Shōwa era in the context of "Emperor Shōwa"

Before and during World War II, the Empire of Japan committed numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity across various Asian–Pacific nations, notably during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War. These incidents have been referred to as "the Asian Holocaust" and "Japan's Holocaust", and also as the "Rape of Asia". The crimes occurred during the early part of the Shōwa era.

The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) were responsible for war crimes leading to millions of deaths, ranging from sexual slavery and massacres to human experimentation, torture, starvation, and forced labor. Evidence of these crimes, including oral testimonies and written records such as diaries and war journals, has been provided by Japanese veterans.

The Taishō era (大正時代, Taishō jidai; [taiɕoː dʑidai] ) was a period in the history of Japan dating from July 30th, 1912 to December 25th, 1926, coinciding with the reign of Emperor Taishō. The new emperor was a sickly man, which prompted the shift in political power from the old oligarchic group of elder statesmen (or genrō) to the Imperial Diet of Japan and the democratic parties. Thus, the era is considered the time of the liberal movement known as Taishō Democracy; it is usually distinguished from the preceding chaotic Meiji era and the following militaristic-driven first part of the Shōwa era.

Genrō (元老; lit. 'original elder') was an unofficial designation given to a generation of elder Japanese statesmen, all born in the 1830s and 1840s, who served as informal extraconstitutional advisors to the emperor during the Meiji, Taishō, and early Shōwa eras of Japanese history.

The institution of genrō originated with the traditional council of elders (Rōjū) common in the Edo period; however, the term genrō appears to have been coined by a newspaper only in 1892. The term is sometimes confused with the Genrōin (Chamber of Elders), a legislative body which existed from 1875–1890; however, the genrō were not related to the establishment of that body or its dissolution.

Hirohito (裕仁; 29 April 1901 – 7 January 1989), posthumously honored as Emperor Shōwa (昭和天皇, Shōwa Tennō), was the 124th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, reigning from 1926 until his death in 1989. He remains the longest-reigning emperor in Japanese history and one of the longest-reigning monarchs in the world. As emperor during the Shōwa era, Hirohito presided over the rise of Japanese militarism, Japan's invasion of mainland Asia, the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Second World War, and the nation's postwar economic miracle.

Hirohito was born during the reign of his paternal grandfather, Emperor Meiji, as the first child of Crown Prince Yoshihito and Crown Princess Sadako (later Emperor Taishō and Empress Teimei). When Emperor Meiji died in 1912, Hirohito's father ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne, and Hirohito was proclaimed Crown Prince of Japan in 1916, making him the heir apparent. In 1921, he made an official visit to the United Kingdom and Western Europe, marking the first time a Japanese crown prince had traveled abroad. Due to his father's ill health, Hirohito became Sesshō of Japan (regent) that same year. In 1924, he married Princess Nagako Kuni, with whom he later had seven children: Shigeko, Sachiko, Kazuko, Atsuko, Akihito, Masahito and Takako. He became emperor upon his father's death in 1926.

Postwar Japan is the period in Japanese history beginning with the surrender of Japan to the Allies of World War II on 2 September 1945, and lasting at least until the end of the Shōwa era in 1989.

Despite the massive devastation it suffered in the Second World War, Japan established itself as a global economic power at peace with the world after the Allied-occupation ended on 28 April 1952 by the Treaty of San Francisco. In terms of political power it was more reluctant, especially in the nonuse of military force. The post-war constitution of 1947 included Article 9, which restricted Japan from having a military force and engaging in war. However, it has operated military forces in the stationing of the United States Forces Japan based on the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty after the Allied occupation and the form of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces since 1954.

Nobusuke Kishi (岸 信介, Kishi Nobusuke; 13 November 1896 – 7 August 1987) was a Japanese bureaucrat and politician who served as prime minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960. He is remembered for his exploitative economic management of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in China in the 1930s, imprisonment as a suspected war criminal following World War II, and provocation of the massive Anpo protests as prime minister, retrospectively receiving the nickname "Monster of the Shōwa era" (昭和の妖怪; Shōwa no yōkai). Kishi was the founder of the Satō–Kishi–Abe dynasty in Japanese politics, with his younger brother Eisaku Satō and his grandson Shinzo Abe both later serving as prime ministers of Japan.

Born in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Kishi graduated from Tokyo Imperial University in 1920. He rose through the ranks at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and during the 1930s led the industrial development of Manchukuo, where he exploited Chinese slave labor. Kishi served in the wartime cabinet of Hideki Tōjō as minister of commerce and industry from 1941 to 1943 and vice minister of munitions from 1943 to 1944. At the end of the war in 1945, Kishi was imprisoned as a suspected Class A war criminal, but U.S. occupation authorities did not charge, try, or convict him, and released him in 1948 during the Reverse Course. At the end of the occupation in 1952, Kishi was de-purged, enabling his election to the National Diet in 1953. With overt and covert U.S. support, he consolidated Japanese conservatives against perceived threats from the Japan Socialist Party, and in 1955 was instrumental in forming the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Kishi was thus key in establishing the "1955 System" under which the LDP remains Japan's dominant party.