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November 11, 2026

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JAPAN

History

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Watercolor paintings by Itaru Maruo, a student deployed to China by the Imperial Japanese Army who died in World War II, are now displayed at the Wadatsumi no Koe memorial museum in Tokyo.

JAPAN / History / FOCUS

Sep 10, 2026

Memories of students killed in World War II live on at Tokyo museum

The Wadatsumi no Koe museum holds numerous letters, diaries and other personal effects of young men mobilized to the front lines.

A portrait of Japanese poet Ihara Saikaku, circa before 1693, from the Tokyo National Museum.

JAPAN / History / The Living Past

Sep 2, 2026

Love, lust and life in Saikaku’s Japan

By Michael Hoffman

Edo Japan, according to novelist Ihara Saikaku, was a world in which love could save or destroy you.

On Sept. 12, 2001, the front page of The Japan Times features striking imagery of the collapsing south tower of the World Trade Center in New York, shortly after the 9/11 attacks.

JAPAN / History / Japan Times Gone By

Sep 1, 2026

Japan Times 2001: Terrorists attack United States

Also in the archives, the signing of the Treaty of San Francisco and a secretive Soviet jet lands in Hokkaido.

Residents are seen walking beside rubble in the city of Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, in this undated photo taken soon after the end of World War II.

JAPAN / History

Aug 14, 2026

How U.S. bombing survey in Japan shed light on civilian sentiments of WWII

By Tomoko Otake

The survey, which a historian in Tochigi Prefecture’s Utsunimoya spent years translating, helped the city come to terms with the war’s consequences.

Kingo Wakasa photographs the kamikaze plane wing section he discovered at the USS Emmons wreck site.

JAPAN / History / FOCUS

Aug 12, 2026

Forty-five meters down, a diver races to record a fleeting moment of WWII history

By Mai Yoshikawa

Technical wreck diver Kingo Wakasa, 56, is going against all odds to document the rusted hull of the USS Emmons destroyer on the seabed off northern Okinawa.

On Aug. 14, 2001, the front page of The Japan Times featured one of the defining images of Junichiro Koizumi's premiership: the prime minister leaving Yasukuni Shrine after a controversial visit that reignited debates over Japan's wartime past and strained relations with its Asian neighbors.

JAPAN / History / Japan Times Gone By

Aug 3, 2026

Japan Times 2001: Koizumi visits Yasukuni early

Additionally, our archives feature more coverage on the Lockheed scandal and the creation of NHK.

Ships identified by the Philippine Coast Guard as Chinese research vessels are seen at Scarborough Shoal in the disputed South China Sea on June 15.

JAPAN / History

Jul 12, 2026

Japan and others mark 10 years since South China Sea arbitration

The countries stressed that the 2016 decision in The Hague “is final, legally binding and definitive between China and the Philippines” regarding their territorial row.

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Famima Park Azabudai is a concept store by FamilyMart that combines convenience store staples with branded apparel, merchandise and a landscaped outdoor space.

Convenience stores, toilets and the allure of everyday Japan

By Elizabeth Beattie

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