Japanese Students Protest Expansion of Militarism

“The legislation would increase the risks of Japanese troops getting killed in a combat or the country becoming a target of terror attacks,” said Nobukazu Honma, 20, one of the group’s founders who attends Tsukuba University.

The group, which rapidly grew from a half-dozen founders to roughly 1,000 student members, is leading a coalition that includes bar associations, unions and scholars.

The outburst of student activism has surprised many and energized opposition groups that have been led by a dwindling army of aging liberals.

“I was nearly resigned about the situation in Japan,” said Ryuichi Sakamoto, a 63-year-old pop music artist, who participated in a large demonstration on Aug. 30. “But I regained hope after young Sealds members and women began speaking up.”

The group’s shorthand name is Sealds, which members pronounce with an extra “h” to make it sound like “shields,” alluding to their goal of protecting democracy. The decision to use an English name underscores the embrace of western influences by the group, whose protest signs are often solely in English. Some members have dyed their hair blond, making them especially stand out in a nation where nearly everyone has black hair, and shout their political slogans in hip-hop rhythm.

Since May, when the protests began, approval for Mr. Abe’s cabinet has dropped from 51% to 43% last week, according to a poll of about 1,000 people by NHK, Japan’s largest broadcasting organization. Political analysts attribute the drop largely to the unpopularity of the security legislation. It isn’t clear whether the protests have contributed to the increased opposition or simply have given people a place to make their views visible.

“People understand that Sealds is just a group of regular college students--not radicals or even activists--who are concerned about the political trajectory of their country,” said David Slater, professor of cultural anthropology at Sophia University in Tokyo, who oversees a project at the university called Voices of Protest Japan.

“They have built a strong base with support from many sectors--older activists, moms with kids, high-school students. All of these facts suggest they have staying power that most groups lack,” Mr. Slater said.

Chief cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, Mr. Abe’s spokesman, played down the Aug. 30 protest, saying turnout was fueled by a misunderstanding of the security legislation, which he blamed on the news media and opposition political parties.

Mr. Abe says the legislation is needed to ensure Japan’s security given the rapid growth of China’s military and uncertainties in North Korea, allowing its troops to help the U.S. military if in the interest of “collective security.”

The legislation is backed by Mr. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and the Buddhist party, with conditional support from three small opposition parties. Most center-left opposition parties are against the legislation. The two bills have passed the lower house of parliament and are expected to be passed Friday by the upper house, handing Mr. Abe a victory.

Students were at the forefront of demonstrations in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s, when Japan began steadily relaxing the interpretation of its “no-war” constitution. It established its voluntary military—the Self-Defense Forces—and expanded its U.S. alliance.

But political apathy set in, as the postwar economic boom and rising living standards left young people content with the status quo.

Two decades of economic stagnation after the 1990 economic bubble burst, capped by the nuclear disaster of March 11, 2011, stirred some students to join in protests. But apathy remains deep--only one in three Japanese citizens in their 20s voted in the last general election in December 2014.

Miki Satake, a 23-year-old studying to become a nurse, found herself unexpectedly joining Seald’s protests after largely being inactive in politics.

In a speech at a Seald rally in June, she drew on her experience of working with an aid group in Germany in 2012 where she saw Afghan children with lost limbs or burned faces.

“I’m against the security legislation because I don’t want Japan to become a normal country,” she told recalled telling the crowd. “I cannot stand the idea of Japanese troops killing my little friends and their families in Afghanistan,” she said. “War breeds more hatred.”

Mr. Honma, one of Seald’s founders, says the group taps into not just youths’ concern about war, but also about insecurity about reliable employment.

“It is little wonder that people are turning to politics to change the situation,” Mr. Honma said.

Mr. Honma traces his own activism to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011, which exposed flaws in the country’s political and regulatory systems. “I started worrying about whether this country is really OK,” he said.

Mr. Honma says Sealds will continue to protest policies of Mr. Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party after this week’s expected security vote.

But he acknowledges it won’t be easy to persuade fellow students to move from the classroom into the streets.

“This is going to be a long battle,” Mr. Honma said.

Write to Mitsuru Obe at mitsuru.obe@wsj.com