He and other young people are the driving force behind a growing movement to protect Japan\u2019s supreme law, or constitution, a US-written document that is now being challenged by the demands of an American president.<\/p>\n
Their movement gained further urgency on Tuesday, when Japan\u2019s government scrapped a ban on exports of lethal weapons \u2013 a move seen as a direct challenge to the country\u2019s postwar pacifism.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe constitution enables us to stay out of America\u2019s wars, including in this region,\u201d says Yuri Hioki, at a rally in Tokyo. \u201cThe thought that might change makes me really angry\u201d.<\/p>\n
Gohta Hashimoto, a university student, brandishes his lightsaber at a rally in support of Japan\u2019s peace constitution held in Shinjuku, Tokyo, on 16 April. Photograph: Justin McCurry\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
Hashimoto\u2019s lightsaber is his contribution to a sea of light sticks, placards and flags filling public spaces across Japan<\/a>, as people born more than half a century after its defeat in the second world war rush to their constitution\u2019s defence, convinced it will ensure their country never again goes into conflict.<\/p>\n On Sunday, an estimated 36,000 people squeezed on to narrow paths in front of the National Diet \u2013 Japan\u2019s parliament \u2013 to call for an immediate end to the Iran war and to keep the country\u2019s \u201cpacifist\u201d constitution intact.<\/p>\n The event was the latest in a wave of protests that are attracting people in greater numbers each time. An estimated 3,600 people demonstrated in late February, swelling to 24,000 by late March, culminating in this weekend\u2019s huge turnout.<\/p>\n The biggest protests have been held in Nagatacho \u2013 Japan\u2019s political nerve centre, located not far from the building in which the constitution was drafted by US officials under the watchful eye of Gen Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, which effectively governed Japan for seven years after the end of the war.<\/p>\n Seasoned left-leaning pacifists were joined by families with children and young people, with chants aimed at their prime minister, Sanae Takaichi<\/a>, and Donald Trump<\/a>, all against a backdrop of music, fancy dress and proclamations in Japanese and English. \u201cNo one should be sent to war\u201d read one. \u201cCats, not bombs,\u201d said another. Crowds chanted \u201cHands off the constitution\u201d and called on their government to \u201cstop sucking up to America\u201d.<\/p>\n Some protesters carried balloons in the shape of the numeral nine \u2013 a reference to the \u201canti-war\u201d clause of Japan\u2019s constitution, which states<\/a> that the \u201cJapanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes\u201d.<\/p>\n The wave of demonstrations made Hashimoto realise he had taken the constitution for granted. \u201cI always thought of politics as something for older people, but that feels like turning over my future to someone else,\u201d he says at the launch of a petition to protect article 9. \u201cUntil now I\u2019d never thought of the constitution as something young people needed to fight for.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018The last bulwark against war\u2019<\/p>\n For Takaichi and other conservatives, article nine is synonymous with defeat and decades of subsequent self-flagellation over Japan\u2019s wartime conduct<\/a> across Asia. The country\u2019s postwar pacifism, they argue, imposes unfair restrictions on its ability to defend itself and its interests in the face of a nuclear-armed North Korea and an increasingly assertive China.<\/p>\n The Iran war, too, has not only highlighted Japan\u2019s dependence on Middle East oil<\/a>, but also the constitutional restraints that forced Takaichi to decline \u2013 with great reluctance, according to some media reports \u2013 Trump\u2019s request last month that she send Japanese maritime self-defence forces (SDF) to the strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n Protesters hold signs supporting Japan\u2019s pacifist constitution and opposing the war in Iran during a demonstration outside the country\u2019s parliament in Tokyo on 19 April. Photograph: Justin McCurry\/The Guardian<\/p>\n The US-Israel war on Iran \u2013 and Trump\u2019s erratic handling of it \u2013 has compelled younger Japanese to speak out, says Koichi Nakano, a professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo. \u201cThe war has brought home the risk that Japan could get involved in an illegal war under Takaichi \u2026 so many more people feel they need to show their support for article 9 as the last bulwark against war\u201d.<\/p>\n Like her assassinated mentor, Shinzo Abe<\/a>, Takaichi has long championed constitutional reform, which to succeed would require a two-thirds majority of both houses of parliament and a simple majority in a nationwide referendum \u2013 high hurdles that have failed to deter revisionists who see constitutional reform as an ideological imperative.<\/p>\n Faced with legislative and public obstacles, Abe stretched the interpretation of article 9, pushing through legislation in 2015 to allow Japan to exercise collective self-defence<\/a> \u2013 or coming to the aid of an ally under attack, even if Japan itself were not directly threatened. More recently, it has acquired the ability to conduct pre-emptive strikes against, say, missile bases in North Korea in the event of an imminent attack.<\/p>\n Pro-revisionists \u201cknow that there is no real consensus on these supposedly constitutional offensive measures, so they want to put the final nail in the coffin of the peace constitution\u201d, said Nakano.<\/p>\n A woman in kimono with an obi belt carrying an anti-war message during a demonstration in support of Japan\u2019s pacifist constitution outside the country\u2019s parliament in Tokyo on 19 April. Photograph: Justin McCurry\/The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cBy making the SDF \u2018constitutional\u2019, they want to legitimise everything the SDF does, including the so-called limited collective self-defence. But they want to go well beyond that, too, so Japan finally becomes a \u2018normal\u2019 country like the US and Britain.\u201d<\/p>\n While the legislative shackles on Japan\u2019s military have loosened, the ruling Liberal Democratic party\u2019s (LDP) landslide victory<\/a> in February\u2019s lower house elections \u2013 in which it won a two-thirds \u201csupermajority\u201d \u2013 has strengthened Takaichi\u2019s determination to amend the constitution for the first time since it went into effect in May 1947.<\/p>\n \u201cThe time has come\u201d for constitutional reform, she said this month at a convention to celebrate the LDP\u2019s 70th anniversary. \u201cAn independent constitutional amendment at the hands of the Japanese people is our party\u2019s long-cherished goal,\u201d she said, adding that Japan should \u201cturn a new page\u201d in its security arrangements.<\/p>\n![\"Demonstrators](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Demonstrators_in_Tokyo_wave_lightsabers_during_evening_protest_--eb407248-076b-4e80-8fd3-a33a30a5a67.jpeg\")
Demonstrators in Tokyo wave lightsabers during evening protest <\/p>\n