JAPANISM (ジャパニズム) is a bimonthly magazine published by Seirindo. Founded by conservative journalist Kohyu Nishimura, JAPANISM prominently features writings of far-right nationalist commentators, many of whom are comfort women deniers.

JAPANISM is home to the right-wing manga (comic series) Hinomaru Gaisen Otome (日之丸街宣女子) by Akiko Tomita (富田安紀子) which glorifies anti-Korean hate groups and propagates a thoroughly debunked claim that the establishment of a comfort women memorial in Glendale, California have led to widespread bullying against Japanese children.

Recent contributors to JAPANISM include Toshiko Hasumi, Shunichi Fujiki, Mio Sugita, Mitsuhiko Fujii, Makoto Sakurai, and others.

In September 2016, Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women sent its fourth overseas delegation to Geneva, Switzerland to attend the United Nations Human Rights Council and to meet with officials at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in charge of the agency’s Memory of the World Register.

At the UNHRC, Nobukatsu Fujioka of Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform gave a two-minute speech, taking advantage of the UN consultative status of the International Career Support Association.

The delegation included, among others:

• Shunichi Fujiki (chair), Texas Daddy Japan Secretariat
• Nobukatsu Fujioka, Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform
• Shuntaro Echigo (越後俊太郎), Secretary General of Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform
• Toshiko Hasumi
• Wako Katsura (桂和子), Group that will convey the correct history (正しい歴史を伝える会)
• Kazuo Sato (佐藤和夫), right-wing candidate for the House of Representatives

In addition to the formal delegation, the Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women recruited members of the public to accompany the delegation for 268,000 yens each. Paying tourists were offered opportunities to enter United Nations functions as members of the International Career Support Association.

Toshiko Hasumi (蓮見都志子) is an illustrator/cartoonist and a comfort women denier. She has drawn cartoons for the Texas Daddy Japan Secretariat and the right-wing magazine JAPANISM founded by Kohyu Nishimura.

In September 2015 her illustration depicting Syrian refugees as “fake” refugees seeking economic opportunities was met with international condemnation. In response, Hasumi stated that the cartoon was intended to criticize only the “fake” refugees and not the real ones, arguing that Japan has received far too many “fake” Korean refugees during the Korean War resulting in the persecution of Japanese nationals by the Koreans in Japan. Her message echoes those from Zaitokukai and other anti-Korean hate groups.

The collection of her political cartoons was published in December 2015 by Seirindo, the publisher of JAPANISM and other far-right publications. Texas Daddy Japan Secretariat and its director Shunichi Fujiki are credited with editorial assistance.

Hasumi accompanied Fujiki in September 2016 to Geneva, Switzerland as part of the Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women Geneva Delegation (September 2016) to attend the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Hasumi is identified as the President of the Society of Japanese Nationals in Canada to Protect Japan’s Honour (日本の名誉を護る在カナダ邦人の会) in petitions protesting various events or public acknowledgement of comfort women across Canada, although her connection to Canada is unclear.

See Japan Conference.

Kohyu Nishimura (西村幸祐) is a journalist who has covered sports until the 2002 World Cup Soccer co-hosted by Japan and South Korea, which apparently turned him into a critic of Korean culture and society. He has contributed nationalistic articles to conservative magazines such as Seiron and WiLL and was the founding editor in chief of far-right nationalist magazine JAPANISM.

Nishimura is a member of Committee for Historical Facts, the group responsible for comfort women denier opinion ads The Facts (2007) and Yes, we remember the facts. (2012). He characterizes international criticisms against Japan’s handling of the comfort women issue as the “intelligence warfare” conducted by “anti-Japanese fascists.”

Nishimura is credited as the supervising editor for the comfort women denier Tony Marano’s 2014 book, “Okore! Wana ni kakatta nihonjin (Get enraged! Japanese people caught in a trap).”

Tomomi Inada (稲田朋美) is a right-wing member of the parliament and the Minister of Defense under Abe administration (2016-). As a lawyer, Inada represented the families of Japanese soldiers executed as war criminals involved in Nanking atrocities against newspapers that reported the war crime. She was recruited by Shinzo Abe, then the acting secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party, to run for the House of Representatives after Abe heard Inada give a talk on the topic at the headquarters of the party.

