As a board member of The Academy of Outrageous Books, Shunichi Karasawa sees parallels between the controversial essay written by sacked Air Self-Defense Force chief Toshio Tamogami, an apologist for Japan's wartime aggression, and classic "outrageous" conspiracy theories...

Regarding the vocal support for Tamogami's views that is rampant on the Internet, Karasawa pointed to a generation that he claims harbors resentment*....Article at the Japan Times.

I would guess that this resentment will increase rather than decrease. I only hope that those who predict the downfall of the LDP are right, not because Ozawa and the DJP are any great improvement, but because if the DPJ can win and govern well enough to gain support, perhaps it will begin a real 2-party system with choices in the future. But then again, who says that a second party would not turn more rightward and more revisionist and more isolationist than certain factions of the LDP. After all, some DPJ members signed the ad in the Washington Post last year claiming Japanese government innocence in the sex slave business in WW2.

As long as certain extremists keep denying Japan's wrongdoings in the war, criticism will continue. Were they simply to shut up some of the controversies might actually die down. They won't though.

*The younger generation resents criticism of Japan? Damn, what would they do if Japan got half the criticism that the US receives and has received for decades?

(For your mental health, avoid 2ch (2 Channel) and similar places. It can be depressing, alarming, and certainly impacts any impression one has of Japan. Tamogami seems soft compared to some of those folks.)