Party for Japanese Kokoro (日本のこころを大切にする党) is a ultra-conservative political party representing constituency further to the right of the ruling (and conservative) Liberal Democratic Party. It was formed as the Party for Future Generations in 2014 by former Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara and others as they split from the Japan Restoration Party. The party changed its name to the Party or Japanese Kokoro in 2015.

In December 2013, members of Restoration Party visited California to urge local Japanese Americans to oppose the Comfort Women memorial in Glendale. The delegation consisted of Mio Sugita, Hiromu Nakamaru, and Yuzuru Nishida. Japanese American representatives rejected their historical revisionism.

The party was founded with 22 incumbents in the Parliament, but was decimated over the next two elections to only two members.

Princeton Institute for Asian Studies is a fake “institute” set up by historical revisionist and comfort women denier Koichi Mera and Global Alliance for Historical Truth to mislead educators and students about historical issues that are important to the Japanese far-right nationalists.

The “Princeton Institute,” which (obviously) is not affiliated with the Princeton University, states “two sides of a controversy must always be analyzed,” then goes on to offer Japanese nationalist and revisionist perspectives on the attack on Pearl Harbor (it was a conspiracy by FDR), comfort women (they were willing and well-paid prostitutes), Nanking massacre (all made up by the Chinese Communist Party), and the Tokyo Tribunal (racist and unfair).

According to Mera, the “Princeton Institute” is sending its “educational” materials to over a thousand schools in California.

Mera’s new campaign to mislead and misinform California students comes in response to the new common curriculum in the state, which includes teaching about the Japanese military “comfort women” issue. Through the “Princeton Institute,” says Mera, he plans to counter “them Korean and Chinese influences.”

After protests from Princeton University, the institute changed its name to the Pacific Institute for Asian Studies.

Website: https://pacificifas.org/

See the Institute of Moralogy.

Researchers of History on Modern Japan (HMJR, 日本近現代史研究会, also “KINGEN”) is a group of amateur “historians” founded in 2008 by Michio Ochiai (落合道夫), a member of Japan Conference. Kiyoshi Hosoya is the secretary general of HMJR, who hosts monthly lectures in Tokyo.

Under the leadership of Hosoya, HMJR submitted a position paper to the United Nations–see Alliance for Truth About Comfort Women Geneva Delegation (2016)–and filed an amicus curie in Gingery et al. v. City of Glendale.

Rompa Project (論破プロジェクト) is a historical revisionist group supported by Happy Science and led by Mitsuhiko Fujii, who is himself a follower of Happy Science. The group uses manga (comics) as well as panels to spread its messages, and often works closely with Tony Marano and Shunichi Fujiki.

Rompa Project boasted endorsements from the following individuals and groups (among others), which has since been deleted from its website:

• Hideaki Kase
• Koichi Sugiyama
• Shiro Takahashi
• Kohyu Nishimura
• Kazuyoshi Hanada
• Nobukatsu Fujioka
• Hiromichi Moteki
• Alliance For Truth About Comfort Women
• Happiness Realization Party

Website: http://rom-pa.com/

Above: A cut from Rompa Project’s comic, “The J Facts.” The bear character depicted fantasizing about demolishing a memorial for victims of Japanese military comfort women system is Tokkuma, a mascot for the Happiness Realization Party in 2012 and 2013 named after its candidate Tokuma.

Sankei Shimbun (産経新聞) is a daily newspaper in Japan with a distinct conservative and nationalistic slant. In 2015, Sankei had the seventh largest circulation after three major newspapers (Yomiuri, Asahi, and Mainichi) as well as some regional and specialized newspapers. Sankei Shimbun also publishes Seiron (正論), a monthly conservative opinion magazine, and Yukan Fuji (夕刊フジ), an evening daily.

Since April 2014, Sankei Shimbun began publishing a series of columns titled “History Wars” (歴史戦) that are aimed at overturning historical orthodoxy of Japan’s war crimes during the WWII, especially the comfort women system and the Nanking atrocities. Authors for the series include Yoshihisa Komori (古森義久), the newspaper’s Washington D.C. correspondent and a member of the editorial board; Rui Abiru (阿比留瑠比), the politics editor and a member of the editorial board; Takashi Arimoto (有元隆志), the politics editor; Katsushi Nakamura (中村将), the Los Angeles correspondent; and others.

