Japan’s Nationalist Right in the Internet Age: ONLINE MEDIA AND GRASSROOTS CONSERVATIVE ACTIVISM (2025)

Towards a new protest cycle in contemporary Japan?

Social Movements and Political Activism in Contemporary Japan, 2018

Japan's Far Right in East Asian Geopolitics: The Anatomy of New Xenophobic Movements

This paper seeks to explain the sudden rise and success of Japan's xenophobic far right movements in the late 2000s. While older far right groups were royalists and anti-communists indifferent to immigration issues, new right extremists specialize in attacking Korean and Chinese migrants with strong xenophobic sentiments. Although far right movements accuse Koreans and Chinese of enjoying 'special privileges,' such accusations are ungrounded in reality. Yet far right movements have succeeded in recruiting many young supporters. Why is this the case? Based on in-depth interviews with new right activists, I aim to clarify what is behind the hate against Koreans and Chinese, focusing on the influence of East Asian geopolitical predicaments. I argue that the new xenophobic right is generated by entrenched cold war sentiments and the lack of reconciliation between Japan and other East Asian countries. The data reveal that new far right activists were first fascinated by histo...

In Search of Neto-Uyo’s Cure: A Critique of Nationalist-Chauvinist Rhetoric in Japanese-Language Cyberspace

The aim of this paper is to critically interrogate the growing prominence of nationalist-chauvinist rhetoric in post-3/11 Japan. More specifically, the paper attempts to discern the cyberspace right-wing or neto-uyo and its exclusionary and xenophobic rhetoric. Neto-uyo itself is not a very recent phenomenon: All kinds of bigotry and derogatory remarks against minorities and foreign nationals had already been present in the Japanese-language cyberspace. The pathology of neto-uyo, however, has now become particularly remarkable and more problematic. Due to the ever-increasing accessibility of Internet communication (e.g., blogs, SNSs, video-sharing websites, and smartphones), neto-uyo can now reach much larger and broader audience and its messages are shared by those who had not been previously exposed. More disturbingly, these neto-uyo discourses, once “virtual,” are now integral to real-life hate speech and physical violence. Historically tracing its metamorphosis, the paper concludes with a rather bold claim that potentials for politically-effective cure for neto-uyo are to be found not in the installation of netiquette, digital literacy education or state-sanctioned cyberspace censorship but in the re-articulation of the public nature of free speech and its kairotic reconfiguration against the current real-life political climate that itself has become more nationalistic/chauvinistic particularly after 3/11.

Japan's Right-wing YouTubers: Finding a Niche in an Environment of Increased Censorship

In recent years, online hate speech has gained considerable attention and some tech companies have attempted to regulate the behavior of internet users. One notable example is YouTube, the world's most popular video sharing website, which enacted new policies in 2017 to censor content it considered racist or hateful. This paper examines how this situation played out for Japan-based YouTube content creators. It looks at the videos and the viewer communities surrounding two very popular right-wing YouTube channels: Nihon Bunka Channel Sakura and Black Pigeon Speaks. Both Nihon Bunka Channel Sakura and Black Pigeon Speaks carefully tread the line between what is acceptable and unacceptable under YouTube's rules, avoiding the use of language that could be considered outright hate speech. They also embraced online crowdfunding—which draws upon the contributions of individual viewers—as an alternative to relying on traditional advertising revenue. Amid the growth of private regulation that attempts to silence online hate speech and far right content creators, these two channels have built and maintained loyal communities of viewers, allowing them to survive and thrive. This raises questions about whether YouTube and other private internet companies can effectively regulate undesirable speech on their platforms. Published by Seoul National University Asia Review Vol.8 | No.1 | 2018

The Rise and Fall of Japan's New Far Right: How Anti-Korean Discourses Went Mainstream

Politics & Society, 2021

Why has right-wing activism in Japan, despite its persistence throughout the postwar era, only gained significant traction recently? Focusing on the Zaitokukai, an anti-Korean movement in Japan, this article demonstrates how the new Far Right were able to popularize formerly stigmatized right-wing ideas. The Zaitokukai represents a political group distinct from the traditional Right and reflective of new Far Right movements spreading worldwide. In Japan, concerns about the growing influence of South Korea and China in the 1980s as well as the decline of left-wing norms opened up a discursive opportunity for the new Far Right. By framing Korean postcolonial minorities as undeserving recipients of social welfare benefits, the Zaitokukai mobilized perceptions of threat that has continued to powerfully influence public perceptions of Koreans even following the group's organizational decline. While past research has focused on the new Far Right's political influence, this article stresses their roles as ideological entrepreneurs.

