PopMatters gives Showa 10/10!

Controversy erupted earlier this summer when the Japanese government announced a review of the Kono Statement – an apology issued in 1993 acknowledging the coercive use of ‘comfort women’ by the Japanese military during the Second World War (without admitting the government’s direct complicity, nor the scale of the sexual slavery described by survivors and researchers). Ultimately, Japan upheld the statement (along with all its ambiguity in terms of scale and blame), but the controversy – which prompted protests throughout Asia and as far afield as The Netherlands – demonstrates the lingering power and presence of the war’s legacy even today.

...