Image of Asia: A walk among lanterns at war shrine festival
Jul 14, 2015, 7:13 AM
A shrine worker walks through rows of paper lanterns with the names of the shrine devotees during the festival of "Mitama," or departed souls, at Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo, Tuesday, July 14, 2015. The annual summer festival is held to solace the souls of the war dead. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama)
(AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama)
In this photo by Shuji Kajiyama, a shrine worker walks through rows of paper lanterns during “Mitama,” the festival of departed souls, at Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo. The annual summer festival is held to solace the souls of the war dead, and the lanterns carry the names of the festival supporters. Yasukuni was created to honor 3,588 loyalists who died in 1868 when imperial forces overthrew centuries of feudal rule, and it now enshrines 2.5 million war dead, including war criminals from World War II. Official visits to the shrine by Japanese leaders have caused tensions with Japan’s neighbors, which see such visits as a lack of remorse for wartime history.
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