This Saturday it will be 70 years since Japan's Emperor, Hirohito, publicly accepted the surrender terms of the key Allied countries in World War Two.
It signalled Japan's capitulation and the end not only of the war in the Pacific, but also of Japan's colonial rule of the Korean peninsula, its influence in South East Asia and its attempt to dominate China and the Asian mainland.
With Japan's conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe planning to issue an official statement reflecting on the past, this year is a particularly sensitive anniversary.
Progressive critics, inside and outside Japan, worry that Mr Abe's statement may downplay past apologies in favour of a "revisionist" historical interpretation that will antagonise Japan's neighbours, most notably China and South Korea.
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