4 Ueno Park and Zoo

A paradise-like oasis of green in the heart of busy Tokyo, Ueno Park is the city's largest green space and one of its most popular tourist attractions. In addition to its lovely grounds, the park also boasts numerous temples and museums to explore. Criss-crossed by pleasant gravel paths, this 212-acre park includes highlights such as a trip on a small boat on the reed-fringed Shinobazu pond, around a little island with its Bentendo Temple; visiting the 17th-century Toshogu Shrine, with its 256 bronze and stone lanterns; or strolling around Ueno Park Zoo. Opened in 1882, it is Japan's oldest zoo, famous for the pandas presented by the People's Republic of China. The Aqua-Zoo, one of the largest aquariums in Asia, is also worth a visit, especially if you're traveling with kids.

5 Tokyo National Museum

The National Museum of Tokyo houses more than 100,000 important works of Japanese, Chinese, and Indian art, including more than 100 national treasures. Opened in 1938, the museum includes highlights such as numerous Buddhist sculptures from Japan and China dating from the 6th century to the present; collections of old textiles, historical weapons, and military equipment; historical Japanese clothing; and Asian ceramics and pottery. Important artwork includes Japanese paintings from the 7th to the 14th centuries; exquisite Japanese and Chinese masterpieces of lacquer-work of various centuries, including examples of lacquer-carving, gold lacquer, and lacquer with mother of pearl; and many fine examples of calligraphy. The English language guided tours are available. Also worth a visit is the museum's traditional Japanese landscape garden with its three pavilions, including the 17th-century Tein Teahouse (Rokuso-an), and the nearby Museum for East Asiatic Art with its 15 exhibition galleries.

Japan really is a wonderful and one of a kind of country for me, don't get me wrong I loved and I'm proud to be a Filipino Citizen but it's just I want to try and discover new things like going to the Japanese lantern, having a Japanese girlfriend, make friend with Japanese people, learn new languages and I want to learn also how to cook kinds of seafood in a Japanese way. Every single time my friends or someone asks me where I want to travel and go in the future and I just say Japan. The only places I wanted to go to.

[michaelwalshblog-blog]

Japan's atomic dilemma: Pacifism and the threat of North Korea

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, fulfilled a long-held dream of acquiring nuclear weapons. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, right, thinks the time for dialogue with North Korea is over. (Yahoo News photo illustration; photos: AP, Getty)

TOKYO — The streets of Kasumigaseki, Tokyo, were lined with side-by-side Japanese and American flags for President Trump’s arrival in early November. Inside the district’s government buildings, civil servants had carefully prepared to give the often-unpredictable U.S. leader a promising welcome on the first stop of his 12-day, five-nation tour through Asia.

Any fears that the U.S. would no longer defend Japan (stemming from Trump’s campaign rhetoric about “global freeloading”) virtually disappeared as the two world leaders golfed, dined, autographed baseball hats and reaffirmed their commitment to the alliance. Both men agreed it was the time for pressure, not dialogue, with North Korea and that the full range of U.S. military capabilities — both conventional and nuclear — would be available for Japan’s protection.

The threat of North Korea and escalating tensions in East Asia have recently driven Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to expand the powers of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces (SDF). But the country still relies mainly on the United States’ nuclear umbrella and military for protection.

But not all Japanese are pleased with this arrangement. As the only country to have been attacked with atom bombs, Japan has long been committed to abolishing nuclear weapons and upholding pacifism. The government abides by three nonnuclear principles: not to manufacture, not to possess and not to introduce nuclear weapons. Despite decades of disarmament treaties and pledges there are still an estimated 15,395 nuclear weapons on earth and the pace of their reduction has slowed in recent years.

From Nov. 5 until Nov. 11, I traveled through the island nation on a journalism fellowship from Foreign Press Center Japan. I met government and military officials, students, activists, intellectuals and civilians to see what different strata of Japanese society think about a range of issues, but we always circled back to a singular concern: How can Japan protect itself while upholding its pacifist ideals especially in light of increasing provocations from North Korea?

Yahoo News journalist Michael Walsh took the bullet train from Tokyo to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He flew back to Tokyo for a few more days of reporting before returning to the United States.

I visited the only cities to suffer atom bomb attacks, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the city that experienced the deadliest conventional bombing raid in history, Tokyo. What I heard revealed a country divided among realists, idealists and every shade in between.

“I’m nervous about North Korea very much and think they might attack Japan,” a young mother told me while browsing in Shinbashi Station market. “There is nothing Abe can do to stop this. Because they have nuclear weapons, I think we need to be prepared.”

Part I – Security

Article 9

After World War II, Japan adopted a constitution with a clause that outlaws war as a means of settling disputes: Article 9, which states, “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.”

In 2014, the Japanese government approved a controversial reinterpretation of Article 9 that allows the SDF to fight overseas to defend allies, such as the United States, from attacks. The Japanese military hadn’t been able to fight abroad since World War II ended. This reinterpretation, the most drastic policy change in the SDF’S history, was made official by the National Diet, Japan’s legislature, in 2015 and it took effect in March 2016.

Yoshimitsu Morihiro, a deputy director at the Bureau of Defense Policy, said the law is limited to situations that ultimately threaten Japan’s security, and that the constitution still restricts the SDF from going overseas for combat missions and provides clear conditions for what constitutes peacekeeping.

“A key change introduced under new legislation is we can do partial, collective self-defense. It is really limited to a response to an attack against a foreign country that results in threatening Japan’s survival,” Morihiro said. “It would need to be a country that has a really close relationship with Japan and some kind of commitment to Japan’s defense. Simply, in the current situation, the best candidate is the United States.”

Abe still wants to change Article 9 so Japan can take a more active role in securing peace and stability but has not yet provided a complete draft for the revision — and the Japanese public is split. A poll from the Mainichi Shimbun, a major newspaper in Japan, was almost evenly split among those who support revising Article 9, those opposed and those who aren’t sure.

Internationalism vs. isolationism

Narushige Michishita, the director of the Security and International Studies Program at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, said that Japan purports to be a pacifist country and that people believe it, but that Japan has supported most of the wars the U.S. has fought since World War II. In fact, Japan contributed $13 billion to the war effort during the Gulf War in 1991 — it just doesn’t send its own troops to fight.

“Pacifists don’t support wars or finance wars. We do all the time. When we say, ‘We are pacifists’ what we really mean is ‘We are isolationists,’” Michishita said. “Some people say we’re moving away from pacifism toward militarism, but that’s not true. We are moving from isolationism to internationalism.”

Masami Zkeda, 36, lives in Kanagawa Prefecture with her family and took her toddler son to a book market at Shinbashi Station in Tokyo on Nov. 6, 2017. “I’m not sure if Trump is qualified to be president. He’s not from politics, so even from a Japanese perspective, I’m not sure he’s doing a presidential job. I don’t think he would be able to stop North Korea from having nuclear weapons,” Zkeda said. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

Michishita said most Japanese have been pleased to have the U.S. protect their nation rather than send their own men and women into harm’s way. But he sees the U.S. becoming gradually more isolationist. Former U.S. President Barack Obama said the U.S. will no longer be the world’s policeman and Trump’s inclination toward isolationism is well known. Meanwhile, instability in East Asia only appears to confirm Abe’s belief that Japan needs to contribute more to regional security.

Abe singled out North Korea as an imminent threat during a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 21.

Missiles

At Japan’s Ministry of Defense headquarters in Tokyo’s Shinjuku ward I met with several other deputy directors at the Bureau of Defense Policy to learn about the defense systems they have in place to stop potential attacks.

Ryusuke Wakahoi, of the Strategic Intelligence Analysis Office for the Defense Intelligence Division, said the range of North Korea’s ballistic missiles is growing, and a new version, the Hwasong-14, which was launched twice in July, has a range of at least 5,500 kilometers. North Korean missiles can be hard to detect when they’re in place (that is, before launch), he said, because many are fired from a movable launch pad called a TEL (transporter-erector-launcher) or from submarines.

Since 2006, North Korea has conducted six nuclear tests. The most recent, in September 2017, released 160 kilotons of energy — the largest yet, ten times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. Wakahoi said it’s possible that North Korea has already been able to miniaturize nuclear weapons to mount them on missiles.

A subway advertisement for a weekly magazine features Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, his wife, Akie Abe, U.S. President Trump, first lady Melania Trump and first daughter Ivanka Trump. The ad claims the American, Chinese and Korean media are laughing at the excessive hospitality Abe showed the Trump family. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

“We tried to have dialogue with North Korea but we failed to stop them from developing nuclear weapons,” Wakahoi said. “By offering time for dialogue we actually ended up giving time to them for developing nuclear weapons. And it’s highly unlikely we could change their mindset by having dialogue.”

Yosuke Nagata, of the Strategic Planning Division, said Japan’s ballistic missile defense (BMD) system uses installations on board destroyers to target long-range missiles and relies on land bases to protect against medium- or short-range missiles. He said Japan is working with the U.S. military to develop more advanced missiles and related technology to keep up with North Korea.

