Hiromura Gakurai was a prison guard at the Hintok work camp along the Thailand-Burma “death railway,” infamous for the extremely high human toll on the Allied prisoners of war (POWs) and local Asian slave laborers during World War II.

After the war, he was tried and sentenced to death by an Australian military court for inhumane treatment of POWs but commuted to 20 years’ imprisonment and released on parole in 1956.

Hiromura’s case may not stand out among over 5,700 war criminals in the Asia-Pacific region ― except he was a sharecropper’s son named Lee Hak-rae from Korea, then under Japanese colonial rule. And he is not alone: 148 Koreans and 173 Taiwanese were convicted as war criminals, of which 23 Koreans and 26 Taiwanese were executed.

Most Korean war criminals were lowly prison guards ranking below buck privates. On paper, they were “volunteers”; in practice, certain military conscription or industrial slave labor awaited as an alternative. Some 3,000 Koreans manned the Japanese POW camps in Southeast Asia.

In flagrant contravention of the official assurances to the Allies to treat their POWs in accordance with the Geneva Convention, the Japanese authorities subjected them to brutal labor and beating while depriving food, medicine and clothes.

The mortality rate for the Commonwealth and American POWs in Nazi Germany was less than 4 percent; in Imperial Japan, it was a whopping 27 percent. The outraged Allied officials made it a priority to bring those responsible to book.

Unfortunately, in the eye of the Allied prosecutors and judges, Lee was a subject of the Japanese emperor like any other with a Japanese name (forced upon him by the despised governor-general).  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Three years ago the “Toylet” was just a pipe-dream for developers at Japanese video game maker Sega, but now the urinal video game has been rolled out at pubs across the nation.

Users target their urine at a sensor inside the toilet which measures volume and speed, with software then matching that to progress in a selection of five video games in a console mounted at the top of the urinal.

“At first, we thought it would really be only young people who would like this kind of game. But … we’re seeing this phenomenon where people are enjoying playing with it, regardless of age,” said Hirotaka Machida, the console’s lead producer.

At 150,000 yen ($2,000) for a single unit, Machida said the original plan had been to avoid the mass market, but tests in pubs and restaurants showed it had broad appeal.

An infra-red device cuts off play if gamers stray too far from the urinal, reducing the amount of mess, according to Sega, making it a hit with pub managers as well.

Toilet humor and raunchy gags are a staple of far from high-brow variety shows in Japan where Toylets were rolled out on general release.

Sega now has its sights on a global expansion plan later in the year.  [Reuters via W7VOA]

I once used a urinal that had a big target with Jane Fonda’s face in the middle.  Maybe Sega can make a urinal game for the US market where you have to hit moving targets of people like Jane Fonda or whoever else happens to be unpopular at the time?

 Japan is planning to shovel billions of dollars in unrestricted funding on Okinawa this year in hopes of buying public support for keeping a U.S. Marine Corps base on the island, experts say.

Under a budget plan hammered out this winter, Tokyo will give the small island prefecture $2.05 billion to spend as the local government sees fit and also increase its total annual funding by $826 million.

Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima negotiated the generous subsidies as part of the upcoming national budget and received nearly everything the island requested. The island will receive $3.8 billion of the $3.9 billion in total funding it requested from Tokyo, even as the country reels from disaster and a currency crisis.

The governor and the central government claim that the funding plan is not related to Futenma, but Moritake Tomikawa, president of Okinawa International University, said the intentions behind the subsidies are clear.

“It is obviously an appeasement policy by the government,” Tomikawa said. “It was as if they are slapping your face with a thick bundle of green notes and people here are weary of such policy from the central government.”

The controversial funding plan comes as Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s administration prepares to ask Okinawa for permission to build an offshore airfield — the next step in relocating U.S. Marine forces from the Futenma air station in urban Ginowan. But not even the cash infusion is likely to overcome growing public resentment toward Tokyo and convince the island to sign off on the troubled project, according to U.S. and Japanese observers.  [Stars & Stripes]

So $2.05 billion + $3.8 billion = $6.3 billion in total funding for one year.  The population of Okinawa is roughly 1.4 million people.  If you do the math on this it comes out to the Japanese government subsidizing the island of Okinawa to the tune of $4,500 a person.  It will be interesting to see if this will be enough to buy off the government on the island to get the new airfield built?

Petty Officer 1st Class Corey Baughman got more than he bargained for when he decided that a winter climb of Mount Fuji would be the perfect adventure before retiring from the Navy and shipping off to the States.

Baughman, Petty Officer 3rd Class Adam Andryc and Petty Officer 1st Class Dillon Mudloff were within 100 yards of the summit of Japan’s highest mountain earlier this month when they decided to turn back because of the weather.

Suddenly, a climber went hurtling by from above.

“It was surreal,” Baughman recalled. “I thought for sure the guy was dead.”

For the next 24 hours, the sailors and some Japanese climbers risked their own safety to give aid to the man. At the end of the ordeal, Baughman was headed home with more than the pride of summiting Mount Fuji. He spent the night in a freezing hut with the injured man, had to climb back up the mountain to retrieve his car keys and ended up with frostbitten toes.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest of this heroic rescue at the link to include video of the man falling off the mountain.

Japan’s whaling fleet left port Tuesday for the country’s annual hunt in Antarctica, press pictures showed, with security measures beefed up amid simmering international protests.

Three ships, led by the 720-tonne Yushin Maru, set sail from Shimonoseki in western Japan on a mission officially said to be for “scientific research”, according to local media reports.

