Report: Hiroshima Press Tour

Date : July 8 - 9, 2025

post date : 2025.09.26

Eighty years have passed since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. With the growing age of the hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors), initiatives are being implemented to help pass on their memories, and this press tour was held to cover those initiatives and interview the mayor of Hiroshima.

Ten journalists participated in the press tour, from ten media outlets based out of ten countries and regions: France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, India, China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Vietnam.

*This press tour was sponsored by the City of Hiroshima and planned/operated by the FPCJ.

*For details on the tour stops, please see the press tour announcement here.

[Day 1]

<Peace Memorial Park>

The first stop on this press tour was the Peace Memorial Park, which was established to honor the victims of the atomic bombing and pray for the realization of everlasting world peace. Mr. Yasutoshi Hirotani, a Hiroshima Peace Volunteer, guided the group around the Park, where they saw monuments such as the Memorial Monument for Hiroshima, City of Peace (the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims) and the Children’s Peace Monument, and learned about the prayers for peace and meaning behind those monuments.

The journalists asked about why Mr. Hirotani decided to become a volunteer guide, and what questions tourists usually asked him when he was acting as a guide.

<Atomic Bomb Dome>

After seeing the Peace Memorial Park, Mr. Hirotani continued guiding the group as they visited the Atomic Bomb Dome, located in the Park. With special permission from the City of Hiroshima, the journalists were able to enter inside the Dome, and film and photograph it close up from within. The journalists intently took photos and videos of the interior of the dome, seeing debris scattered by the bombing that visitors normally cannot see.

After visiting the Atomic Bomb Dome, the journalists interviewed Mr. Hirotani, as well as Ms. Hinata Tamaki and Mr. Ryunosuke Nakamura, two fourth-year students at Hiroshima University who are Youth Peace Volunteers, acting as English guides for foreign tourists and others at the Peace Memorial Park. The journalists asked these members of the younger generation who pass on the memories of Hiroshima about why they decided to start volunteering, what they thought of the wars occurring around the world today, and what they planned to do after graduation.

<Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum>

After lunch, the tour visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, which exhibits many personal belongings of the victims of the bombing along with pictures from around the time of the bombing, in order to communicate the realities of the atomic bombing. Mr. Toshihiro Toya, assistant director of the Museum, provided explanations to the group as they saw various exhibits. The journalists seemed deep in thought as they saw records of the devastating damage caused by the atomic bombing.

After touring the museum, the group moved to a conference room in the basement and interviewed the assistant director. The journalists asked questions about what measures were being taken to deal with the fading memories of the bombing due to the advanced age of hibakusha today, how the exhibits were updated in 2019 and what the intent behind the changes was, and about trends in visitors to the Museum and what percentage foreign visitors accounted for.

<Training Program for A-bomb Legacy Successors: Testimonies by Hibakusha (Accompanied by A-bomb Legacy Successor)/Interview with Hibakusha and A-bomb Legacy Successor>

At the final stop on the first day of the press tour, the group heard from Mr. Fumiaki Kajiya about his experiences with the atomic bombing, which happened when he was six years old. The group also heard from Mr. Haruki Okimoto, who Mr. Kajiya’s experiences were passed on to as part of the City of Hiroshima’s Training Program for A-bomb Legacy Successors, which was initiated to train successors to pass on the experiences and wishes for peace of hibakusha to the next generation. The group also spoke with Mr. Tomofumi Okagawa, a member of the International Peace Promotion Department of the City of Hiroshima working on the Program.

The journalists listened intently as Mr. Kajiya gave a presentation including artwork he made himself on the terrible experiences he and his family went through. Next, Mr. Okagawa gave an overview of the A-bomb Legacy Successor project. Mr. Okimoto, the A-bomb Legacy Successor, then spoke about why he decided to become a Successor and how he felt during the training, as well as what efforts he made to understand the experiences of a hibakusha.

The journalists asked a large number of questions in the interview with Mr. Kajiya and Mr. Okimoto, mainly of Mr. Kajiya, about why he began making testimonies as a hibakusha, what situations make him feel it was worth it to make testimonies, whether he had suffered any physical effects from the bombing, and if he had a message he wanted to give now, 80 years after World War II, about the current chaotic global situation. Mr. Kajiya and Mr. Okimoto graciously responded to questions far beyond the allotted time, and spoke strongly to the journalists about the horrors of nuclear weapons and the importance of peace.