SM-3 missiles fired from Aegis destroyers are designed to stop ballistic missiles midcourse and Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles are intended for the final stages of flight at lower altitudes.

“We developed BMD ships to defend Japanese territory and BMD architecture based on cooperation with the United States. We always need assistance from the United States,” Nagata said. “But it is very important to defend Japanese territory using Japanese capability.”

Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty

Japan perplexed onlookers when it abstained from voting on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (also called the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty), which bans the development, possession, transfer, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, at the United Nations on July 7, 2017. In a historic vote, 122 nations adopted the resolution, and the 50 nations required for ratification signed the treaty on Sept. 20, 2017. This is the most significant international agreement on nuclear weapons since the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was adopted in 1968, although nations that already possess nuclear weapons, including the United States, do not consider themselves bound by it.

International and domestic supporters of the treaty criticized Japan’s decision to side with nuclear states but it wasn’t particularly surprising. Japan had voted against a 2016 resolution to negotiate the treaty ban in the first place and explained why it couldn’t support the treaty in a March 2017 statement: the treaty would not resolve security issues or lead to the elimination of a single warhead.

Part II — Peace

Surviving Hiroshima

Sunao Tsuboi, 92, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, tells Yahoo News journalist Michael Walsh about his life and thoughts on contemporary politics. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

The Abe administration’s push to revise Article 9 is a hard sell for many Japanese who grew up hearing stories about World War II. The government’s decision not to support the nuclear ban treaty was an even harder sell to the “hibakusha,” the survivors of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After leaving the Ministry of Defense, I boarded the Shinkansen, or bullet train, for Hiroshima to hear from them firsthand.

Sunao Tsuboi, now 92, welcomed me into his office in Hiroshima on an overcast day after early morning rain. Some of the damage his body suffered on Aug. 6, 1945, was still evident on his ears and in his posture. Over cups of green tea, he told me about other hidden scars, clearly preserved in his memory.

The 20-year-old university student declined to join three older students for breakfast around 8:10 a.m. because he had already eaten. Five minutes later, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb called “Little Boy” on Hiroshima. Tsuboi was 1 kilometer from the hypocenter: the point on the ground directly beneath the detonation. His classmates at breakfast died instantly.

“As soon as I heard the sound I ducked on the road. I was blown over about 10 meters from the blast. I have a slight memory of the moment because I had momentarily lost consciousness. When I came to, I couldn’t see anything 100 meters ahead because there was so much smoke and dust,” Tsuboi said.

He said under such circumstances you might expect someone to think about the fates of his or her loved ones, but he only thought about his hatred of Americans for dropping the bomb and vowing to one day get his revenge.

“I was educated to think in that way due to militarism. It’s so much different from these days. Every citizen thought that way,” Tsuboi said.

The Flame of Peace in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park is intended to burn until every nuclear weapon has been eliminated from the earth. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

He estimates that “60 percent of people within one kilometer like me died,” and he expected to die himself. Walking to a relative’s house nearby, he saw people with severe burns over their faces, arms and feet. He looked in the mirror and saw his own injuries for the first time, severe burns across his body. Tsuboi ran off, holding his arms close to his body to ease the pain of his charred skin. He finally found a first-aid station that had been set up near a bridge and wrote a message in the dirt, “Tsuboi is dying here.”

A small military truck pulled up to rescue young men who could still contribute to the war effort. Women, children and the elderly were not allowed to take up spaces on the 10-person truck because they weren’t of use to the military. A little girl was trying to get on the truck but was scolded and sent away; she ran off, but in the wrong direction, toward the hypocenter. Tsuboi tried to warn her to run the other way, but she couldn’t hear him. He boarded the truck and was eventually taken to nearby Ninoshima Island to recover.

“I always think of her. She didn’t do anything wrong. She couldn’t find a place to escape and she must have died. Every survivor has a story like that,” he said.

Tsuboi, now the president of the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Survivor’s Association, told me about his long road to recovery and chronic health problems throughout his life. Although many physical scars remain, Tsuboi no longer hates the United States. He has been to the U.S. nine times, and he prayed for the victims of Pearl Harbor while in Hawaii. Tsuboi even got to meet Barack Obama during the former president’s trip to Hiroshima in May 2016.

“I told him that we don’t hate the U.S. so we are not asking for your apology. The A-bomb survivors don’t want that. We have overcome such emotions and we should work together,” Tsuboi said.

Regarding modern warfare, Tsuboi said humanity should focus on things that all people can enjoy together regardless of race, like art, music, theater and art, rather than developing new weapons and “thinking of the best way to kill each other,” holding up his cane to mimic the action of shooting a gun.

“As long as I’m alive, I will never give up. We should all hold hands across the world regardless of race or color of skin. We cannot be happy when we’re trying to kill somebody else. We have to understand that fact,” he said.

Peace Memorial Park

The Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is a remnant of the only structure near the hypocenter left standing after the bombing, an exhibition hall. Now its skeletal frame is a reminder of humankind’s ability to destroy and a symbol of peace. Kosei Mito, 71, has been volunteering as a tour guide around the site for 11 years.

Kosei Mito, 71, an in-utero survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, volunteers as a tour guide in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

Mito’s mother was four months pregnant with him at the time of the bombing and he suffered frequent illnesses throughout childhood. The “in-utero survivor” was holding the official pink certificate called the “A-bomb survivor’s health book” that was given to hundreds of thousands of survivors as he spoke to me about his strong belief that world opinion will lead to the abolition of nuclear weapons. He was frustrated that Trump said “anything would be an option” against North Korea and wishes Abe had told Trump that nuclear weapons should not ever be considered — even against North Korea.

He also accused the U.S. of hypocrisy, saying it has no right to tell other nations that they can’t possess any nuclear weapons since it already has so many. The United States has 6,800 nuclear warheads, surpassed only by Russia’s 7,000.

“I think in order to have a more convincing platform the U.S. should say, ‘We’re going to eliminate all of the nuclear weapons we have now so why don’t you get rid of the nuclear weapons you have with us?’” Mito said.

Masaaki Murakami, 24, who grew up in Hiroshima, works at a bar every night and volunteers alongside Mito every day. While discussing the tragedy, he showed me what he considers the most meaningful part of the park: the Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound, where the ashes of thousands of unidentified or unknown victims have been interred in a vault beneath a grassy mound.

Murakami thinks the U.S. and Japan are wrong about deterrence and need to understand that as long as nuclear weapons exist there’s a risk that someone may use them.

“During the nuclear era, deterrence may have been a viable option but it’s no longer the case. In my opinion, relying on the nuclear weapons of the other nations means we could be the target of a nuclear weapons attack,” he said. “I believe Japan should take advantage of its position as the only nation that’s experienced the atomic bombing. We shouldn’t follow the position of the U.S. and other nuclear nations.”

In Murakami’s opinion, young Japanese aren’t terribly interested in politics and don’t fully understand why Trump is problematic. He heard that Americans living in Japan expected large protests when Trump arrived but he believed, correctly, that wouldn’t happen.

Masaaki Murakami, 24, of Hiroshima, stands near the Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

“People are seeing a superficial image of Trump and his momentum and don’t think seriously about the details of the politics,” he said.

Murakami is also frustrated with Abe’s attempts to change the constitution. He thinks Abe is trying to capitalize on the positive image that the Japanese have of the SDF thanks to their disaster relief and rescue activities.

Just down the Motoyasu River, at the other end of the park, was the office of Kenji Shiga, director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Shiga said the museum’s exhibitions were intended to be thought-provoking, not didactic, evoking a range of responses. When asked if nuclear abolition was too idealistic, Shiga affirmed his belief that humankind can one day eliminate nuclear weapons from this world.

“The reason I think we can eliminate nuclear weapons from the world is I believe in the intelligence of human beings. We have a similar experience in the past. Humans have eliminated and gotten rid of weapons like poisonous gas and land mines,” Shiga said, with perhaps a touch more optimism than recent history warrants. “So humans have been making a certain effort for a long period of time. Now the United Nations is also making an effort with the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty. I’m sure such efforts will continuously be made.”

Memories of Nagasaki

The next day, I boarded the bullet train again, for a trip to Nagasaki, where the second and final atomic bomb used in war exploded on Aug. 9, 1945.

Takashi Kado, 82, met me at the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum wearing a light-green windbreaker with “Nagasaki Peace Guide” emblazoned across the back. He is healthy, active and, in his words, “very lucky.”