In past years, a mother ship has joined them later.

The government’s fishery agency declined to confirm the reports, citing security reasons.

“In consideration of safety, we cannot make public the timing of the fleet’s departure and its operational plans,” Shinji Hiruma, an official of the agency’s international division, told AFP.

He only confirmed that in “usual years” the fleet left port in November or December and returned around March.

In February, Japan cut short its hunt for the 2010-2011 season by one month after bagging only one fifth of its planned catch, blaming interference from the US-based environmental group Sea Shepherd.

The fleet aims to catch around 900 minke and fin whales this season, according to a plan submitted by the government to the International Whaling Commission.  [AFP]

You can read more at the link.

 If you’ve ever wanted to visit Japan, this may be your chance.

In a desperate attempt to lure tourists back to a country plagued by radiation fears and constant earthquakes, the Japan Tourism Agency’s proposed an unprecedented campaign – 10,000 free roundtrip tickets.

The catch is, you need to publicize your trip on blogs and social media sites.

The number of foreign visitors to Japan has dropped drastically, since a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami triggered a nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Power plant in March. Nearly 20,000 people have been confirmed dead, while more than 80,000 remain displaced because of radiation concerns. In the first three months following the triple disasters, the number of foreign visitors to Japan was cut in half, compared with the same time in 2010. The strong Japanese currency has made matters worse.

The tourism agency says it plans to open a website to solicit applicants interested in the free tickets. Would- be visitors will have to detail in writing their travel plans in Japan, and explain what they hope to get out of the trip. Successful applicants would pay for their own accommodation and meals. They would also be required to write a review their travel experiences, and post it online.

“We are hoping to get highly influential blogger-types, and others who can spread the word that Japan is a safe place to visit,” said Kazuyoshi Sato, with the agency.

The agency has requested more than a billion yen to pay for the tourism blitz. If lawmakers approve the funding, Sato says visitors could begin signing up as early as next April.  [ABC News]

Japan has turned down South Korea’s proposal to hold bilateral talks about Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery with Japanese soldiers during the second World War.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Director-General for the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau Shinsuke Sugiyama said on Monday that compensation for comfort women was fully settled by a 1965 agreement.

Sugiyama made the comment during an interview with South Korean reporters that visited the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo.

He said he believes that Japan should look squarely at history and decide which way to move forward, adding that Tokyo will seek to appropriately address the South Korean government’s requests for consultations on the matter.

Last month, Seoul proposed holding the bilateral talks on the sex slave issue based on a dispute resolution procedure under the 1965 agreement. The resolution calls for settling disputes through diplomatic efforts if the two sides disagree over the interpretations of the accord. [KBS Global]

With elections coming up in South Korea next year I would expect these easy red meat anti-Japan political issues to become more front and center in the upcoming months.

Japan plans to build a 19,500-ton aircraft carrier capable of housing helicopters after China launched its first own aircraft carrier, Chinese media reported on Wednesday. Japan already has two helicopter carriers — the Hyuga deployed in March 2009 and the Ise deployed in March 2011 — but the planned new vessel will be bigger.

The 22DDH is scheduled for deployment in 2015. It will be 248 m long and cost around US$1.04 billion. It is 30 percent bigger than the Ise and can carry 14 helicopters. The Ise measures 197 m, has a displacement of 13,500 tons and can carry 11 helicopters.

Although dwarfed by China’s aircraft carrier, which is 320 m long and can carry 50 fighter jets, the Japanese vessel will be equipped with the latest U.S. weapons systems to maximize its capability. It will be equipped with the Raytheon air and missile defense system, which has so far only been installed on U.S. vessels, and 11 missile launchers.

Japan had several aircraft carriers during World War II, but since its defeat it has focused on developing helicopter carriers, which are deemed purely defensive. It appears to be bolstering defenses to counter China’s increasing submarine warfare capabilities. The new carrier will house mainly helicopters designed for anti-submarine warfare operations.   [Chosun Ilbo]

TU-95

Two Russian bombers circled around Japan’s archipelago Sept. 8, prompting Japan Air Self-Defense Force (SDF) planes to scramble, the Japanese Defense Ministry said, Jiji Press reported Sept. 9. The TU-95 bombers did not violate Japan’s airspace. According to the SDF Joint Staff Office, the two planes originated east of the Korean Peninsula and took a circuitous route to the south of Okinawa Island and headed north over the Pacific Ocean near Hokkaido before flying near the airspace between Japan and the Korean Peninsula and finally returning north over the Sea of Japan to Russia. Air-to-air refueling operations over the Sea of Okhotsk were observed.  [STATFOR]

Japanese people have mixed emotions about South Korea, according to a survey by pollster GfK for AP. GfK polled 1,000 adults in Japan between July 29 to Aug. 10 and found that 31 percent liked South Korea, putting the country third among seven countries that were compared after the U.S. and Germany. The others were Israel, China, Russia and North Korea.

But 27 percent of the respondents disliked South Korea. The popularity of Korean TV dramas and K-Pop increased, AP speculated, but it looks like the country as a whole “isn’t so popular itself.”

Japanese felt hostile toward North Korea and China, according to the survey. A total of 94 percent of respondents said they do not like North Korea, while 76 percent voiced aversion to China. Russia and Israel were next with 44 percent of the respondents saying they did not like them. When asked if they think China threatens global peace, 73 percent of the respondents said yes. Eighty percent felt the same way about North Korea.   [Chosun Ilbo]