An estimated 4,000 people protested around the Diet building in Tokyo on Aug. 31, demanding the government scrap its plan to hold a state funeral for slain former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Alone inside an apartment house owned by the Tokyo metropolitan government, a Ukrainian woman quietly jots down hiragana characters on a sheet of paper provided by a Japanese language class.
For Japan’s postwar generations that had taken peace for granted, the conflict now raging in Ukraine has given many a new perspective on what it costs not to become embroiled in war, and the sacrifice it takes to fight back.
Like many Japanese, a student at Tokyo’s Toyo University has felt concerns about his own country’s defense capabilities as he followed the daily coverage of Russia s war against Ukraine.
East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) on April 15 removed a sheet of paper covering a station sign written in Russian that had offended passers-by angry about the country’s invasion of Ukraine.