Takashi Kado, 82, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, talks to Yahoo News journalist Michael Walsh about nuclear weapons while looking at a replica of Fat Man, the bomb detonated over Nagasaki in August 1945. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

He lived about 3.5 kilometers from the hypocenter and was 10 years old when the U.S. dropped the bomb nicknamed Fat Man. He had been playing on the road near his house in the hot summer sun when he noticed a strong flash that made him look up to the sky. Two seconds later, he heard a calamitous sound and thought that a star had fallen from the sky. His teacher had just taught him about stars before summer vacation. He also remembered his teacher told him if a bombing occurred that he should take cover under his desk, but he was outside, so he knelt on the streets and covered his eyes. About seven seconds later, the blast swept through the street and threw him against the wall of his home.

“I was scared and frightened. I didn’t know what to do. I was shaking, terrified. My mother called my name, “Takashi, Takashi!” and I told her I was not able to move,” Kado recalled. “My mother ran to me. She grabbed my arm and pulled me into the house.”

Kado heard a voice bellow over the neighborhood loudspeaker, “The enemy is attacking! The enemy is attacking!” Grabbing a backpack with emergency supplies, such as a poison-gas mask, that he always kept near the front door, he and his mother took off toward the community shelter, an eight-minute walk from his home. They passed many bloodied, elderly people in the street whom they were unable to help.

“My mother wiped their faces with her apron and told them she was sorry but that she needed to escape as well. That is a very tragic history for one young boy,” he said.

As we walked through the museum, Kado shared a string of memories from life during wartime: the sound of American planes during the frequent air raids, the hunger from the food shortage and the image of his mother praying that the bombs would not strike their house.

Commuters travel to work using the Nagasaki Electric Tramway. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

Before parting ways, I asked Kado what he thinks about the current North Korea situation. He said that Japan should become friends with North Korea and work together to foster cross-cultural understanding. He said more people need broader minds — something severely lacking in North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“He is stupid. Kim Jong Un is a crazy man. So that is the honest opinion about North Korea. It is inhumane,” he said.

Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition

The Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition (RECNA) at Nagasaki University — only a five-minute cab ride from the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum — was founded in 2012, inspired by Obama’s 2009 speech in Prague about “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

RECNA has three main objectives: to research, analyze and circulate information on the significance of the atomic bombing experiences; propose actions that could lead to the abolition of nuclear weapons; and cultivate a new generation of storytellers to share the experiences of the hibakusha when they’re gone.

Tatsujiro Suzuki, the director of RECNA, said Japan faces what he’s dubbed a “nuclear trilemma.” Along with its desire for deterrence and abolition, Japan needs to address its 47.8-ton stockpile of plutonium, which is the largest of any nonnuclear state and amounts to “latent nuclear capability.” Japan has been developing civilian nuclear energy since 1956 by recycling spent nuclear fuel to recover plutonium. The nation wanted an “indigenous nuclear fuel cycle” because it barely has any natural resources.

Tatsujiro Suzuki, the director of the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition at Nagasaki University, in his office. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

“Naturally people are suspicious of Japan’s accumulation of plutonium. Only 8 kilograms are necessary to make a bomb. Now Japan has 47 tons. So that’s a lot,” Suzuki said. “Even though Japan has committed to not making any nuclear weapons and this plutonium only has civilian uses, this huge supply makes Japan vulnerable to international concern.”

Suzuki thinks Japan should have supported the U.N. treaty prohibiting the possession and threat of nuclear weapons. He said it’s a good time for Japan to shift to a security policy that does not rely on nuclear deterrence.

RECNA is devoted to a specific policy goal of establishing a nuclear-free zone among three countries in Northeast Asia: South Korea, North Korea and Japan. Then China, Russia and the United States would provide negative security assurance, which means they would agree not to attack or threaten to use nuclear weapons against those three countries. North Korea has not accepted invitations to join these negotiations.

“There is no evidence that deterrence works. This is  about the current situation. If nuclear deterrence perfectly worked, why would we have to worry about North Korea? We have them already. Dependence on deterrence does not have assurance. I would ask them, OK, you believe in nuclear deterrence. Why are you worrying now?”

Suzuki argued that Abe is pushing Japan toward militarism and that the security laws passed last year are unconstitutional. He said enabling the SDF to collaborate with the U.S. all over the world violates Article 9 and that the clause limiting their deployment to situations threatening Japan’s survival is too vague.

Nagasaki University students

Hanako Misuoka and Jo Takeda, both 21, have been involved with RECNA while studying at Nagasaki University. They stopped by the center to share their thoughts as young Japanese concerned with nuclear proliferation.

Misuoka, from Saga Prefecture, studies education but doesn’t want to become a teacher. She wants to establish an education reform organization because she thinks Japanese education curricula are too biased and that students rarely get the whole story. Takeda, from Kumamoto, is preparing for a recruitment exam for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He wants to work on nuclear weapon issues and cultivate understanding between different cultures through diplomacy.

They said the Japanese public is almost evenly split between people favoring nuclear abolition and people who want to maintain deterrence, mostly against North Korea. But for their part, they favor signing the controversial U.N. treaty.

“If Japan becomes a signatory of the treaty it will boast some influence on other countries,” Misuoka proposed.

She said she had an opportunity to teach at an elementary school a few days earlier and was surprised that none of her students had heard of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year.

Nagasaki University students Hanako Misuoka and Jo Takeda, both 21, share a few laughs on campus. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

Both students said they harbor no ill will toward Americans for the atomic bombings and that it’s more important to work toward peace and nuclear abolition today than dig up old grudges.

“It’s history. We did something bad to each other. We did Pearl Harbor. You did the atomic bombing. But the war is over,” Takeda said. “Of course, history is important but the current issue is more important. We need to cooperate with each other to prevent another war. We have to remember but I don’t blame American people today.”

Both students appreciated Obama’s trip to Hiroshima and said it had long been a wish among survivors for a sitting U.S. president to visit. They said visiting Hiroshima or Nagasaki goes a long way in raising a person’s awareness of nuclear issues.

“From my story, I wouldn’t be interested in nuclear weapon issues if I didn’t come to Nagasaki. I think it’s important for people from nuclear weapons states and under a nuclear umbrella to come to Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Takeda said.

Misuoka wishes that Abe would stand up to Trump and encourage him to pursue more diplomatic methods of resolving conflicts.

“When we look at Obama and Trump it seems that Obama is committed to peace and that Trump is trying to increase the military capability and insists on ‘America First.’ [Our] Prime Minister doesn’t say ‘no’ to anything that Trump is saying.”

Part III — Pride

Nagasaki defense today

I took the Nagasaki tramcar to meet Hiroharu Aoki, the director of the Crisis Management Division for the Nagasaki prefectural government. He greeted me at his office wearing a lapel pin, with the Japan and U.S. flags side by side, that had been given to him by a captain in the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet, which is headquartered in Yokosuka, roughly 40 miles south of Tokyo. Aoki was an officer with the SDF until two years ago.

Aoki’s division is preparing with the national government for a missile attack drill scheduled for Nov. 22 — the first of its kind. The national government already sends “J-Alert” warnings of terror attacks or natural disasters to local media and citizens via smartphones, email and loudspeakers.

Hiroharu Aoki, the director of the Crisis Management Division in Nagasaki Prefecture, looks at a map in his office that shows the range of North Korean missiles. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

“It’s a very outstanding mission to be able to protect the peace and independence of the nation, and the lives of the people,” Aoki said. “I have worked in the SDF for 37 years after graduating from the National Defense Academy of Japan. And my son is also an officer. I’m very proud of that.”

For Aoki, the new Abe laws are simply the legal basis for Japan to contribute to peace and security on a level comparable to its allies. He said that although the national government and SDF have set up ballistic missile defense for potential attacks, individual preparedness among residents, such as access to shelters, is inadequate.

“On the resident level, it is not easy to set up a shelter. So we can have a drill and call for an evacuation and encourage citizens to be ready for an emergency,” he said.

Aoki keeps a map of East Asia on his wall with concentric circles rippling out from Pyongyang. Each circle represents North Korea’s potential reach with various weapons. Given its location in Southwestern Japan on the island of Kyushu, Nagasaki is close to the Korean Peninsula.

Talking to Aoki reveals his sense of duty and deep-seated desire to defend his nation, prefecture and city. After leaving his office, I took a cab to Nagasaki Airport to catch a Japan Airlines flight back to Tokyo — with a newfound appreciation for the pride that men and women of the SDF feel for contributing to Japan’s security alongside the United States.

Former minister of defense

Gen Nakatani, who served as the minister of defense under Abe from December 2014 to August 2016, is now a member in the House of Representatives, the lower house of the National Diet. His office, across the street from the National Diet Building in Chiyoda, Tokyo, is decorated with graceful Japanese calligraphy, as well as photographs from his extensive career in politics and the military.

Nakatani used to train the Self-Defense Force rangers and said he still knows what’s going on in the field. Every January, he said, he participates in parachute training with current officers, which helps build a sense of unity in their mission to “defend the country together.”

Gen Nakatani, a former minister of defense for Japan, talks to Yahoo News journalist Michael Walsh about the threat of North Korea in his Tokyo office. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

According to Nakatani, it’s time to place sanctions and other forms of pressure on North Korea because it has already broken its promises to stop pursuing nuclear weapons after the six-party talks. Japan and the United States are in agreement on that policy.

