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What is probably the most unfortunate thing about that is that Japan never got a keyword type name for its government or party that ran the goverenment that is the focus of all the war crimes and other things associated with the War. Germany got the Nazis. The Country can be seperated from the political party and its leadership when it comes to calming blame, reperations and all sorts of things.
Japan is and was Japan. They never did get something like an internationly accepted scapegoat to pawn their abuses off on, or however that should be worded to be or polite. Today Germany is Germany. Nazis are Nazis. The two do not always equal each other and thus Germany doesn't have a swastika shaped bird hanging around their neck like an albatros. The Land of the Rising Sun remains what it was and yet is totally different due to their new Constitution (the Allies handwork).
On the other hand...Japan also got one last "honor" in that war that so far it maintains. It is the only country to have every been the subject of an atomic attack. And they as well as most other nations hope to keep it that way.
As for the shrine. The priests refuse to remove the war criminals, saying that it is impossible. You can't force a religion to do something against itself and make it stick. You can't realisticallty expect the other 2 million soldiers to move their souls or however it works just so someone else will be comfortable because Togo is also with them? Nor their families to reject the place entirely because of something done by the priests in 1978, long after the war ended. The Emperor stopped going there in protest, but not everyone must do so unless of course the Emporer ordered them not to go (an order that was never given).
If I understand it correctly, even if the Japanese wanted to have a different place, they religiously could not if those souls cannot be moved (I don't mean the war criminals...I mean the rest of them). Thus, because of the priests...Japan just deals with it. That other countries make it a huge deal is quite honestly, their problem, not Japan's.
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