By Yutaka Iimura,Senior Fellow at GRIPS Alliance,Visiting Professor at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies,Former Ambassador of Japan to Indonesia and to France
On August 15, 2025, Japan’s summer was wrapped in deep prayer and silence. Marking 80 years since the end of World War II, the government’s National Memorial Service for the War Dead was solemnly held at Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan.