Focusing in on Contemporary Japan's 'Youth' Nationalism

Since around the turn of the century, the shift of Japan's youth toward the political right and the upsurge of nationalism, in particular, has become the subject of much debate. The fanatical support of the national team in World Cup Soccer tournaments, the singing of the national anthem 'Kimi ga yo' in unison; the 'Japanese language boom', the increase in young people worshipping at Yasukuni Shrine, and the popularity of the comic book Ken-Kanryi (Hating the Korean Wave) are but some of the examples cited as evidence of this trend. In this article, I would like to take up some major studies in recent years that deal with this type of youth nationalism, and look back on how interpretations and analyses of this phenomenon have come to proliferate. As a representative study of Japanese youth nationalism, Kayama Rika's Puchi Nashonarizumu Shko~gun: Wakamono-tachi no Nipponshugi (Petit Nationalism Syndrome: Young People's Japan Doctrine) notes the 'nonchalance' of young people amidst events like the aforementioned World Cup, assigning to their manner of remarking without hesitation that they 'love Japan' the label 'petit nationalism'. As a psychiatrist, Kayama points out that within the background of this type of petit nationalism, which might also be thought of as a child-like 'make-believe patriotism' bereft of any historical awareness, there exist factors such as the lack of an Oedipus complex based on conflict concerning one's birthplace or personal history, a 'split' or 'estrangement' that functions as