I hadn't planned on reading the Liberal Democratic Party's propaganda comic on constitutional change for the same reason I don't watch NHK, listen to AKB48 or use my underpants as an ashtray. Yet, as a piece of Japanese legal cultural history, perhaps it merits comment.
Published in April, as with most comics produced by authority figures for an adult population, it seems rooted in the assumption that the people are stupidly incapable of absorbing information unless it comes packaged in a pictorial medium using word balloons and comfortably familiar stereotypes. "Honobono Ikka no Kenpo Kaisei tte Nani?" ("The Honobono Family Asks: What are Constitutional Revisions?") delivers on this with a family of well-intentioned archetypes who stumble down the carefully laid, logical (ha ha) path to the conclusion Japan needs a new Constitution.
Whether or not the public is convinced, however, is moot. A Lower House committee passed security bills Wednesday against the strong wishes of opposition parties that will allow the Self-Defense Forces to engage in collective self-defense if an ally is under attack.
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