Hideaki Kase (加瀬英明) is a foreign affairs commentator and the director of Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women, a revisionist group. He also leads Society for Dissemination of Historical Fact and is a leader of Japan Conference. Kase was interviewed in a 2007 documentary film about Iris Chang, the author of “The Rape o Nanking,” in which he argued that Nanking massacre did not take place.
Kase is said to be the author of “Minikui Kankoku-jin (Ugly Koreans),” which was published under the name of a fictitious Korean journalist. The book glorified the Japanese colonial rule of Korean peninsula, criticizing Korean people for their faulty remembrance of history. Some of his books are published by the Happy Science.
Himawari Japan (ひまわりJapan) is a comfort women denier group made up of Japanese women living in New York/New Jersey area, many of whom are followers of Happy Science. It was founded by Yoko Nagato in June 2016 and held a first lecture event featuring Mio Sugita, Shiro Takahashi, Yasuhiro Takasaki, and Shinichi Tokunaga.
In 2018, Himawari Japan was awarded a contract by the Japanese Consulate General in New York to set up a “help line” for Japanese residents in the area whose children are “bullied” due to “historical issues.” In addition, Himawari Japan solicits information about any use of “anti-Japanese” materials at schools including the film Unbroken or any events in the community related to the “comfort women” issue and any other topic connected to Japan’s history. The contract, which runs from May 2018 to March 2019 at $1,000 per month, is widely criticized because of the group’s political slant and lack of expertise on addressing bullying.
Website: http://himawarijapan.org/
Himawari Japan, a group of nationalist Japanese women in New York/New Jersey area led by Yoko Nagato, held its first-ever public event on August 23, 2016. The event was held in Japanese.
Speakers:
Also see: Comfort Women Denier Activities in the United States
Himawari Japan, a group of nationalist Japanese women in New York/New Jersey area led by Yoko Nagato, is holding its second public event on July 6, 2017. The event is to be held in Japanese.
Speakers:
Also see: Comfort Women Denier Activities in the United States
Hinomaru Gaisen Otome (日之丸街宣女子) is a right-wing nationalist manga/cartoon series by Akiko Tomita (富田安紀子). Episodes are first published in JAPANISM, a bimonthly magazine from Seirindo, and later compiled into comic books.
The first volume published in 2015 follows the main character, a middle school girl, who encounters an anti-Korean demonstration and “discovers” the “truth” that the mainstream media hide about the oppression of Japanese people by the Korean minority. The anti-Korean demonstration Tomita depicts are similar to those organized by Zaitokukai in reality, and many counter-demonstrators who protest them are also said to be based on real anti-fascist activists.
The second volume, published in 2016, explores yet another “hidden truth” of the comfort women issue. The chapter opens with a former classmate of the main character who had moved to Southern California discussing violent hate crimes and bullying that she is experiencing as a result of the construction of a comfort women memorial in Glendale. The storyline is based on the thoroughly debunked false claim of rampant bullying against Japanese children in that city.
The English translation of the second volume was also released as a self-published ebook on Amazon Kindle platform under the title “The Girls trying to bring about National pride 2.” The English version contains a special introduction titled “For Non-Japanese Readers” which declares “Japan’s nearby neighbors, China and Korea, have a habit of taking fiction and calling it history in order to make themselves look better.”
Hiromi Edwards (エドワーズ博美) is a translator, language instructor, and a comfort women denier. Edwards is a former member of Shinsei Bukkyo (新生佛教), a conservative religious group affiliated with Japan Conference, serving as its translator as well as a writer for Nippon Jiji Hyouron (日本時事評論) published by Shinsei Bukkyo. Edwards, who is a Japanese woman married to an American, studied at Japanese campuses of American universities and teaches Japanese at the Iwakuni U.S. base in Japan.
Since leaving Shinsei Bukkyo, Edwards has participated in comfort women denial as a member of the first Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women Geneva Delegation (2014), the translator for Yumiko Yamamoto’s press conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, and an attendant for Tony Marano during his visits to Japan.
Hiromichi Moteki (茂木弘道) is the secretary general of the Society for Dissemination of Historical Fact and a comfort women denier. He is also the owner of Sekai Shuppan, a publisher specializing in translating Japanese books to English, which aligns with Moteki’s and SDHF’s goal of translating Japanese historical denier literature such as Shudo Higashinakano’s The Nanking Massacre: Fact Versus Fiction, which Sekai Shuppan published in 2005.
Website: Sekai Shuppan
Historical Awareness Research Committee (歴史認識問題研究会) is a group consisting of far-right nationalists in Japan. It was first announced by Shiro Takahashi in his column on Sankei Shimbun newspaper on August 31st, 2016 and formally founded on October 1st, 2016. HARC aims to collect “evidences” that support its nationalist views, including comfort women and Nanking atrocities denial, and publish them in foreign languages to influence the international community.
At the time of founding, HARC distributes materials produced and previously distributed by Society for Dissemination of Historical Fact and Japan Policy Institute. Its office is housed at the Institute of Moralogy (モラロジー研究所), a semi-religious entity affiliated with Japan Conference.
Board members of HARC are:
Website: http://harc.tokyo/