“They’ve conducted six nuclear weapons tests. The latest nuclear test’s size was about 160 kilotons, 10 times larger than the Hiroshima atomic bomb,” Nakatani said. “Of course, we will not allow such provocative threats to the international community. It’s on an unprecedented scale and threatens the entire region. This is a great and immediate concern for us.”

In order to protect the Japanese people, he said, the SDF will keep working with the U.S. to make sure it can intercept North Korean attacks with SM-3 and PAC-3 and will in other respects have the right defense system in place.

“Of course, this was one of the topics discussed by Trump and Abe,” he said.

He added that the Japan-U.S. alliance is the most important international agreement to secure peace and stability throughout Asia.

A view of the National Diet Building, which contains both houses of Japan’s bicameral legislature, in Nagatacho, Tokyo. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

Nakatani said Japan will continue to advocate strongly for nonproliferation of nuclear weapons but that threats from North Korea, China and Russia make it necessary for Japan to rely on the United States’ nuclear umbrella. He said the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was established with the understanding that the U.S., Russia, the U.K., France and China are nuclear weapon states and that dramatically disrupting the current world order could be dangerous.

He was also grateful that Trump met with families of Japanese citizens who have been abducted by North Korea.

Abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korea

The abduction issue is a major roadblock for Japan-North Korea relations. During the ’70s and ’80s, many Japanese citizens disappeared under strange circumstances. Japanese authorities concluded through subsequent investigations that North Korea was involved and brought the issue up at every chance since 1991. Finally, in 2002, North Korea admitted that it had abducted these citizens, returned five and promised to stop. But there are still many points of contention between the nations.

The motivations behind the abductions are not clear in all cases. But the Japanese government says North Korea had at least three reasons for these crimes: North Korean agents could steal the identities of the abducted Japanese citizens, victims could be forced to teach North Korean spies Japanese language and culture and victims could be recruited for the “Yodo-go” terror group, which infamously hijacked Japan Airlines Flight 351 in 1970.

The Japanese government official recognizes 17 people as abducted since 1977 but some suspect there were hundreds of victims. The North Korean government, on the other hand, claims there were only 13 victims and that eight have died and five have been returned — thus resolving the issue.

Japan says that North Korea has not produced any credible objective evidence corroborating the claim that the remaining missing persons have died. Cases like the abduction of 13-year-old Megumi Tokota from Niigata Prefecture in 1977 are well known in Japan. Her pictures were prominently displayed on the walls of the Shinjuku subway station in Tokyo while I was there.

On Nov. 9, 2017, Tokyo’s Shinjuki rail station prominently displayed a large image of Megumi Tokota, who was abducted by North Korea in 1977, when she was a 13-year-old junior high school student. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

The Japanese government maintains that it will not normalize diplomatic relations with North Korea until the abduction issue is resolved.

I met with Masahide Adachi, the director for the Office for the Assistance of the Abductees and their Family Members, to discuss recent developments on this issue. During our conversation, Adachi and members of his staff were wearing blue ribbon-shaped pins, a symbol of hope that one day the abductees will return home.

He pointed out that Abe has been referring to these abductions at various international meetings and conferences since taking office. He said the Japanese government urged Trump to meet with the families of abductees and that it didn’t take long for him to agree.

“I think awareness of this issue in the United States has been on the rise partly because of the nuclear missile issue of North Korea, and human rights issues are of course important for the U.S.” he said.

In September, Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to refer to the abduction issue during a speech to the U.N. General Assembly. Although Obama and Bush had met with some family members, Trump’s invitations went to every family member for each victim and 17 people in total were able to attend.

“When the families met with Trump and were able to get close to him they were only supposed to talk for 20 minutes but it wound up being 35 minutes,” Adachi said. “Trump stayed focused and listened to what each family member said. He shared their feelings and was very compassionate.” He said meeting the U.S. president is not the end goal and that it won’t mean much if it doesn’t help resolve the issue, but it was successful.

“That the president of the United States, the most influential nation in the entire world, met with the abductees’ family members and was very compassionate meant a lot,” he said.

Adachi said he also hopes the international pressure building around North Korea’s development of nuclear technologies will make Kim resolve the abduction issue. When asked if he would support any use of force to rescue the remaining abductees, Adachi said the government’s policy is to continue pursuing dialogue and applying pressure.

“The government will continue to do its best,” Adachi said. “Where we are right now resembles what went on in 2002 when five abductees came back to Japan.”

Center for the Promotion of Disarmament and Non-Proliferation

Hirofumi Tosaki is a senior research fellow at the Center for the Promotion of Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, which is dedicated to achieving the goal of “everlasting world peace.” But he supports the Japanese government’s position of not signing the United Nations nuclear-ban treaty.

Hirofumi Tosaki, a senior research fellow at the Center for the Promotion of Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, explains his issues with the United Nations’ Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

During our conversation at the center’s Tokyo headquarters, which is part of the Japan Institute of International Affairs, a foreign-policy think tank, Tosaki argued that adopting the treaty without the cooperation of nuclear-armed states would merely exacerbate the divisions between nuclear states and nonnuclear states, as well as between nonnuclear states under and outside of nuclear umbrellas. He also said the treaty is unlikely to lead to disarmament concessions.

Although he would like concrete steps to promote disarmament, Tosaki thinks Japan’s erratic relationships with North Korea, China and Russia make the U.S. nuclear umbrella vital, until threats have been reduced significantly. He is sympathetic to the hibakusha and NGOs calling on the government to support the treaty, but he said their arguments aren’t accepted by the ruling party, some opposition parties, or the general public.

“We understand that nuclear weapons are very dangerous, inhumane weapons but because of their destructive power they work as a deterrent,” Tosaki said.

Tosaki explained that proponents of the ban treaty do not expect it to make a significant dent in nuclear stockpiles yet. They are, he continued, trying to reframe the narrative around humanitarian concerns by stigmatizing possession.

Japan, on the other hand, favors a “progressive approach” through which nuclear-armed states take simultaneous and parallel steps to break through the current disarmament gridlock.

In conjunction with Hiroshima Prefecture, the center has been publishing an annual “Hiroshima Report” evaluating the current state of nuclear disarmament since 2011. In the most recent edition, they concluded that prospects for eliminating nuclear weapons from the world “are still distant at best.”

Leaving Japan

One of my last interviews before leaving Japan was with Go Ito, a professor of international relations at Meiji University. He argued that North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear capabilities stems from its feeling of having been abandoned by former allies Russia and China after they resumed diplomatic relations with South Korea in the late ’80s and early ’90s. It’s a dream the country has harbored ever since: “My understanding is that North Korea was an abandoned country so they think nuclear weapons are the only method for them to survive.”

Go Ito, a professor of international relations at Meiji University, walks through Kasumigaseki, Tokyo, at night. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

U.S. and Japanese officials have declared that it would be absolutely unacceptable for North Korea to maintain nuclear weapons for decades. But what does unacceptable really mean? Would either country be willing to preemptively attack North Korea to make them stop? That doesn’t seem likely. Right now, we are looking at a world in which North Korea has become a nuclear state — like it or not.

North Korea insisted for years that it wanted a nuclear weapon for deterrence just like the U.S. and Japan have. As I entered Narita International Airport for my flight back to New York, I thought of something David Denoon, a former deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Defense who now teaches politics and economics at NYU, told me before the trip:

“North Korea now has effective deterrence. And that means that nobody is going to attack them without the very high probability of starting war. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have made a mistake saying that a North Korean nuclear weapon is unacceptable because it’s not clear what we would do once the North Koreans demonstrated that they have a nuclear weapon.”

On Nov. 20, nine days after I returned, Trump announced that his administration was restoring North Korea to the United States’ list of state sponsors of terrorism, adding to Pyongyang’s diplomatic isolation: “It should’ve happened a long time ago. It should’ve happened years ago.”

There was some hope at the time of my visit that the U.N. resolution in September strengthening oil sanctions against North Korea might be working, since North Korea had not launched any ballistic missiles in about two months. But on Nov. 28, North Korea fired a ballistic missile into Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

A view from Tokyo Tower on Nov. 11, 2017. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

During my visit, I met many Japanese who are worried about the threat of North Korea but have different views on how the government should respond. Despite their reservations about Trump, essentially everyone with whom I spoke valued the U.S.-Japan alliance as central to the nation’s security and understood — even if some fundamentally disagreed with — why Japan would rely on the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Support for Abe’s moves toward greater self-defense capabilities has understandably risen along with Kim’s nuclear capabilities, but revising Article 9 is still a much-debated and controversial issue. And a sincere desire for pacifism and nuclear disarmament was strongest in people and places closest to the atomic bombs — arising from indelible memories that animate much thinking about war and peace in Japan.