Neo-Nationalism Seeks Strength From the Gods: Yasukuni Shrine, Collective Memory and the Japanese Press

This article examines Japanese press coverage of Premier Koizumi’s controversial visits to Yasukuni Shrine from 2001-2006. The shrine memorializes war dead, including 14 Class-A WWII criminals, and is implicated in the history issue—the unresolved legacy of Imperial Japan’s wartime history. Using critical, qualitative content analysis, we analyze the coverage’s representation of historical context. Theories of the social production of news and collective memory ground our analysis and interpretation of the representations and their implications. We argue that the press coverage that contextualized the shrine’s war criminals offered critical, mnemonic representations, while those that excluded this context provided fragmented representations. We assess the implications of these representations for the contemporary political objective of moving Japan toward a martial state. Ultimately, the Japanese press’ capacity to facilitate debate on history issues depends upon the public’s coming to terms with the war’s history and legacy.

Support for the radical right in Japan

Although no radical right party actually won a seat in Japanese national and local assemblies until 2012, radical right parties and movements have had a noteworthy place in postwar Japan. Moreover, new radical right movements have been growing in the last decade. While Japan's old radical right is authoritarian, anti-communist, and nationalist, the new radical right is uniquely characterized by its xenophobia. Keeping the rise of the new radical right in mind, Japan seems to be opening a Pandora's box of radical right politics-much the same as European countries. In this paper, we will examine the characteristics of Japan's radical right, comparing the different support bases of the old and new radical right politicians. Analyzing survey data from research we conducted in 2007, we found that nationalism was their most strongly correlated characteristic, while xenophobia had no significant role in steering the politics of the old radical right. That xenophobia is such a prominent feature of Japan's new radical right suggests that this political preference is aligning with its West European counterparts.

A Public Betrayed: An Inside Look at Japanese Media Atrocities and their Warnings to the West

Eur J Commun, 2005

Rethinking Japan: The Politics of Contested Nationalism

Social Science Japan Journal, 2019

Rethinking Japan provides an easy-to-read overview of postwar politics and what-according to the authors-has changed in Japan since the 1990s, particularly since 2012. Arthur Stockwin and Kweku Ampiah argue that the "new" Japan that has emerged is "more controlled, less democratic, less oriented toward peace, more internationally assertive, more inclined to confront neighboring countries, more unequal. .. [and] more concerned to fl aunt national traditions" (p. 268). In tracing the steps that led to this brave new world, the authors fi rst review the early postwar regime up to the 1980s and 1990s (chapter 1), before discussing the various political and socioeconomic changes that occurred in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s (chapters 2 and 3) and fi nally what they call the advent of the "2012 political system." This last part includes chapters on the debate about "Abenomics" (chapter 5), the revision of the Constitution of Japan (chapter 6), the Designated State Secrets Law and freedom of the press (chapter 7), historical revisionism and national identity (chapter 8), collective self-defense legislation (chapter 9), and Japan's foreign relations (chapters 10 and 11). The book's main story is no doubt the transition toward the aforementioned 2012 system. The authors strive to convey a realistic image of Japan during a period that has seen the country undergo substantial change. Thus, it is fi tting for the book to begin and end with brief discussions of the changing images of Japan in the West and how most of them had little to do with the realities of Japanese society and politics (pp. 3-5). For instance, the authors spend quite a few pages convincingly arguing that postwar Japanese governments have been far more proactive than widely assumed in the West (p. 272). This is the key argument of chapter 12, where the authors show that as far back as the Bandung Peace Conference in 1955 (in other words, just three years after the end of the Allied Occupation of Japan), the government did not yield to U.S. pressure (pp. 251-54). Seeing how Japan was experiencing "fundamental change in the politics, political economy, and conduct of foreign policy" (p. 2) and a democracy that was not "dead," "but rather [had] its character. .. being twisted into new shapes" (p. 2), the country was "moving into uncharted waters, and this means that assumptions about Japan need careful rethinking" (p. 7). After introducing the basic framework of postwar politics such as the 1955 regime centered on the single-party dominance of the Liberal Demo

Support for the Radical Right in Japan : Converging to the European Politics?

2016

Although no radical right party actually won a seat in Japanese national and local assemblies until 2012, radical right parties and movements have had a noteworthy place in postwar Japan. Moreover, new radical right movements have been growing in the last decade. While Japan’s old radical right is authoritarian, anti-communist, and nationalist, the new radical right is uniquely characterized by its xenophobia. Keeping the rise of the new radical right in mind, Japan seems to be opening a Pandora’s box of radical right politics—much the same as European countries. In this paper, we will examine the characteristics of Japan’s radical right, comparing the different support bases of the old and new radical right politicians. Analyzing survey data from research we conducted in 2007, we found that nationalism was their most strongly correlated characteristic, while xenophobia had no significant role in steering the politics of the old radical right. That xenophobia is such a prominent fea...