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Yasukuni Shrine, the Yushukan Military Museum, and Japan’s Place in the World
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
Abstract
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For almost 150 years, the Yūshūkan military museum on the grounds of Yasukuni Shrine has been one of the most prominent tourist sites in Tokyo. Opened in 1882 as Japan's first Western-style museum, the Yūshūkan is often seen as the emblem of the so-called “Yasukuni view of history, ” which downplays Japanese militarism and imperialism and is at the heart of tensions with other nations. This study is the first dedicated treatment of the long history of the Yūshūkan from its conceptualization in the 1870s to its place in Japan and the world in the 2020s. It argues that the origins of the Yūshūkan should be seen in the context of the global spread of the military museum as an institution in the late nineteenth century. Over the past 140 years, the Yūshūkan has gone from appealing to an emerging global standard to claiming a Japanese uniqueness as justification for its existence and has always been closely intertwined with global discourses on war, commemoration, and Japan's place in the world.
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References
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86 I am grateful to Noda Yasuhira for providing this insight in a discussion at the Yasukuni Shrine archive in December 2022.
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106 Shōnen sekai 10(4), pp. 108-109.
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109 Japan Times, 26 December 1928.
110 Nichidoku Seishōnen Dan Kōkan Kai ed. Nichidoku seishōnen dan kōkan kinen. Nichidoku Seishōnen Dan Kōkan Kai, 1939, p. 42.
111 Yomiuri shinbun, 13 June 1981.
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114 Mainichi Shinbun “Yasukuni” Shuzai Han. Yasukuni sengo hishi: A kyū senhan wo gōshi shita otoko. Mainichi Shinbunsha, 2007, p. 74.
115 Asahi shinbun, 9 September 1945; Asahi shinbun, 16 December 1945.
116 Schö�lz, Tino. Die Gefallenen besä�nftigen und ihre Taten rūhmen: Gefallenenkult und politische Verfasstheit in Japan seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016, p. 307; Mullins, Mark. Yasukuni Fundamentalism: Japanese Religions and the Politics of Restoration. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2021, pp. 67-68.
117 Mainichi shinbun, 23 April 1954.
118 Yomiuri shinbun, 13 June 1981.
119 https://colbase.nich.go.jp/collection_items/tnm/F-20135?locale=ja; Yūshūkan ed. Yūshūkan yōran. Yūshūkan, 1933, p. 22.
120 Yomiuri shinbun, 13 June 1981.
121 Mainichi shinbun, 23 April 1954.
122 Yomiuri shinbun, 2 July 1961.
123 https://www.yasukuni.or.jp/yusyukan/
124 Schieder, Chelsea Szendi. Coed revolution: The female student in the Japanese New Left. Duke University Press, 2021, Kapur, Nick. Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo. Harvard University Press, 2018.
125 Ruoff, Kenneth J. The People’s Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy, 1945-1995. Harvard University Press, 2001, 160-183. Cited in Kapur, Nick. “The Empire Strikes Back? The 1968 Meiji Centennial Celebrations and the Revival of Japanese Nationalism,” Japanese Studies, 38:3 (2018), pp. 309-311.
126 Tagsold, Christian. “The 1964 Tokyo Olympics as Political Games,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 23:3:9 (8 June 2009). For a discussion of the SDF role in the Olympics, see Skabelund, Aaron Herald. Inglorious, Illegal Bastards: Japan’s Self-Defense Force during the Cold War. Cornell University Press, 2022, pp. 158-202.
127 Oguma Eiji. “Japan’s 1968: A Collective Reaction to Rapid Economic Growth in an Age of Turmoil,” Asia Pacific Journal Japan Focus, 13:12:1 (23 March 2015); Kapur, Nick. “The Empire Strikes Back? The 1968 Meiji Centennial Celebrations and the Revival of Japanese Nationalism,” Japanese Studies, 38:3 (2018), pp. 305-328.
128 Mainichi Shinbun “Yasukuni” Shuzai Han. Yasukuni sengo hishi: A kyū senhan wo gōshi shita otoko. Mainichi Shinbunsha, 2007, p. 51.
129 Mainichi Shinbun “Yasukuni” Shuzai Han. Yasukuni sengo hishi: A kyū senhan wo gōshi shita otoko. Mainichi Shinbunsha, 2007, pp. 43-44, 51-53, 74.
