ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the annual events that take place at Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine on the anniversary of the end of World War II and of Japan's unconditional surrender. The activities at Yasukuni, according to Harootunian, represent no more than a blind move to restore the past. Harootunian continues: For many ordinary Japanese, Yasukuni Shrine has become the place that houses the memory of Japan's wars and the heroic spirits who gladly gave their lives to the nation. Throughout the day a host of parallel activities are held in sites around the shrine. One of the larger stands erected especially for this day is staffed by representatives of the "Nippon-Kaigi", an organization characterizing itself as aimed at protecting the history, culture and tradition of Japan. In the Japanese context various historians, like Igarashi, have contended that the past – specifically, the experience of World War II – persists to emerge from within, to fester underneath, various phenomena in post-war Japan.
