[P]ressure to erase the darker episodes of its wartime history has intensified recently with the rise of a small, aggressive online movement seeking to intimidate those like Mr. Mizuguchi who believe the country must never forget.

Known collectively as the Net Right, these loosely organized cyberactivists were once dismissed as radicals on the far margins of the Japanese political landscape…

…Scholars say the Net Right has no more than a few thousand active members, many of them from Japan’s growing ranks of contract workers who have been unable to find coveted lifetime jobs. But these extremists have benefited from a broader upwelling of frustration among young Japanese over their nation’s long economic and political stagnation…

…“We are tired of Japan being constantly told to apologize,” said Kazuya Kyomoto, 26, a popular blogger among conservative youth who condemned monuments like the one in Sarufutsu for promoting a “masochistic” view of Japanese history. He said just a few overzealous extremists used intimidation tactics.