The resignation of defence minister Fumio Kyuma in the face of a storm of protest after he had said that the atomic bombing of Nagasaki 'couldn't be helped', shows that after 60 years, Japan is still struggling to come to terms with its past.
Mr Kyuma's blunder also demonstrates that the country's politicians do not understand the deep feelings of their own people about the second world war.
Sadly, Mr Kyuma's crass comments are not an isolated example. The latest disturbing factors concern the role of Japan's military, both past and present.
Its defenders say the military has come of age and that the political adventurism of the Imperial Army of the 1930s is a thing of the past. Let us hope so. Yes, most foreign military analysts say that the Japanese Self-Defence Forces are highly professional, proficient and its members are personally likeable.
But the Japanese Communist Party has recently shown the military has another, less friendly aspect. The party produced 166 pages of evidence that information security units of the Ground Self-Defence Forces (the army) have been doing detailed surveillance checks on the movements of people opposed to the deployment of Japanese troops to Iraq. The 289 people spied on, according to these reports, include politicians, journalists, civic and religious groups and ordinary citizens.
Far from denying them, or decrying the military snooping, Mr Kyuma claimed the surveillance was done 'to calm [army] staff and their families' and indicated the military would continue to gather information on citizens' activities.