130 Yasukuni Jinja Shamusho ed. Yasukuni Jinja Yūshūkan zo katchū bugu ten.Yasukuni Jinja Shamusho, 1978.
131 Mainichi Shinbun “Yasukuni” Shuzai Han. Yasukuni sengo hishi: A kyū senhan wo gōshi shita otoko. Mainichi Shinbunsha, 2007, p. 74.
132 Yamada Akira. “Yasukuni Jinja Yūshūkan no tenji to sono rekishi ninshiki,” Nihonshi kenkyū, 533 (January 2007), pp. 64-67.
133 Ito Yoshiyuki. “Yasukuni Jinja Yūshūkan: kaikan ichinen han no genjō to kadai,” Hakubutsukan kenkyū, 23:1 (236; 25 January 1988), pp. 49-53.
134 For a list of visits, see Yasukuni Jinja and Yasukuni no Inori Henshū Iinkai eds. Yasukuni no inori. Yasukuni Jinja and Yasukuni no Inori Henshū Iinkai, 1999.
135 Mullins, Mark. Yasukuni Fundamentalism: Japanese Religions and the Politics of Restoration. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2021, pp. 121-130.
136 For a discussion of the domestic controversy, see Seaton, Philip. “Pledge Fulfilled: Prime Minister Koizumi, Yasukuni and the Japanese Media,” pp. 163-188 in John Breen ed. Yasukuni, the War Dead and the Struggle for Japan’s Past. London: Hurst, 2007.
137 Mainichi Shinbun “Yasukuni” Shuzai Han. Yasukuni sengo hishi: A kyū senhan wo gōshi shita otoko. Mainichi Shinbunsha, 2007, pp. 85-87.
138 Mainichi Shinbun “Yasukuni” Shuzai Han. Yasukuni sengo hishi: A kyū senhan wo gōshi shita otoko. Mainichi Shinbunsha, 2007, p. 87.
139 Mainichi Shinbun “Yasukuni” Shuzai Han. Yasukuni sengo hishi: A kyū senhan wo gōshi shita otoko. Mainichi Shinbunsha, 2007, pp. 87-89. Matthew Allen and Rumi Sakamoto provide a peak figure of 500,000 visitors in 2005, while averaging 300,000 annually in the decade to 2013. Allen, Matthew, and Rumi Sakamoto. “War and Peace: War Memories and Museums in Japan,” History Compass, 11:12 (2013), pp. 1047-1058.
140 Mullins, Mark. Yasukuni Fundamentalism: Japanese Religions and the Politics of Restoration. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2021, p. 3.
141 Breen, John. “Yasukuni and the Loss of Historical Memory,” pp. 143-162 in John Breen ed. Yasukuni, the War Dead and the Struggle for Japan’s Past. London: Hurst, 2007, p. 152.
142 Breen, John. “Yasukuni and the Loss of Historical Memory,” pp. 143-162 in John Breen ed. Yasukuni, the War Dead and the Struggle for Japan’s Past. London: Hurst, 2007, p. 152.
143 Allen, Matthew, and Rumi Sakamoto. “War and Peace: War Memories and Museums in Japan,” History Compass, 11:12 (2013), p. 1048.
144 Hacker, Barton C., and Margaret Vining. “Military Museums and Social History,” pp. 41-59 in Wolfgang Muchitsch ed. Does War Belong in Museums?: The Representation of Violence in Exhibitions. Transcript Verlag, 2013, p. 59.
145 Firestone, Matthew D., Timothy N. Hornyak, et al. Lonely Planet Tokyo City Guide 7th Edition. Lonely Planet, 2008, p. 57.
146 Breen, John. “Yasukuni and the Loss of Historical Memory,” pp. 143-162 in John Breen ed. Yasukuni, the War Dead and the Struggle for Japan’s Past. London: Hurst, 2007, p. 152.
147 Gluck, Carol. “The Idea of Showa,” Deadalus, 119:3 (Summer 1990), pp. 12-13, cited in Zwigenberg, Ran. “Never Again: Hiroshima, Auschwitz and the Politics of Commemoration,” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 13:3:1 (19 January 2015).
148 Shiina Noritaka “Gunji hakubutsukan no tanjō ‘Yushukan,’” Hakubutsukan kenkyū, 24:10 (257; 25 October 1989), pp. 26-28.
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