Atomic cloud over Nagasaki.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were but two cataclysms among many: in the literal sense, they were unremarkable.
Flying the imperial flag at the Yasukuni Shrine.
EPA/Kimimasa Mayama
Japan has never apologised for many of the things it did during World War II – and nor does it tell its schoolchildren about them.
Two months after the bombing at Hiroshima.
US Department of Defense
US military censors contained information after the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leaving Americans with a limited understanding of the impact of radiation.
Luciano Mortula/Shutterstock.com
The average age of survivors is now 80. In five years, very few of these first-hand witnesses will be around to remember the event. Many of their stories are in danger of being lost forever.
Tomiko Matsumoto, an 83-year-old A-bomb survivor, at the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima.
EPA/Kimimasa Mayama
The dogged commitment to peace that set in after the atomic bombings of Japan is in danger of disappearing for good.
Neo Tokyo – the setting of the popular anime film ‘Akira’ – is about to explode.
In the wake of the atomic bombs, a number of Japanese animators would question mankind’s relationship with technology.
The Museum of Science and Industry in Hiroshima, August 1945.
Everett Historical / Shutterstock.com
John Hersey’s article Hiroshima (1946) is seminal in historical and literary terms: the shocking realities of the atomic bomb demanded a new way of writing.
Negotiators appear to be giving Japan’s rice farmers short shrift.
Rice via www.shutterstock.com
Japanese negotiators in Maui appear to be bending to American pressure to accept more US rice imports. The flood of grain, local farmers say, will end their way of life.
A family in 1939 displays both Hinomaru and the Rising Sun Flag.
Takato Marui
The Confederate flag isn’t the only one with a violent past.
Trade Minister Andrew Robb continues to argue the case for the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership.
Dan Himbrechts/AAP
While Australians understand the political benefits of free trade agreements, many remain divided on the economic merit.
Even if President Obama gets his fast-track trading authority, his Pacific trade legacy faces a long slog.
Dark road via www.shutterstock.com
The fierce debate in the US Congress that almost derailed the president’s trade agenda is likely to replay itself in many of the 11 other capitals that are party to the deal.
Public opinion is still firmly anti-nuclear.
Christopher Jue / EPA
Despite G7 climate pledge, the country isn’t embracing renewables.
Japan and the US are taking no chances.
EPA
Japan has spent decades proudly staying out of military matters, but China’s maritime belligerence has changed all that.
Ocean bottom seismometer floating after releasing its anchor on the seafloor.
Yusuke Yamashita, ERI, Univ. of Tokyo, Japan
Japan has the most powerful seismic network in the world. And this network is throwing out some warning signs.
Powerful waves of nationalist sentiment have endured since the second world war and continue to pose difficulties for the leaders of Japan and China.
EPA/Kim Kyung-Hoon
The fog of the second world war and the murkiness of the post-war settlement laid the contours of Asia’s complex and uncertain strategic landscape.
Japan will need to try again to justify killing whales for scientific research.
AAP Image/Supplied by Sea Shepherd Australia, Tim Watters
Japan’s proposed new program to kill whales for science has been rejected by an international expert panel.
Peace Memorial Park was dedicated to everlasting peace and a reminder of the miseries of war.
Okinawa park from www.shutterstock.com
The battle was among the bloodiest of World War II and left scars that still linger today.
The University of Tokyo. Japanese higher education has had a troubled relationship with other languages.
InvaderXan/flickr
A push for Japanese higher education to be globally competitive is creating an identity crisis.
A protestor demands religious cult leader Shoko Asahara admits his guilt in the 1995 attacks.
Everett Kennedy Brown/EPA
Twenty years after a sarin gas attack killed 12 in Tokyo, some victims are defending the human rights of the killers.
Cai Guo-Qiang is one of many artists whose work is showing at the Kyoto International Arts festival.
John
Unlike in Europe and Australia, the Japanese central government is relatively uninvolved in cultural funding, and there is little to incentivise private philanthropy. So how do they manage?