Footage from the following three short newsreels were selected
in order to show the prevailing anti-nuclear sentiment in parts
of the Japanese public during the 1950s and 1960s. At the height
of the protests against the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and
Security between the United States and Japan (anpo jōyaku) in
1960, hundreds of thousands of Japanese took their anger to the
streets in front of the National Diet. Considering such
background, it may be hard to grasp at first why relatively few
protesters have rallied against nuclear energy during the height
of the Fukushima nuclear crisis so far. To put things into
perspective, in the period of time immediately preceding
Fukushima, fewer than 50 people would have typically
demonstrated at any given time; the demonstrations of 10 April
2011, in which approximately 17,500 people marched in Tokyo and
elsewhere in Japan, thus marks a dramatic increase. However,
comparing contemporary demonstrations with those seen in the
newsreel footage shown here, or with concu