I don't recall the Yomiuri having been a cheerleader for textbook revision in the past (it is the Sankei that does that). It will indeed be 'interesting' to see what the LDP come up with in relation to history education. I presume that they will probably get rid of the so-called 'neighbouring countries' clause in the textbook approval criteria, but I wonder how much difference this will make in practice. I may be too optimistic, but I personally suspect that they will actually find it quite difficult to have history textbooks altered much to their liking. Abe, or any other politician, may deny whatever they like, but they are not the ones making decisions on textbook approval or adoption. That may be seen as a naive point of view, but we are no longer in the 1950s or 1960s, and whatever the views of those doing the approval in the Ministry of Education's textbook bureau, I don't think it is really politically possible any longer for facts that are firmly established among most historians to be forcibly cut from textbooks. Which is not to say that there may not be some efforts in that regard and a tendency for publishers to err on the side of conservatism - but I expect the Nanking Massacre to stay in the textbooks.

I argued in a recent article in Modern Asian Studies that textbook adoption at the local level is as important as, if not more important than, textbook approval in influencing the content of junior high history textbooks. The reason why the market share of nationalist textbooks has jumped sharply since 2009 is because the Yokohama Board of Education (which adopts textbooks for more schools than any other single board in Japan, I believe) decided to adopt a nationalist textbook. Most of the board members were appointed by the previous mayor from 2002-2009, Nakada Hiroshi. It seems to me unlikely that the Yokohama board will adopt this textbook again, as Nakada was succeeded by a DPJ mayor who has presumably been appointing less right-wing board members, but what happens elsewhere in Japan (e.g. in Osaka) remains to be seen. Personally I also think that how publishers feel about the general mood in the country regarding history and Japan's relations with its neighbours does have some influence on what goes into the textbooks (due to worries about textbook adoption and market share, not government approval), so from that point of view, textbooks may edge towards conservatism if Abe's nationalism (as opposed to Abenomics) is perceived to be popular.

Peter Cave
Lecturer in Japanese Studies
SALC, University of Manchester