ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes Ishihara's nationalistic rhetoric, which seeks to constitute a homogenous Japanese cultural and ethnic identity. It connects this homogenizing rhetoric to the statements made by Ishihara and others who have both supported and critiqued the proposal and passage of Bill 156, arguing that the uproar constitutes a moral panic. The chapter reviews the moral panic over Bill 156 for what it reveals about modern anxieties over who constitutes a true member of a national community. National identity is partly constituted through the exclusion of others who are not included in the national community, and an analysis of Bill 156 as a moral panic demonstrates how the folk devils who are positioned as plaguing society serve as national Others who must be excluded. One of the key goals of Japanese nationalism is to place a sense of Japaneseness at the forefront of citizens' minds, starting as early as childhood through revisions to school curricula and textbooks.
