Two good Japan articles (from Japan Focus)

One is on how "free" peaceful protest is in Japan if you oppose the nutter rightwing WW2 apologists at Yasukuni Shrine. (PM Koizumi and the racist bigot Tokyo governor Ishihara will have no problems there.)http://japanfocus.org/article.asp?id=387

The second is an article by a non-Japanese teacher's (William Underwood at Fukuoka Jo Gakuin University) attempts to address Japanese denials of its World War 2 atrocities.http://japanfocus.org/article.asp?id=384 It does tend to slightly degress in the "everyone does it" excuse for Japan's war conduct that many Japanese do. (The Americans did bad things too, so we can be excused.) Frankly, the US or British conduct that did not have a direct on Japan's---the atomic bombing could not be said to have influenced the Nanjing Massacre, for instance---so be kept a seperate issue. Period. Japan has used that excuse long enough.