Uyoku dantai (右翼団体) refers to Japanese ultranationalist far-right activists, provocateurs, and internet trolls (as netto-uyoku) often organized in groups. In 1996 and 2013, the National Police Agency estimated that there were over 1,000 right-wing groups in Japan with about 100,000 members in total.

Philosophies and activities

Uyoku dantai are well known for their highly visible propaganda vehicles, known as converted vans, trucks and buses fitted with loudspeakers and prominently marked with the name of the group and propaganda slogans (街宣車). The vehicles are usually black, khaki or olive drab, and are decorated with the Imperial Seal, the flag of Japan and the Rising Sun Flag. They are primarily used to stage protests outside organizations such as the Chinese, Korean or Russian embassies, Chongryon facilities and media organizations, where propaganda (both taped and live) is broadcast through their loudspeakers. They can sometimes be seen driving around cities or parked in busy shopping areas, broadcasting propaganda, military music or Kimigayo, the national anthem. The Greater Japan Patriotic Party, supportive of the US–Japan–South Korea alliance against China and North Korea and against communism as a whole, would always have the US national flag flying side by side with the Japanese flag in the vehicles and US military marches played alongside their Japanese counterparts. While political beliefs differ among the groups, they are often said to hold in common three philosophies: the advocation of kokutai-Goji (retaining the fundamental character of the nation), hostility towards communism and Marxism, and hostility against the Japan Teachers Union. Traditionally, they view Russia (and previously the Soviet Union), China, and North Korea with hostility over issues such as communism, the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands and the Kuril Islands, and the kidnappings of Japanese citizens by North Korea. Most, but not all, seek to justify Japan's role in the Second World War to varying degrees, deny the war crimes committed by the military during the pre-1945 Shōwa period and are critical of what they see as a "masochistic" bias in post-war historical education. Thus, they do not recognize the legality of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East or other allied tribunals and consider the war-criminals enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine as "Martyrs of Shōwa" (昭和殉難者). They support the censorship of history textbooks, or historical negationism.

Categories of uyoku dantai

Uyoku dantai are broadly classed into currents based on ideological perspective and foundation period. They are divided into traditional (pre-war), street activist (originating in the post-war era), New Right or Minzoku-ha, and Kōdō-suru Hoshu (Action Conservative Movement) groups.

Groups

Historical groups

Traditional groups

Groups affiliated with yakuza syndicates

Other groups

Gallery

Gaishenshas

Demonstrations