Prof Takashima is one of those Japanese rebels I respect so much. Their life will not be easy in Japan.
I lived in Japan for over 5 years and was lectured to by a lot of members of their defence force. Japan was justified in attacking Pearl Harbor dontchya know. Coz America blockaded oil. And all great Western countries sought colonies dontchya know, so why not Japan?. Dontchya know that Japan rather than Germany was nuked coz of racism? Yep.
Well I ported to these fanatical members of the JSDF, well my country, Australia never had colonies, only a protectorate (New Guinea) and the USA blockaded Japan because of their invasion of China and the Imperial Japanese proved over and over they would fight to the last man and send civilians to their deaths rather than surrender, far more fanatical of course than the Nazis.
But no, the fanatical JSDF die hards had it locked in hard fact that, to them, Japan was but a mere innocent and honorable victim of World War 2.
And as to attrocities, well "all sides" committed them. No sorry while individual Western soldiers and units committed war crimes, Japan conducted them systematically as policy and standing orders.
Their textbooks perpetuate the propaganda. As a high school English teacher there I know. While I was teaching a class there, using the New Horizon text I insisted in explaining the context in a chapter that had the nukes falling on Japan and killing innocent kids with no context as to why. My grandfather fought the IJA on Bougainville. Although I didn't get on with my grandfather I owed it to him to explain what he and millions of other sacraficed to confront Japanese aggression.