Recognized as among the most hard-line nationalists when it comes to the issue of Japan’s past, Inada signed on to both The Facts (2007) and Yes, we remember the facts. (2012), opinion ads published in U.S. media to dispute historical orthodoxy on comfort women. Her appointment to Defense Minister by Abe led to a widespread concern about the further militarization of Japan.

Interestingly, Inada is surprisingly pro-LGBT, having proposed a legislation to combat discrimination against the LGBT community. In 2016, Inada claimed that LGBT groups in San Francisco supported Japanese Consulate’s campaign to prevent the establishment of a comfort women memorial in the city as a reason to support LGBT rights, but there is no evidence that any LGBT group took a position on the issue, let alone an opposition to the memorial. On the contrary, prominent Asian American LGBT leaders endorsed the memorial along with other Asian American community members.

Inada is a member of the parliamentary Japan Conference caucus.

Special Mission Committee to Restore the Honor and Trust of Japan (日本の名誉を守る特命委員会) is a committee within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party that was formed in October 2014 to refute criticisms toward postwar Japan’s handling of the Japanese military comfort women system during the WWII. It is headed by Hirofumi Nakasone (中曽根弘文), and Tomomi Inada (稲田朋美) spoke at the inaugural meeting along with him.

The committee me 13 times over the next year to discuss “false” depictions of the comfort women system in foreign media and textbooks, and issued a report in July 2015 calling on the Japanese government to more aggressively “correct the misperceptions regarding the comfort women issue.”

Members of the committee were:

• Masahiko Takamura (高村正彦), advisor
• Hirofumi Nakasone (中曽根弘文), chair
• Takeshi Iwaya (岩屋毅)
• Itsunori Onodera (小野寺五典)
• Yoshiaki Harada (原田義昭)
• Katsuei Hiarasawa (平沢勝栄)
• Keiji Furuya (古屋圭司)
• Kuniko Inoguchi (猪口邦子)
• Kenji Kosaka (小坂憲次)
• Keizo Takemi (武見敬三)
• Taimei Yamaguchi (山口泰明)
• Tsukasa Akimoto (秋元司)
• Masahito Moriyama (盛山正仁)
• Kenya Akiba (秋葉賢也)
• Tsutomu Tomioka (冨岡勉)
• Shuichi Takatori (高鳥修一)
• Masahiko Shibayama (柴山昌彦)
• Yoshitaka Ikeda (池田佳隆)
• Tsuyoshi Hoshino (星野剛士)
• Michiko Ueno (上野通子)
• Yutaka Kumagai (熊谷大)

Kuniko Inoguchi (猪口邦子) is a political scientist turned politician elected to the House of Representatives from 2005-2009 and House of Councillors from 2010-today. She is a member of Liberal Democratic Party.

In September 2015, Inoguchi sent a package containing copies of books glorifying or defending Japan’s past to over a hundred scholars and journalists specializing in researching and reporting on Japan. The accompanying letter signed by Inoguchi stated, “In East Asia, the regional history of the 20th century has been incorrectly distorted (sic) by some individuals due to their current domestic political ambitions […] I believe it is important for you, as a highly esteemed member of the academic and policy circles (sic), to look into the books which I am enclosing with this letter.” Included books were “History Wars” published by Sankei Shimbun and “Geting Over It! Why Korea Needs to Stop Bashing Japan” by Sonfa Oh, a naturalized Japanese citizen of Korean descent.

In interviews, Inoguchi stated that the books were sent on behalf of the Liberal Democratic Party’s project team, but did not identify the team. She also declined to clarify where the funding for the books and shipment came from. Inoguchi is a member of the LDP Committee on International Communications, which calls for “more aggressive external communications” against “false reports regarding comfort women.”

Toru Hashimoto (橋下徹) is a former Mayor of the City of Osaka, Governor of the Prefecture of Osaka, and the leader of Osaka Ishin movement (Japan Innovation Party, Innovation from Osaka, etc.). Hashimoto announced retirement from politics in December 2015 after his term as the Osaka Mayor expired, but continues to serve as the legal and policy advisor to the Nippon Ishin no Kai (日本維新の会).

