Yūshūkan

The Yūshūkan ("Place to commune with a noble soul") is a Japanese military and war museum located within Yasukuni Shrine in Chiyoda, Tokyo. As a museum maintained by the shrine, which is dedicated to the souls of soldiers who died fighting on behalf of the Emperor of Japan including convicted war criminals, the museum contains various artifacts and documents concerning Japanese war casualties and military activity from the start of the Meiji Restoration to the end of World War II. The museum was established in 1882, and describes itself as the first and oldest war and military museum in Japan. It has attracted controversy for its revisionism of Japan's wartime actions and militaristic past. The museum was initially established in 1882 to preserve and display Meiji Restoration-era artifacts of the Imperial Japanese Army. Following the First Sino-Japanese War and Russo-Japanese War, the Meiji Emperor issued his 192nd order in 1910, which ordered the preservation of military artifacts. The building was expanded when the number of documents and artifacts increased after World War I, but was demolished during the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. The structure was rebuilt by Itō Chūta, reopening in 1932. During World War II, looted weaponry was also displayed on loan from the Ministry of War, but the museum itself was closed down during the postwar period. Yasukuni Shrine lost funding from the government under the Shinto Directive issued by the Occupation Authorities, and the shrine put the museum building up for rent in order to obtain funds. In November 1947 the Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance Company signed a rent agreement with the shrine and began using it as its Kudankita office. The company left the building in 1980, and it reopened as the Yūshūkan museum on July 13, 1985. The building has undergone several renovations since then, and the outdoor exhibitions were moved indoors and re-exhibited on July 13, 2002. The museum's exhibitions are centered on the shrine's dedication to the spirits of deceased Japanese soldiers.