🇯🇵 | Japanese football fans are right now a reason for outrage, especially among East Asians. Following the latest win by Japan at the ongoing FIFA World Cup against Tunesia, Japanese fans inside the stadium but also in Tokyo have displayed the “Rising Sun” flag used by Imperial Japan. For East Asians and Southeast Asians, the Japanese imperial flag symbolizes some of the most notorious crimes imaginable. Under the Rising Sun flag, Japanese forces occupied, colonized, plundered, and killed tens of millions of people. While only some people raised the imperial flag at today’s celebrations, thousands of others were seen celebrating next to it seemingly unbothered at Shibuya Crossing in the Japanese capital. Japan has been repeatedly criticized by victim nations of its imperial era for never having been actively cleansed of its fascist elements or having paid significant reparations.