THE JAPAN NEWS
 
By Takashi Yamakoshi / Yomiuri Shimbun City News Editor
“I was not able to tell anybody what I had witnessed for nearly 70 years, because I had a kind of guilty feeling over the fact that all my family members survived,” says Sumiko Akazawa, 84. She and four other family members miraculously escaped from the devastation of the Tokyo air raids that turned the capital’s lowland, including their neighborhoods in Fukagawa Ward (now Koto Ward) into an inferno.
 
The scene that awaited her, then a 14-year-old girl, as she traveled to her girls’ school to look for friends, were dead bodies lying on the streets. “It was indeed a picture of hell,” Akazawa recalled. She spotted the burned body of an elderly woman sheltering that of her grandchild, and almost fainted when she saw the body of her teacher floating down a river.
 
In July last year, Akazawa’s friend invited her to visit the Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, a private facility in Koto Ward. During her first visit to the center she learned that there is a place where people can speak about their experiences of the raids to younger generations, and realized that there are roles that can be played by raid survivors.
 
The following month, she talked about her experience of the raids in front of 130 children who gathered at the center. They all listened with an intense gaze.
 
Akazawa said she would continue to tell a sad chapter of history “to prevent this nation from being involved in war, as well as for children.”
 
There must be yet more untold stories about history. With the 70th anniversary of the end of the war being a yearlong theme for the entire Editorial Bureau of The Yomiuri Shimbun, the City News Department will cover many personal stories related to the war and convey the importance of the peace we are enjoying now.
 
This year will see key anniversaries of catastrophes and a natural disaster: A Japan Airlines plane crash occurred 30 years ago, the Great Hanshin Earthquake and a sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system took place 20 years ago and there was a derailment on JR Fukuchiyama Line 10 years ago. We at the City News Department will examine whether the lessons learned from these events are being observed today after all these years.
 
Japan’s criminal justice system will see a major shift this year. The Justice Ministry plans to submit bills to the Diet to revise pertinent laws such as the Criminal Procedure Code and the Penal Code so as to require audiovisual recordings of parts of interrogations by police and prosecutors, and to introduce plea bargaining. The bills are expected to be passed this year.
 
It is necessary to watch closely to see whether fair investigations are conducted under the new system, which is to be created in the wake of a false accusation by the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office’s special investigation squad in connection with the postal irregularity scandal.
 
The City News Department covers affairs at the Tokyo metropolitan government, whose leader, Gov. Yoichi Masuzoe, will observe the one year anniversary of his inauguration next month.
 
His inauguration was marked by confusion brought about the sudden resignation of his predecessor, but Masuzoe made utmost use of his close relationship with the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to exercise leadership. He succeeded in axing snowballing costs to build event venues for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, which are five years away.
 
The Tokyo metropolitan government is currently considering how to utilize the facilities effectively as Olympic legacies after the sports event. How blueprints will be drawn for a new Tokyo beyond the Games remains to be seen.
 
A fun feature, called “Minna no Yume Purojekuto” (Everybody’s Dream Project), was carried in the Jan. 1 issue of The Yomiuri Kodomo Shimbun, whose reporters helped readers — primary school students — to realize the dreams they submitted to the paper.
 
From about 150 readers who responded to the paper’s solicitation, dreams such as becoming an elephant driver and performing a dance to congratulate a teacher who just got married were fulfilled. The feature captured the smiles of children.
 
While there are many children that are full of dreams, many others are suffering from poverty; a child whose Christmas meal was a single rice ball, another who was bullied for “smelling sweaty” because there was no bath at home. Their hardships were featured in a series of articles on child poverty under the title of “Hinkon Kodomo no SOS” (Poverty: Distress signals from children) last year. We plan to carry a sequel to the series this year.
 
The City News Department is in charge of both the dream projects and the series on child poverty. During this year — to be marked by various important anniversaries — we would like to think together with our readers about the form this nation should take, so that children can have dreams.
 
Tokyo air raids
 
In the predawn hours of March 10, 1945, the U.S. military conducted indiscriminate air raids on what are now mainly Tokyo’s Sumida, Koto and Taito wards. B-29 bombers dropped many firebombs, razing the areas to the ground with an estimated death toll of more than 100,000.