ABSTRACT
Accepting collective intergenerational responsibility for the injustices of the past is a crucial component in advancing reconciliation between the transgressor and the transgressed. More specifically, the key aim of this study is to examine the role of competitive victimhood in affecting the willingness of today's Japanese people to assume intergenerational responsibility for the nation's harm-doing in the colonial era before and during the Second World War. The design of the mixed methods study used a survey to assess to what extent competitive victimhood exists within the Japanese mentality and how it affects the respondents' willingness to assume responsibility for the nation's past injustices. An empirical study was designed to examine to what extent contemporary Japanese people remember the Second World War mainly as a history of their own victimization and if such narratives affect their acceptance of intergenerational responsibility for the nation's wartime injustices.
