People in the world pledge to their national flag and sing the national anthem from their patriotism. In Japan, however, people stop singing her national anthem. The problem lies in the nature of the anthem's text.

The Japanese national anthem is titled Kimi Ga Yo, or Your Ages, and the word Your (Kimi) in this song has been considered to be the Emperor's. During WWII, the Japanese Imperial Army invaded many Asian countries, and during this conflict, the Japanese soldiers did not hesitate to kill these people in their enemy side.. The motivation for them to kill all those people was that they were fighting for the holy Emperor, who rules Asia's leading race."

After WWII, the Japanese were given a democratic society by the United States, but the Emperor was not prosecuted as a war criminal. Although the Emperor became the symbol of Japan by the Constitution and did not have any political power anymore (at least officially), the Emperor's family still remained as before; The national anthem with the word Kimi, associated with the Emperor, also remained.

There used to be quite a few debates on the national anthem in Japan, considering, "Should we create a new national anthem?" These debates, however, did not last for long time, and the old national anthem was not replaced by a new composition.  Primarily, this was due to the political power of right-wing militants who prevented the change of the anthem. It was also the result of people's indifference over the issue. After the debate, some people started interpreting the word Kimi (you) not as the Emperor but an unspecified second person to evade the inevitable problem in the text.

In public schools in Japan, there are ceremonies in which students are supposed to sing the national anthem while they pledge to the region, but in some schools, students and teachers refuse to sing the national anthem, because they are against the text of the anthem. Those who refuse to sing the anthem usually express their protest by not standing up and remaining silent. There are even some children who has not been taught the national anthem by their teachers.  These children do not know how the national anthem sound like and do not feel the need for any national anthem.

Education specialties have been arguing the issue of the refusal, but they cannot find any fruitful result. The Japanese public, on the other hand, are still indifferent about the problem. No strong voices for having a new anthem has been raised. Young people do not like the anthem because the piece sound too archaic and find the music too depressing. They want to a piece with much more vitality and positive patriotism.

For a moment, some people keep singing the old anthem, and the others continue to refuse.  More time seems necessary for the Japanese to have a serious debate over the anthem. But I just do not know when it would happen.