How messed up is Japan?
If you go by what these three guys say, pretty messed up. While Znet is a scurrilous left-wing rag (and more power to them) and these guys are clearly very liberal westerners (which as Japanese will tell you, means that they cannot possibly understand Japan), they are also completely correct in almost everything they say.

Japan's conservative business, intellectual and political leaders are herding the rest of the country back toward nationalism and even militarism. Most Japanese today don't know much about World War Two that they didn't get out of a heavily censored revisionist school textbook. Hence you get reference to the "alleged Nanjing incident" and certain major newspapers denying the existence of so-called "comfort women".

The mass media in Japan engages in a shocking degree of self-censorship and selective coverage by Western standards, panders to popular prejudices and the notion of investigative journalism as we think of it in the West doesn't really exist here.

My point? It's not just a case of "don't believe everything you read" when reading about Japan in the mass media, it's more a case of "don't believe ANYTHING you read" about Japan in the mass media.

Still and all, it is a pretty safe, comfortable place to raise a family and should n't turn into a 21st century Wiemar too soon despite the best efforts of some of those steering the ship of state.