Pacifism has been a central pillar of Japan’s national identity since the end of World War II. There are hints that the commitment of the Japanese people to this ideal has been changing. But the collective memory of the atomic bombs and decades of peace has all but guaranteed that these changes will be gradual and thoughtful.

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[arakawalily]

A cheese angel flew to the emotional New Shinbashi Building in Shimbashi 今、昭和エモいビル❣️レトロな「ニュー新橋ビル」に夢中です❣️ サラリーマンの街・新橋にお勤めしていたら知らない人はいないほどのランドマーク的存在です。ニューとついてはいますが、開館は昭和46年と大変な老舗。その雰囲気から、地元サラリーマンには「オヤジビル」の相性でも親しまれています。私の一番の萌ポイントは、まず様々な壁面タイルです‼️非常に贅沢な作りとバリエーションで癒されますよ‼️ そして安くて美味しいベジタリアンさんのフルーツジュース🥤🍹最高ですねー。 昭和ブックさんも、サラリリーマンに欠かせないお休みスポットです‼️ #新橋エモビル　#ニュー新橋ビル　#新橋駅前ビル　#むさしや #新橋駅前ビル　#新橋ランチ#ビーフン専門店　#ナポリタン#新橋カフェ　#新橋グルメ　 #デザイナー　#キャラクターデザイン #キャラクターデザイナー　#キャラクター　#ロゴ　#ロゴデザイナー　#荒川リリー　#lilystudio #グルメデザイナー　#昭和レトロ　#レトロ喫茶店　#新橋レトロ　#エモい写真　#ベジタリアン #東京ノスタルジー #シブビルナウ #昭和建築 #レトロビル #昭和感 #昭和好きな人と繋がりたい　#レトロタイル (ニュー新橋ビル) https://www.instagram.com/p/CKC7mz9AuDP/?igshid=18mqde7e2swht

[michaelwalshblog-blog]

Japan's atomic dilemma: Pacifism and the threat of North Korea

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, fulfilled a long-held dream of acquiring nuclear weapons. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, right, thinks the time for dialogue with North Korea is over. (Yahoo News photo illustration; photos: AP, Getty)

TOKYO — The streets of Kasumigaseki, Tokyo, were lined with side-by-side Japanese and American flags for President Trump’s arrival in early November. Inside the district’s government buildings, civil servants had carefully prepared to give the often-unpredictable U.S. leader a promising welcome on the first stop of his 12-day, five-nation tour through Asia.

Any fears that the U.S. would no longer defend Japan (stemming from Trump’s campaign rhetoric about “global freeloading”) virtually disappeared as the two world leaders golfed, dined, autographed baseball hats and reaffirmed their commitment to the alliance. Both men agreed it was the time for pressure, not dialogue, with North Korea and that the full range of U.S. military capabilities — both conventional and nuclear — would be available for Japan’s protection.

The threat of North Korea and escalating tensions in East Asia have recently driven Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to expand the powers of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces (SDF). But the country still relies mainly on the United States’ nuclear umbrella and military for protection.

But not all Japanese are pleased with this arrangement. As the only country to have been attacked with atom bombs, Japan has long been committed to abolishing nuclear weapons and upholding pacifism. The government abides by three nonnuclear principles: not to manufacture, not to possess and not to introduce nuclear weapons. Despite decades of disarmament treaties and pledges there are still an estimated 15,395 nuclear weapons on earth and the pace of their reduction has slowed in recent years.

From Nov. 5 until Nov. 11, I traveled through the island nation on a journalism fellowship from Foreign Press Center Japan. I met government and military officials, students, activists, intellectuals and civilians to see what different strata of Japanese society think about a range of issues, but we always circled back to a singular concern: How can Japan protect itself while upholding its pacifist ideals especially in light of increasing provocations from North Korea?

Yahoo News journalist Michael Walsh took the bullet train from Tokyo to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He flew back to Tokyo for a few more days of reporting before returning to the United States.

I visited the only cities to suffer atom bomb attacks, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the city that experienced the deadliest conventional bombing raid in history, Tokyo. What I heard revealed a country divided among realists, idealists and every shade in between.

“I’m nervous about North Korea very much and think they might attack Japan,” a young mother told me while browsing in Shinbashi Station market. “There is nothing Abe can do to stop this. Because they have nuclear weapons, I think we need to be prepared.”

Part I – Security

Article 9

After World War II, Japan adopted a constitution with a clause that outlaws war as a means of settling disputes: Article 9, which states, “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.”

In 2014, the Japanese government approved a controversial reinterpretation of Article 9 that allows the SDF to fight overseas to defend allies, such as the United States, from attacks. The Japanese military hadn’t been able to fight abroad since World War II ended. This reinterpretation, the most drastic policy change in the SDF’S history, was made official by the National Diet, Japan’s legislature, in 2015 and it took effect in March 2016.

Yoshimitsu Morihiro, a deputy director at the Bureau of Defense Policy, said the law is limited to situations that ultimately threaten Japan’s security, and that the constitution still restricts the SDF from going overseas for combat missions and provides clear conditions for what constitutes peacekeeping.

“A key change introduced under new legislation is we can do partial, collective self-defense. It is really limited to a response to an attack against a foreign country that results in threatening Japan’s survival,” Morihiro said. “It would need to be a country that has a really close relationship with Japan and some kind of commitment to Japan’s defense. Simply, in the current situation, the best candidate is the United States.”

Abe still wants to change Article 9 so Japan can take a more active role in securing peace and stability but has not yet provided a complete draft for the revision — and the Japanese public is split. A poll from the Mainichi Shimbun, a major newspaper in Japan, was almost evenly split among those who support revising Article 9, those opposed and those who aren’t sure.

Internationalism vs. isolationism

Narushige Michishita, the director of the Security and International Studies Program at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, said that Japan purports to be a pacifist country and that people believe it, but that Japan has supported most of the wars the U.S. has fought since World War II. In fact, Japan contributed $13 billion to the war effort during the Gulf War in 1991 — it just doesn’t send its own troops to fight.

“Pacifists don’t support wars or finance wars. We do all the time. When we say, ‘We are pacifists’ what we really mean is ‘We are isolationists,’” Michishita said. “Some people say we’re moving away from pacifism toward militarism, but that’s not true. We are moving from isolationism to internationalism.”

Masami Zkeda, 36, lives in Kanagawa Prefecture with her family and took her toddler son to a book market at Shinbashi Station in Tokyo on Nov. 6, 2017. “I’m not sure if Trump is qualified to be president. He’s not from politics, so even from a Japanese perspective, I’m not sure he’s doing a presidential job. I don’t think he would be able to stop North Korea from having nuclear weapons,” Zkeda said. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

Michishita said most Japanese have been pleased to have the U.S. protect their nation rather than send their own men and women into harm’s way. But he sees the U.S. becoming gradually more isolationist. Former U.S. President Barack Obama said the U.S. will no longer be the world’s policeman and Trump’s inclination toward isolationism is well known. Meanwhile, instability in East Asia only appears to confirm Abe’s belief that Japan needs to contribute more to regional security.

Abe singled out North Korea as an imminent threat during a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 21.

Missiles

At Japan’s Ministry of Defense headquarters in Tokyo’s Shinjuku ward I met with several other deputy directors at the Bureau of Defense Policy to learn about the defense systems they have in place to stop potential attacks.

Ryusuke Wakahoi, of the Strategic Intelligence Analysis Office for the Defense Intelligence Division, said the range of North Korea’s ballistic missiles is growing, and a new version, the Hwasong-14, which was launched twice in July, has a range of at least 5,500 kilometers. North Korean missiles can be hard to detect when they’re in place (that is, before launch), he said, because many are fired from a movable launch pad called a TEL (transporter-erector-launcher) or from submarines.

Since 2006, North Korea has conducted six nuclear tests. The most recent, in September 2017, released 160 kilotons of energy — the largest yet, ten times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. Wakahoi said it’s possible that North Korea has already been able to miniaturize nuclear weapons to mount them on missiles.

A subway advertisement for a weekly magazine features Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, his wife, Akie Abe, U.S. President Trump, first lady Melania Trump and first daughter Ivanka Trump. The ad claims the American, Chinese and Korean media are laughing at the excessive hospitality Abe showed the Trump family. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

“We tried to have dialogue with North Korea but we failed to stop them from developing nuclear weapons,” Wakahoi said. “By offering time for dialogue we actually ended up giving time to them for developing nuclear weapons. And it’s highly unlikely we could change their mindset by having dialogue.”

Yosuke Nagata, of the Strategic Planning Division, said Japan’s ballistic missile defense (BMD) system uses installations on board destroyers to target long-range missiles and relies on land bases to protect against medium- or short-range missiles. He said Japan is working with the U.S. military to develop more advanced missiles and related technology to keep up with North Korea.

SM-3 missiles fired from Aegis destroyers are designed to stop ballistic missiles midcourse and Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles are intended for the final stages of flight at lower altitudes.