In May 2013, while he was the Osaka Mayor, Hashimoto argued that “in the circumstances in which bullets are flying like rain and wind, the soldiers are running around at the risk of losing their lives… if you want them to have a rest in such a situation, a comfort women system is necessary: anyone can understand that.” He further suggested that the U.S. military should utilize legalized sexual services to reduce sexual violence committed by members of the U.S. Armed Forces in Okinawa. In response, U.S. Department of State spokesperson Jen Psaki immediately criticized Hashimoto’s statement “outrageous and offensive,” and the City and County of San Francisco asked Hashimoto to cancel his planned sister city visit.

Two weeks later, Hashimoto retracts his comment about U.S. service members while insisting that the comfort women system was similar to legalized prostitution at the time and that the Japanese military was not involved at all in the trafficking of comfort women during the WWII. The City and County of San Francisco adapted a resolution condemning Hashimoto’s statement in June.

In July 2015, as the City and County of San Francisco considered a resolution establishing a comfort women memorial in a city’s public park, Mayor Hashimoto criticized the resolution as “unfair” and sent a letter opposing the memorial.

Shinzo Abe (安倍晋三) is the 90th (2006-2007), 96th and 97th (2012-now) Prime Minister of Japan. Abe is recognized as one of Japan’s most nationalistic leaders in recent history. As a young legislator, Abe was the secretary general of the Young Diet Member Group for Considering Japan’s Future and History Textbooks (日本の前途と歴史教科書を考える若手議員の会, Nippon no zento to rekishi kyokasho wo kangaeru wakate giin no kai) made up of conservative members of his Liberal Democratic Party.

As the Prime Minister, Abe made a comment in March 2007 denying “forcible recruitment” of comfort women by the Japanese military. His remark was immediately criticized by the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Negroponte and others, but Abe doubled down on the comment by stating that there is no evidence that point to the forcible recruitment by the Japanese military. His Deputy Cabinet Minister further stated on radio that the women were sold by their parents to become comfort women, insisting that the Japanese military had nothing to do with it.

Emboldened by Abe, Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara and other political leaders repeated similar or even more controversial statements throughout the spring, which along with the publication of the devastatingly counter-productive opinion ad The Facts (2007) led to the issuance of the U.S. Congressional Research Service report as well as the passage in July of the U.S. House of Representative resolution H.Res.121, both of which were critical of Japan’s handling of the comfort women issue. Soon after, Abe abruptly resigned his position.

Before becoming the Prime Minister again in December 2012, Abe was among the co-signers to the opinion ad Yes, we remember the facts. (2012), a follow-up to the earlier ad in 2007 that denied historical orthodoxy on comfort women.

Upon returning to power, Abe became more cautious in addressing the issue of comfort women, focusing instead of delegitimizing the historical processes that led to the contemporary understanding of the comfort women issue. For example in June 2014, Abe administration released a report on the process resulting in Kono Statement (1993) intended to cast doubts in the accuracies of the groundbreaking 1993 statement by then-Cabinet Minister Yohei Kono that acknowledged Japanese government’s responsibility in the treatment of comfort women during the WWII, which was seen as the first step to retracting or trivializing it.

In March 2015 Abe expressed “sympathies” toward former comfort women, describing them as the victims of human trafficking, while leaving ambiguous who was responsible for the trafficking of the women. In April of that year, he delivered a speech at the joint session of the U.S. Congress without mentioning comfort women despite demands from some U.S. politicians and civic groups. A week later, a group of 197 mostly American scholars published the “Open Letter in Support of Historians in Japan” demanding Abe to take more concrete actions to address the issue of comfort women.

In December 2015, foreign ministers of Japan and South Korea jointly announced an “agreement” between two countries [Japan-ROK Agreement (2015)] that “permanently resolved” the issue of comfort women with Japan’s payment of 1 billion yens to the foundation set up by South Korean government to provide direct payment to the surviving former comfort women. The agreement was widely criticized by advocates for the comfort women because it did not involve survivors’ voices nor formal acknowledgement of violence by the Japanese military and also by Japan’s far-right fringes that considered any concession as unnecessary.