How many times can you jump a shark, Japan?

With focus on wartime past, Japan’s global PR message could misfire

Many of the funds will be used for soft-power initiatives to cultivate “pro-Japan” foreigners, such as supporting Japan studies at universities and setting up “Japan House” centers to promote the “Japan Brand”...

Conservatives have welcomed the bigger budget but want priority placed on correcting perceived errors about history...

 Aware of the danger of a backlash, diplomats seem to have mitigated pressure to make the Japan House centers — to be set up first in London, Los Angeles and Sao Paulo in late 2016 — beachheads to market an official view of history. Instead, the facilities could provide what one bureaucrat called a “platform for balanced discussion” on controversial topics, for example, by sponsoring seminars...

Conservative politicians however want bolder steps...

“Dragging people into a long discussion about history . . . seems like they are going to brand Japan with that atrocity in terms of its image,” said Dartmouth College professor Jennifer Lind. “It’s a losing battle.”

Arististhenes deduces that '1984' wasn't on the curriculum at, or to enter, Toudai; only an idiot thinks the Ministry of Truth is for other than domestic consumption.

"Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth."

Robots and foreigners are the answer as Japan’s population ages, says investor Sawakami

Arisististhenes has addressed this already: too late, fuckwits.