Drawing from a dialogue between Masayuki Takayama and Kent Gilbert, this article critiques Japan’s constitutional academia, media influence, and the international propaganda network surrounding historical issues.

This excerpt from a WiLL magazine dialogue critically examines Japan’s constitutional academia, media influence, and international activism surrounding historical narratives, highlighting structural vulnerabilities in Japan’s intellectual and political defenses.

2017-06-28
The newly released issue of the monthly magazine WiLL (840 yen), which went on sale the day before yesterday, is filled with essays that every Japanese citizen should immediately purchase at the nearest bookstore.
The same applies to people around the world, and it is I who will convey this to them.
What follows is an excerpt from the special dialogue feature between Masayuki Takayama and Kent Gilbert, which I have referenced many times.
The marks – are mine.
[Omitted text preceding]
“Children Raised by Asahi”
Takayama:
From your perspective, Kent, what do you think of Japan’s “constitutional scholars”?
Gilbert:
They are extremely strange people.
In American constitutional law, the most important issue is how the constitution should function—that is, one’s constitutional philosophy.
Rather than worshipping the constitution as an unchangeable sacred text, scholars first confront reality and use interpretation to adapt to that reality.
If interpretation alone cannot address reality, then amendments to the constitution are considered.
That is American constitutional scholarship.
Takayama:
If such lectures were being taught, someone like Yasuo Hasebe would never emerge.
Gilbert:
You mean the scholar who testified at the House of Representatives’ constitutional review committee that the security legislation was unconstitutional?
But it was the Liberal Democratic Party that invited him, wasn’t it?
Takayama:
That’s exactly why they were careless.
I have long regarded Hasebe as a dubious figure.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and senior LDP leaders must have known he was an Asahi Shimbun–backed scholar who was not intellectually sound.
After all, even ordinary people remember the 2005 incident in which Asahi Shimbun falsely claimed that Abe (then Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary) and Shoichi Nakagawa pressured NHK to alter a program.
Gilbert:
You’re referring to the NHK coverage of the so-called “Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal,” where anti-Japan activists such as former Asahi reporter Yayori Matsui and Zhi Liang Su, who propagates the baseless claim of 410,000 comfort women, appeared en masse.
[Additional commentary by the author regarding Haruki Murakami, intelligence operations, money traps, and honey traps omitted here for brevity but preserved in intent.]
To be continued.