National Foundation Day (建国記念の日, Kenkoku Kinen no Hi) is a public holiday of Japan observed annually on the 11th February.

[13] The American historian Carol Gluck noted that for the Japanese state in the Meiji era, "social conformity" was the highest value, with dissent considered a major threat to the kokutai.

One of the Meiji era reforms was the introduction of conscription of all able-bodied men at age 18, to serve in either the Army or the Navy.

[5][6] In its original form, the holiday was named Kigensetsu (紀元節), translated by one pre-war scholar as "Festival of the Accession of the First Emperor and the Foundation of the Empire".

[23] The holiday of Kigensetsu featured parades, athletic competitions, the public reading of poems, the handing out of sweets and buns to children, with the highlight of the Kigensetsu always being a rally where ordinary people would kowtow to a portrait of the emperor, which was followed up by the singing of the national anthem and patriotic speeches whose principal theme was always that Japan was a uniquely virtuous nation because of its rule by the god-emperors.

[24] Reflecting the fact that for most Japanese people under the bakufu regional loyalties were stronger than national loyalties, in the 1880s and 1890s, there was some confusion in the rural areas of Japan about just what precisely Kigensetsu was meant to celebrate, with one deputy mayor of a small village in 1897 believing that Kigensetsu was Emperor Meiji's birthday.

[24] The slow penetration of Kigensetsu in the rural areas was due to the fact that the children of most peasants did not attend school or at least for very long, and it was only with the gradual establishment of a universal education system that the imperial cult caught on.

It was only about 1910 that Kigensetsu finally started to serve its purpose as a holiday that united the entire Japanese nation in loyalty to the emperor over the length and breadth of Japan.

In a 1948 memorandum, the chief of the occupation authorities' religious and cultural resources division, W. K. Bunce, recommended the abolition of Kigensetsu to General Douglas MacArthur's chief of staff, writing that: This holiday, based entirely on Shinto mythology, has been an occasion for propagandizing the divine origin and superiority of the Japanese race.

Due to its official recognition of historical absurdities, it has served as a stumbling block to honest research into the early history of the Japanese people.

[29] The holiday was re-established as National Foundation Day in 1966[30][1] following the creation by Prime Minister Eisaku Satō of an exploratory council that was chaired by civic reformer Tsûsai Sugawara.

Of the ten members of the council, seven voted to advise the prime minister to adopt the holiday; economist Genichi Abe believed the commemoration should be absorbed into New Year's Day to lessen financial impact, author Seiichi Funahashi objected to governmental sponsorship of the holiday, and journalist Sōichi Ōya resigned from the group prior to its final meeting without contributing a vote.

In addition, agronomist Azuma Okuda included a separate opinion that the holiday should celebrate the land of Japan rather than glorify its people.

[34]In contrast with the events associated with earlier Kigensetsu, celebrations for National Foundation Day are relatively moderate.

During the post-war period and up to 2000, there were two opposing sentiments: a caution to prevent ultra-nationalism and a desire to revive cultural traditions.