October 18, 2025

Liberal Democratic Party head Takaichi Sanae on October 17 made a cash offering (“tamagushi-ryo”) at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo under the name of “LDP President” at her own expense on the occasion of the shrine’s annual autumn festival.

On this day, Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru also offered a sacred tree called “masakaki” at the shrine. About 70 members of the pro-Yasukuni cross-party Dietmembers’ group and the far-right, xenophobic “Sanseito” party leader, Kamiya Yohei, visited Yasukuni Shrine.

Takaichi, when she served as Economic Security Minister and as Internal Affairs Minister, always paid a visit to Yasukuni Shrine for its annual spring and autumn events as well as on August 15, the anniversary of the end of WWII. Meanwhile, during the LDP presidential election campaign, she did not make a clear statement on whether she would visit Yasukuni if elected as the LDP leader.

Yasukuni Shrine functions as an instrument to glorify Japan’s past war of aggression by insisting that it was a “just war” for “self-existence and self-defense” and for “Asian liberation.” Politicians who visit in an official capacity to make offerings at the shrine means that they share the same historical view with the war-glorifying shrine.

Past related article:
> 107 rightwing Dietmembers visit war-glorifying Yasukuni Shrine on day of WWII end [August 16, 2023]