sentences:  By contrast, Takuji Kimura has criticized Hata as a "minimizer" of the atrocity, while still acknowledging that his book on the massacre was "an excellent study" and Herbert Bix has described him as "the most notorious" of the "partial deniers" of the Nanking Massacre.However, historians Haruo Tohmatsu and H. P. Willmott have stated that Hata's estimate for the death toll is regarded in Japan as being "the most academically reliable estimate".Hata's "Nankin jiken" has continued to receive plaudits from some scholars.