“We developed BMD ships to defend Japanese territory and BMD architecture based on cooperation with the United States. We always need assistance from the United States,” Nagata said. “But it is very important to defend Japanese territory using Japanese capability.”

Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty

Japan perplexed onlookers when it abstained from voting on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (also called the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty), which bans the development, possession, transfer, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, at the United Nations on July 7, 2017. In a historic vote, 122 nations adopted the resolution, and the 50 nations required for ratification signed the treaty on Sept. 20, 2017. This is the most significant international agreement on nuclear weapons since the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was adopted in 1968, although nations that already possess nuclear weapons, including the United States, do not consider themselves bound by it.

International and domestic supporters of the treaty criticized Japan’s decision to side with nuclear states but it wasn’t particularly surprising. Japan had voted against a 2016 resolution to negotiate the treaty ban in the first place and explained why it couldn’t support the treaty in a March 2017 statement: the treaty would not resolve security issues or lead to the elimination of a single warhead.

Part II — Peace

Surviving Hiroshima

Sunao Tsuboi, 92, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, tells Yahoo News journalist Michael Walsh about his life and thoughts on contemporary politics. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

The Abe administration’s push to revise Article 9 is a hard sell for many Japanese who grew up hearing stories about World War II. The government’s decision not to support the nuclear ban treaty was an even harder sell to the “hibakusha,” the survivors of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After leaving the Ministry of Defense, I boarded the Shinkansen, or bullet train, for Hiroshima to hear from them firsthand.

Sunao Tsuboi, now 92, welcomed me into his office in Hiroshima on an overcast day after early morning rain. Some of the damage his body suffered on Aug. 6, 1945, was still evident on his ears and in his posture. Over cups of green tea, he told me about other hidden scars, clearly preserved in his memory.

The 20-year-old university student declined to join three older students for breakfast around 8:10 a.m. because he had already eaten. Five minutes later, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb called “Little Boy” on Hiroshima. Tsuboi was 1 kilometer from the hypocenter: the point on the ground directly beneath the detonation. His classmates at breakfast died instantly.

“As soon as I heard the sound I ducked on the road. I was blown over about 10 meters from the blast. I have a slight memory of the moment because I had momentarily lost consciousness. When I came to, I couldn’t see anything 100 meters ahead because there was so much smoke and dust,” Tsuboi said.

He said under such circumstances you might expect someone to think about the fates of his or her loved ones, but he only thought about his hatred of Americans for dropping the bomb and vowing to one day get his revenge.

“I was educated to think in that way due to militarism. It’s so much different from these days. Every citizen thought that way,” Tsuboi said.

The Flame of Peace in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park is intended to burn until every nuclear weapon has been eliminated from the earth. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

He estimates that “60 percent of people within one kilometer like me died,” and he expected to die himself. Walking to a relative’s house nearby, he saw people with severe burns over their faces, arms and feet. He looked in the mirror and saw his own injuries for the first time, severe burns across his body. Tsuboi ran off, holding his arms close to his body to ease the pain of his charred skin. He finally found a first-aid station that had been set up near a bridge and wrote a message in the dirt, “Tsuboi is dying here.”

A small military truck pulled up to rescue young men who could still contribute to the war effort. Women, children and the elderly were not allowed to take up spaces on the 10-person truck because they weren’t of use to the military. A little girl was trying to get on the truck but was scolded and sent away; she ran off, but in the wrong direction, toward the hypocenter. Tsuboi tried to warn her to run the other way, but she couldn’t hear him. He boarded the truck and was eventually taken to nearby Ninoshima Island to recover.

“I always think of her. She didn’t do anything wrong. She couldn’t find a place to escape and she must have died. Every survivor has a story like that,” he said.

Tsuboi, now the president of the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Survivor’s Association, told me about his long road to recovery and chronic health problems throughout his life. Although many physical scars remain, Tsuboi no longer hates the United States. He has been to the U.S. nine times, and he prayed for the victims of Pearl Harbor while in Hawaii. Tsuboi even got to meet Barack Obama during the former president’s trip to Hiroshima in May 2016.

“I told him that we don’t hate the U.S. so we are not asking for your apology. The A-bomb survivors don’t want that. We have overcome such emotions and we should work together,” Tsuboi said.

Regarding modern warfare, Tsuboi said humanity should focus on things that all people can enjoy together regardless of race, like art, music, theater and art, rather than developing new weapons and “thinking of the best way to kill each other,” holding up his cane to mimic the action of shooting a gun.

“As long as I’m alive, I will never give up. We should all hold hands across the world regardless of race or color of skin. We cannot be happy when we’re trying to kill somebody else. We have to understand that fact,” he said.

Peace Memorial Park

The Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is a remnant of the only structure near the hypocenter left standing after the bombing, an exhibition hall. Now its skeletal frame is a reminder of humankind’s ability to destroy and a symbol of peace. Kosei Mito, 71, has been volunteering as a tour guide around the site for 11 years.

Kosei Mito, 71, an in-utero survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, volunteers as a tour guide in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

Mito’s mother was four months pregnant with him at the time of the bombing and he suffered frequent illnesses throughout childhood. The “in-utero survivor” was holding the official pink certificate called the “A-bomb survivor’s health book” that was given to hundreds of thousands of survivors as he spoke to me about his strong belief that world opinion will lead to the abolition of nuclear weapons. He was frustrated that Trump said “anything would be an option” against North Korea and wishes Abe had told Trump that nuclear weapons should not ever be considered — even against North Korea.

He also accused the U.S. of hypocrisy, saying it has no right to tell other nations that they can’t possess any nuclear weapons since it already has so many. The United States has 6,800 nuclear warheads, surpassed only by Russia’s 7,000.

“I think in order to have a more convincing platform the U.S. should say, ‘We’re going to eliminate all of the nuclear weapons we have now so why don’t you get rid of the nuclear weapons you have with us?’” Mito said.

Masaaki Murakami, 24, who grew up in Hiroshima, works at a bar every night and volunteers alongside Mito every day. While discussing the tragedy, he showed me what he considers the most meaningful part of the park: the Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound, where the ashes of thousands of unidentified or unknown victims have been interred in a vault beneath a grassy mound.

Murakami thinks the U.S. and Japan are wrong about deterrence and need to understand that as long as nuclear weapons exist there’s a risk that someone may use them.

“During the nuclear era, deterrence may have been a viable option but it’s no longer the case. In my opinion, relying on the nuclear weapons of the other nations means we could be the target of a nuclear weapons attack,” he said. “I believe Japan should take advantage of its position as the only nation that’s experienced the atomic bombing. We shouldn’t follow the position of the U.S. and other nuclear nations.”

In Murakami’s opinion, young Japanese aren’t terribly interested in politics and don’t fully understand why Trump is problematic. He heard that Americans living in Japan expected large protests when Trump arrived but he believed, correctly, that wouldn’t happen.

Masaaki Murakami, 24, of Hiroshima, stands near the Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

“People are seeing a superficial image of Trump and his momentum and don’t think seriously about the details of the politics,” he said.

Murakami is also frustrated with Abe’s attempts to change the constitution. He thinks Abe is trying to capitalize on the positive image that the Japanese have of the SDF thanks to their disaster relief and rescue activities.

Just down the Motoyasu River, at the other end of the park, was the office of Kenji Shiga, director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Shiga said the museum’s exhibitions were intended to be thought-provoking, not didactic, evoking a range of responses. When asked if nuclear abolition was too idealistic, Shiga affirmed his belief that humankind can one day eliminate nuclear weapons from this world.

“The reason I think we can eliminate nuclear weapons from the world is I believe in the intelligence of human beings. We have a similar experience in the past. Humans have eliminated and gotten rid of weapons like poisonous gas and land mines,” Shiga said, with perhaps a touch more optimism than recent history warrants. “So humans have been making a certain effort for a long period of time. Now the United Nations is also making an effort with the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty. I’m sure such efforts will continuously be made.”

Memories of Nagasaki

The next day, I boarded the bullet train again, for a trip to Nagasaki, where the second and final atomic bomb used in war exploded on Aug. 9, 1945.

Takashi Kado, 82, met me at the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum wearing a light-green windbreaker with “Nagasaki Peace Guide” emblazoned across the back. He is healthy, active and, in his words, “very lucky.”

Takashi Kado, 82, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, talks to Yahoo News journalist Michael Walsh about nuclear weapons while looking at a replica of Fat Man, the bomb detonated over Nagasaki in August 1945. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

He lived about 3.5 kilometers from the hypocenter and was 10 years old when the U.S. dropped the bomb nicknamed Fat Man. He had been playing on the road near his house in the hot summer sun when he noticed a strong flash that made him look up to the sky. Two seconds later, he heard a calamitous sound and thought that a star had fallen from the sky. His teacher had just taught him about stars before summer vacation. He also remembered his teacher told him if a bombing occurred that he should take cover under his desk, but he was outside, so he knelt on the streets and covered his eyes. About seven seconds later, the blast swept through the street and threw him against the wall of his home.

