Hakkō ichiu

[1] The term was coined early in the 20th century by the Nichiren Buddhist activist and nationalist Tanaka Chigaku, who cobbled it from parts of a statement attributed in the chronicle Nihon Shoki to legendary first Emperor Jimmu at the time of his ascension.

[a] The emperor's full statement reads: "Hakkō wo ooute ie to nasan" (八紘を掩うて宇と為さん) (in the original kanbun: 掩八紘而爲宇), and means: "I shall cover the eight directions and make them my abode".

To stop this imperialist reinterpretation from spreading, Koyama Iwao (1905–1993), disciple of Nishida, and drawing off the Flower Adornment Sutra, proposed to substitute the words "to be included or to find a place" for the last two characters ("to make them my abode").

Worsened with the economic impact of the Shōwa financial crisis and the Great Depression in the 1930s, which led to a resurgence of nationalist, militarist and expansionist movement, Emperor Shōwa, known more commonly as Hirohito outside Japan, and his reign became associated with the rediscovery of hakkō ichiu as an expansionist element of Japanese nationalistic beliefs.

As the Second Sino-Japanese War dragged on without conclusion, the Japanese government turned increasingly to the nation's spiritual capital to maintain fighting spirit.

Characterization of the fighting as a "holy war" (聖戦, seisen), similarly grounding the current conflict in the nation's sacred beginnings, became increasingly evident in the Japanese press at this time.

The general spread of the term hakkō ichiu, neatly encapsulating this view of expansion as mandated in Japan's divine origin, was further propelled by preparations for celebrating the 2,600th anniversary of Jimmu's ascension, which fell in the year 1940 according to the traditional chronology.

[20] In some cases local populations welcomed Japanese troops when they invaded, initially seeing them as preferable to being ruled by Western colonial powers.

[19] The Japanese also indoctrinated their soldiers into believing that it was their duty to make Asians "strong again" through force, after being weakened by Western imperialism.

[26] After the Olympics, which coincided with worldwide interest in the Japanese Imperial family, the local tourism association successfully petitioned the Miyazaki Prefecture to reinstall the "Hakkō ichiu" characters.