Some of the early columns in the series were compiled and published in October 2014 as the book “History Wars,” which was then translated into English as “History Wars: Japan–False Indictment of the Century” in July 2015. It was one of the two books Parliament member Kuniko Inoguchi sent unsolicited to hundreds of foreign researchers and journalists covering Japan.

Following Akiko Okamoto’s earlier call to arms in the May 2012 issue of Seiron, Sankei views “history war” as a propaganda war waged by China and Korea against Japan at the United Nations and in the United States. Yoshiko Sakurai states in the blurb to the English edition of “History Wars”: “This is a war. Our enemy is China, and the main battle eld is the United States.” Sakurai further states, “The public opinion warfare that China has provoked is definitely a war without using weapons. Japan must make all-out efforts to counter the Chinese offensive.”

In addition to columns written by members of its own editorial team, Sankei Shimbun and Yukan Fuji publishes columns by noted history deniers including Koichi Mera, Tony Marano, Mio Sugita, Yumiko Yamamoto, and others. At least on one occasion, Sankei Shimbun formally sponsored a fundraising event for the Global Alliance for Historical Truth.

In 2017 Sankei Shimbun launched an English language news site Japan Forward, which publishes opinion pieces written by Michael Yon and other comfort women deniers.

Satoru Mizushima (水島総) is the founding president/director of right-wing television production company and internet station Channel Sakura and a comfort women denier.

In 2007, he spearheaded a protest letter against the U.S. House of Representatives for adapting H.Res.121 calling on Japan to formally acknowledge responsibility for the military comfort women system during the WWII. He signed on the letter as the director of the Japanese Citizens’ National Movement for the Historic Truth about the Comfort Women Issue (慰安婦問題の歴史的真実を求める日本国民運動の会), along with its affiliated groups.

Mizushima also signed onto an opinion ad by Committee for Historical Facts, Yes, we remember the facts. (2012) which was published in The Star-Ledger (New Jersey) in November 2012.

In April 2015, language lecturer Mariko Okada-Collins invited filmmaker Yujiro Taniyama to screen his lengthy comfort women denial film, “Scottsboro Girls” at Central Washington University where she teaches Japanese. However, after Michael Yon warned Okada-Collins that the film’s content could be highly offensive, she asked Taniyama to shorten the film to allow room for additional speakers. Koichi Mera was invited to give a speech along with Taniyama, and Jason Morgan Skyped in as well.

Campus community strongly protested the historical revisionist event, and multiple counter-events were organized by students and the faculty. See a series of articles about these events in the June 1, 2015 issue of the Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus Newsletter.

Seiji Yoshida (吉田清治) is the author of the 1983 “My War Crime,” in which he confessed is role in recruiting women to become comfort women in Jeju Island, Korea during the WWII through force, fraud, and coercion. In the early 1990s accuracy of some or most parts of the book have been called into question, leading both conservative and progressive historians to dismiss the book as a reliable source of historical knowledge by the mid-1990s.

Right-wing comfort women deniers portray Yoshida as the only or primary source on the historical orthodoxy on comfort women, arguing that the dismissal of Yoshida leaves us with no evidence that indicate any wrongdoings by the Japanese military. But researches have considerably advanced since the early 1990s especially after survivors of Japanese military comfort women began speaking out publicly, and the historical consensus on comfort women at least since mid-1990s have not relied on Yoshida in any way. In fact, it is partly these testimonies and researches that proved that Yoshida’s story was unlikely to be accurate.

The right-wing narrative also cannot explain why there was little national or international attention to the issue of comfort women, even after the publication of Yoshida’s book, until survivors began speaking out in the early 1990s if Yoshida was so foundational in our understanding of comfort women.

Under pressure from right-wing critics who blame Asahi Shimbun newspaper for “fabricating” the comfort women issue when it published stories that reported Yoshida’s testimony in the 1980s, in August 2014 the newspaper formally retracted a series of articles mentioning Yoshida, despite the fact that Asahi‘s reporting at the time was no different from those of other publications at the time, and the newspaper had already reported in March 1997 that Yoshida’s testimony had been questioned by experts and that he had refused to defend his claims in the book, after which Asahi stopped quoting or citing Yoshida.

See Sankei Shimbun.