“I was scared and frightened. I didn’t know what to do. I was shaking, terrified. My mother called my name, “Takashi, Takashi!” and I told her I was not able to move,” Kado recalled. “My mother ran to me. She grabbed my arm and pulled me into the house.”

Kado heard a voice bellow over the neighborhood loudspeaker, “The enemy is attacking! The enemy is attacking!” Grabbing a backpack with emergency supplies, such as a poison-gas mask, that he always kept near the front door, he and his mother took off toward the community shelter, an eight-minute walk from his home. They passed many bloodied, elderly people in the street whom they were unable to help.

“My mother wiped their faces with her apron and told them she was sorry but that she needed to escape as well. That is a very tragic history for one young boy,” he said.

As we walked through the museum, Kado shared a string of memories from life during wartime: the sound of American planes during the frequent air raids, the hunger from the food shortage and the image of his mother praying that the bombs would not strike their house.

Commuters travel to work using the Nagasaki Electric Tramway. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

Before parting ways, I asked Kado what he thinks about the current North Korea situation. He said that Japan should become friends with North Korea and work together to foster cross-cultural understanding. He said more people need broader minds — something severely lacking in North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“He is stupid. Kim Jong Un is a crazy man. So that is the honest opinion about North Korea. It is inhumane,” he said.

Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition

The Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition (RECNA) at Nagasaki University — only a five-minute cab ride from the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum — was founded in 2012, inspired by Obama’s 2009 speech in Prague about “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

RECNA has three main objectives: to research, analyze and circulate information on the significance of the atomic bombing experiences; propose actions that could lead to the abolition of nuclear weapons; and cultivate a new generation of storytellers to share the experiences of the hibakusha when they’re gone.

Tatsujiro Suzuki, the director of RECNA, said Japan faces what he’s dubbed a “nuclear trilemma.” Along with its desire for deterrence and abolition, Japan needs to address its 47.8-ton stockpile of plutonium, which is the largest of any nonnuclear state and amounts to “latent nuclear capability.” Japan has been developing civilian nuclear energy since 1956 by recycling spent nuclear fuel to recover plutonium. The nation wanted an “indigenous nuclear fuel cycle” because it barely has any natural resources.

Tatsujiro Suzuki, the director of the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition at Nagasaki University, in his office. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

“Naturally people are suspicious of Japan’s accumulation of plutonium. Only 8 kilograms are necessary to make a bomb. Now Japan has 47 tons. So that’s a lot,” Suzuki said. “Even though Japan has committed to not making any nuclear weapons and this plutonium only has civilian uses, this huge supply makes Japan vulnerable to international concern.”

Suzuki thinks Japan should have supported the U.N. treaty prohibiting the possession and threat of nuclear weapons. He said it’s a good time for Japan to shift to a security policy that does not rely on nuclear deterrence.

RECNA is devoted to a specific policy goal of establishing a nuclear-free zone among three countries in Northeast Asia: South Korea, North Korea and Japan. Then China, Russia and the United States would provide negative security assurance, which means they would agree not to attack or threaten to use nuclear weapons against those three countries. North Korea has not accepted invitations to join these negotiations.

“There is no evidence that deterrence works. This is  about the current situation. If nuclear deterrence perfectly worked, why would we have to worry about North Korea? We have them already. Dependence on deterrence does not have assurance. I would ask them, OK, you believe in nuclear deterrence. Why are you worrying now?”

Suzuki argued that Abe is pushing Japan toward militarism and that the security laws passed last year are unconstitutional. He said enabling the SDF to collaborate with the U.S. all over the world violates Article 9 and that the clause limiting their deployment to situations threatening Japan’s survival is too vague.

Nagasaki University students

Hanako Misuoka and Jo Takeda, both 21, have been involved with RECNA while studying at Nagasaki University. They stopped by the center to share their thoughts as young Japanese concerned with nuclear proliferation.

Misuoka, from Saga Prefecture, studies education but doesn’t want to become a teacher. She wants to establish an education reform organization because she thinks Japanese education curricula are too biased and that students rarely get the whole story. Takeda, from Kumamoto, is preparing for a recruitment exam for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He wants to work on nuclear weapon issues and cultivate understanding between different cultures through diplomacy.

They said the Japanese public is almost evenly split between people favoring nuclear abolition and people who want to maintain deterrence, mostly against North Korea. But for their part, they favor signing the controversial U.N. treaty.

“If Japan becomes a signatory of the treaty it will boast some influence on other countries,” Misuoka proposed.

She said she had an opportunity to teach at an elementary school a few days earlier and was surprised that none of her students had heard of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year.

Nagasaki University students Hanako Misuoka and Jo Takeda, both 21, share a few laughs on campus. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

Both students said they harbor no ill will toward Americans for the atomic bombings and that it’s more important to work toward peace and nuclear abolition today than dig up old grudges.

“It’s history. We did something bad to each other. We did Pearl Harbor. You did the atomic bombing. But the war is over,” Takeda said. “Of course, history is important but the current issue is more important. We need to cooperate with each other to prevent another war. We have to remember but I don’t blame American people today.”

Both students appreciated Obama’s trip to Hiroshima and said it had long been a wish among survivors for a sitting U.S. president to visit. They said visiting Hiroshima or Nagasaki goes a long way in raising a person’s awareness of nuclear issues.

“From my story, I wouldn’t be interested in nuclear weapon issues if I didn’t come to Nagasaki. I think it’s important for people from nuclear weapons states and under a nuclear umbrella to come to Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Takeda said.

Misuoka wishes that Abe would stand up to Trump and encourage him to pursue more diplomatic methods of resolving conflicts.

“When we look at Obama and Trump it seems that Obama is committed to peace and that Trump is trying to increase the military capability and insists on ‘America First.’ [Our] Prime Minister doesn’t say ‘no’ to anything that Trump is saying.”

Part III — Pride

Nagasaki defense today

I took the Nagasaki tramcar to meet Hiroharu Aoki, the director of the Crisis Management Division for the Nagasaki prefectural government. He greeted me at his office wearing a lapel pin, with the Japan and U.S. flags side by side, that had been given to him by a captain in the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet, which is headquartered in Yokosuka, roughly 40 miles south of Tokyo. Aoki was an officer with the SDF until two years ago.

Aoki’s division is preparing with the national government for a missile attack drill scheduled for Nov. 22 — the first of its kind. The national government already sends “J-Alert” warnings of terror attacks or natural disasters to local media and citizens via smartphones, email and loudspeakers.

Hiroharu Aoki, the director of the Crisis Management Division in Nagasaki Prefecture, looks at a map in his office that shows the range of North Korean missiles. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

“It’s a very outstanding mission to be able to protect the peace and independence of the nation, and the lives of the people,” Aoki said. “I have worked in the SDF for 37 years after graduating from the National Defense Academy of Japan. And my son is also an officer. I’m very proud of that.”

For Aoki, the new Abe laws are simply the legal basis for Japan to contribute to peace and security on a level comparable to its allies. He said that although the national government and SDF have set up ballistic missile defense for potential attacks, individual preparedness among residents, such as access to shelters, is inadequate.

“On the resident level, it is not easy to set up a shelter. So we can have a drill and call for an evacuation and encourage citizens to be ready for an emergency,” he said.

Aoki keeps a map of East Asia on his wall with concentric circles rippling out from Pyongyang. Each circle represents North Korea’s potential reach with various weapons. Given its location in Southwestern Japan on the island of Kyushu, Nagasaki is close to the Korean Peninsula.

Talking to Aoki reveals his sense of duty and deep-seated desire to defend his nation, prefecture and city. After leaving his office, I took a cab to Nagasaki Airport to catch a Japan Airlines flight back to Tokyo — with a newfound appreciation for the pride that men and women of the SDF feel for contributing to Japan’s security alongside the United States.

Former minister of defense

Gen Nakatani, who served as the minister of defense under Abe from December 2014 to August 2016, is now a member in the House of Representatives, the lower house of the National Diet. His office, across the street from the National Diet Building in Chiyoda, Tokyo, is decorated with graceful Japanese calligraphy, as well as photographs from his extensive career in politics and the military.

Nakatani used to train the Self-Defense Force rangers and said he still knows what’s going on in the field. Every January, he said, he participates in parachute training with current officers, which helps build a sense of unity in their mission to “defend the country together.”

Gen Nakatani, a former minister of defense for Japan, talks to Yahoo News journalist Michael Walsh about the threat of North Korea in his Tokyo office. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

According to Nakatani, it’s time to place sanctions and other forms of pressure on North Korea because it has already broken its promises to stop pursuing nuclear weapons after the six-party talks. Japan and the United States are in agreement on that policy.

“They’ve conducted six nuclear weapons tests. The latest nuclear test’s size was about 160 kilotons, 10 times larger than the Hiroshima atomic bomb,” Nakatani said. “Of course, we will not allow such provocative threats to the international community. It’s on an unprecedented scale and threatens the entire region. This is a great and immediate concern for us.”

In order to protect the Japanese people, he said, the SDF will keep working with the U.S. to make sure it can intercept North Korean attacks with SM-3 and PAC-3 and will in other respects have the right defense system in place.

“Of course, this was one of the topics discussed by Trump and Abe,” he said.

He added that the Japan-U.S. alliance is the most important international agreement to secure peace and stability throughout Asia.

A view of the National Diet Building, which contains both houses of Japan’s bicameral legislature, in Nagatacho, Tokyo. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

Nakatani said Japan will continue to advocate strongly for nonproliferation of nuclear weapons but that threats from North Korea, China and Russia make it necessary for Japan to rely on the United States’ nuclear umbrella. He said the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was established with the understanding that the U.S., Russia, the U.K., France and China are nuclear weapon states and that dramatically disrupting the current world order could be dangerous.

He was also grateful that Trump met with families of Japanese citizens who have been abducted by North Korea.

Abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korea

The abduction issue is a major roadblock for Japan-North Korea relations. During the ’70s and ’80s, many Japanese citizens disappeared under strange circumstances. Japanese authorities concluded through subsequent investigations that North Korea was involved and brought the issue up at every chance since 1991. Finally, in 2002, North Korea admitted that it had abducted these citizens, returned five and promised to stop. But there are still many points of contention between the nations.

The motivations behind the abductions are not clear in all cases. But the Japanese government says North Korea had at least three reasons for these crimes: North Korean agents could steal the identities of the abducted Japanese citizens, victims could be forced to teach North Korean spies Japanese language and culture and victims could be recruited for the “Yodo-go” terror group, which infamously hijacked Japan Airlines Flight 351 in 1970.

The Japanese government official recognizes 17 people as abducted since 1977 but some suspect there were hundreds of victims. The North Korean government, on the other hand, claims there were only 13 victims and that eight have died and five have been returned — thus resolving the issue.

Japan says that North Korea has not produced any credible objective evidence corroborating the claim that the remaining missing persons have died. Cases like the abduction of 13-year-old Megumi Tokota from Niigata Prefecture in 1977 are well known in Japan. Her pictures were prominently displayed on the walls of the Shinjuku subway station in Tokyo while I was there.

On Nov. 9, 2017, Tokyo’s Shinjuki rail station prominently displayed a large image of Megumi Tokota, who was abducted by North Korea in 1977, when she was a 13-year-old junior high school student. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

The Japanese government maintains that it will not normalize diplomatic relations with North Korea until the abduction issue is resolved.

I met with Masahide Adachi, the director for the Office for the Assistance of the Abductees and their Family Members, to discuss recent developments on this issue. During our conversation, Adachi and members of his staff were wearing blue ribbon-shaped pins, a symbol of hope that one day the abductees will return home.

He pointed out that Abe has been referring to these abductions at various international meetings and conferences since taking office. He said the Japanese government urged Trump to meet with the families of abductees and that it didn’t take long for him to agree.

“I think awareness of this issue in the United States has been on the rise partly because of the nuclear missile issue of North Korea, and human rights issues are of course important for the U.S.” he said.

In September, Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to refer to the abduction issue during a speech to the U.N. General Assembly. Although Obama and Bush had met with some family members, Trump’s invitations went to every family member for each victim and 17 people in total were able to attend.

“When the families met with Trump and were able to get close to him they were only supposed to talk for 20 minutes but it wound up being 35 minutes,” Adachi said. “Trump stayed focused and listened to what each family member said. He shared their feelings and was very compassionate.” He said meeting the U.S. president is not the end goal and that it won’t mean much if it doesn’t help resolve the issue, but it was successful.

“That the president of the United States, the most influential nation in the entire world, met with the abductees’ family members and was very compassionate meant a lot,” he said.

Adachi said he also hopes the international pressure building around North Korea’s development of nuclear technologies will make Kim resolve the abduction issue. When asked if he would support any use of force to rescue the remaining abductees, Adachi said the government’s policy is to continue pursuing dialogue and applying pressure.

“The government will continue to do its best,” Adachi said. “Where we are right now resembles what went on in 2002 when five abductees came back to Japan.”

Center for the Promotion of Disarmament and Non-Proliferation

Hirofumi Tosaki is a senior research fellow at the Center for the Promotion of Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, which is dedicated to achieving the goal of “everlasting world peace.” But he supports the Japanese government’s position of not signing the United Nations nuclear-ban treaty.

Hirofumi Tosaki, a senior research fellow at the Center for the Promotion of Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, explains his issues with the United Nations’ Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

During our conversation at the center’s Tokyo headquarters, which is part of the Japan Institute of International Affairs, a foreign-policy think tank, Tosaki argued that adopting the treaty without the cooperation of nuclear-armed states would merely exacerbate the divisions between nuclear states and nonnuclear states, as well as between nonnuclear states under and outside of nuclear umbrellas. He also said the treaty is unlikely to lead to disarmament concessions.

Although he would like concrete steps to promote disarmament, Tosaki thinks Japan’s erratic relationships with North Korea, China and Russia make the U.S. nuclear umbrella vital, until threats have been reduced significantly. He is sympathetic to the hibakusha and NGOs calling on the government to support the treaty, but he said their arguments aren’t accepted by the ruling party, some opposition parties, or the general public.

“We understand that nuclear weapons are very dangerous, inhumane weapons but because of their destructive power they work as a deterrent,” Tosaki said.

Tosaki explained that proponents of the ban treaty do not expect it to make a significant dent in nuclear stockpiles yet. They are, he continued, trying to reframe the narrative around humanitarian concerns by stigmatizing possession.

Japan, on the other hand, favors a “progressive approach” through which nuclear-armed states take simultaneous and parallel steps to break through the current disarmament gridlock.

In conjunction with Hiroshima Prefecture, the center has been publishing an annual “Hiroshima Report” evaluating the current state of nuclear disarmament since 2011. In the most recent edition, they concluded that prospects for eliminating nuclear weapons from the world “are still distant at best.”

Leaving Japan

One of my last interviews before leaving Japan was with Go Ito, a professor of international relations at Meiji University. He argued that North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear capabilities stems from its feeling of having been abandoned by former allies Russia and China after they resumed diplomatic relations with South Korea in the late ’80s and early ’90s. It’s a dream the country has harbored ever since: “My understanding is that North Korea was an abandoned country so they think nuclear weapons are the only method for them to survive.”

Go Ito, a professor of international relations at Meiji University, walks through Kasumigaseki, Tokyo, at night. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

U.S. and Japanese officials have declared that it would be absolutely unacceptable for North Korea to maintain nuclear weapons for decades. But what does unacceptable really mean? Would either country be willing to preemptively attack North Korea to make them stop? That doesn’t seem likely. Right now, we are looking at a world in which North Korea has become a nuclear state — like it or not.

North Korea insisted for years that it wanted a nuclear weapon for deterrence just like the U.S. and Japan have. As I entered Narita International Airport for my flight back to New York, I thought of something David Denoon, a former deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Defense who now teaches politics and economics at NYU, told me before the trip:

“North Korea now has effective deterrence. And that means that nobody is going to attack them without the very high probability of starting war. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have made a mistake saying that a North Korean nuclear weapon is unacceptable because it’s not clear what we would do once the North Koreans demonstrated that they have a nuclear weapon.”

On Nov. 20, nine days after I returned, Trump announced that his administration was restoring North Korea to the United States’ list of state sponsors of terrorism, adding to Pyongyang’s diplomatic isolation: “It should’ve happened a long time ago. It should’ve happened years ago.”

There was some hope at the time of my visit that the U.N. resolution in September strengthening oil sanctions against North Korea might be working, since North Korea had not launched any ballistic missiles in three months. But on Nov. 28, North Korea fired a ballistic missile into Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

A view from Tokyo Tower on Nov. 11, 2017. (Photo: Michael Walsh/Yahoo News)

During my visit, I met many Japanese who are worried about the threat of North Korea but have different views on how the government should respond. Despite their reservations about Trump, essentially everyone with whom I spoke valued the U.S.-Japan alliance as central to the nation’s security and understood — even if some fundamentally disagreed with — why Japan would rely on the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Support for Abe’s moves toward greater self-defense capabilities has understandably risen along with Kim’s nuclear capabilities, but revising Article 9 is still a much-debated and controversial issue. And a sincere desire for pacifism and nuclear disarmament was strongest in people and places closest to the atomic bombs — arising from indelible memories that animate much thinking about war and peace in Japan.

Pacifism has been a central pillar of Japan’s national identity since the end of World War II. There are hints that the commitment of the Japanese people to this ideal has been changing. But the collective memory of the atomic bombs and decades of peace has all but guaranteed that these changes will be gradual and thoughtful.

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