[Day 2]

<NHK Hiroshima Broadcasting Station AI-based Hibakusha Testimony Simulator/Interview with Ms. Yoshiko Kajimoto, a Hibakusha Who Cooperated in the Simulator’s Development>

In response to the aging of hibakusha, NHK Hiroshima Broadcasting Station developed a Hibakusha Testimony Simulator. After someone verbally asks a question to video of a hibakusha, an AI analyzes the question and plays an appropriate response from prerecorded videos. Ms. Yoshiko Kajimoto, a hibakusha, cooperated in the development of the simulator.

The journalists heard about how the simulator works and the background behind its development from Mr. Takayuki Kamikojo, from NHK Hiroshima Broadcasting Station, and Ms. Seiko Ikuta, a content producer at NHK. Next, the journalists were able to ask questions of the simulator themselves, and see video of Ms. Kajimoto’s answers being displayed. The simulator played appropriate response to the journalists’ questions, and they appeared surprised by its accuracy.

The group then spoke with Ms. Yoshiko Kajimoto, the model for the simulator, in person. The journalists asked questions such as what Ms. Kajimoto thought of watching foreign journalists asking questions of the simulator, and whether she had any feelings on seeing video of herself being played back on the simulator. There were also numerous questions about Ms. Kajimoto’s thoughts and experiences, such as what her situation was like at the time of the bombing, if she had something she wanted to say to the world 80 years after the war, and her view of the recent increase in wars around the world. The journalists earnestly interviewed her, in order to send out to the world the progressively rarer words of a hibakusha.

<Otafuku Sauce Co., Ltd. & Rebooting Memories>

The Rebooting Memories is an initiative that uses AI to colorize black and white photos from before and after the war, and then corrects the colors by checking against contemporary materials and through discussions with people who experienced the war, in order to pass on their thoughts and memories to the future.

The tour spoke with Mr. Yasufumi Sasaki, a hibakusha and the senior adviser of Otafuku Sauce, a company which contributed to the reconstruction of Hiroshima via food culture after the bombing transformed it into scorched earth, about the colorization of black and white photos he had from the period around the war, and with Ms. Anju Niwata, who began working on the Rebooting Memories initiative when she was in high school.

The journalists asked Mr. Sasaki about his thoughts on colorizing black and white photos, and Ms. Niwata about the possibility of misrepresenting the reality of the time by colorizing photos, as well as asking how many photos had been colorized and future plans for colorization.

After the interview, the journalists visited OKOSTA, an okonomiyaki cooking studio run by Otafuku Sauce, and made okonomiyaki themselves, encountering the local food culture and its history.

<Hiroshima Municipal Honkawa Elementary School Peace Museum>

The tour then visited the Hiroshima Municipal Honkawa Elementary School Peace Museum. Honkawa Elementary School is located approximately 410 meters from the hypocenter of the explosion, and many students and teachers lost their lives there in the atomic bombing. Today, the remnants of the building are used for the Peace Museum.

The journalists heard from Ms. Miho Iwata, who acts as a volunteer guide at the Peace Museum of the school, about how her mother lost all her family members in the atomic bombing. She spoke while standing in front of a panorama model replicating Hiroshima at the time of the bombing, which had previously been displayed in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The tour also saw the damage from the bombing remaining in the interior of the building, as well as exhibits such as a glass bottle that had melted from the intense heat of the bomb.

The journalists asked questions such as why Ms. Iwata decided to become a guide, why she continues to speak about her mother’s experiences as a hibakusha, and why her mother first decided to speak about those experiences.

<Briefing on Initiatives for Peace by the City of Hiroshima>

Mr. Ryoji Hasebe, a member of the International Peace Promotion Department of the City of Hiroshima, gave the group a briefing on initiatives for peace by the City of Hiroshima. The briefing covered the city’s initiatives to pass on hibakusha’s experiences and cooperate with various other countries in order to abolish nuclear weapons and achieve everlasting world peace. Some journalists also experienced a VR goggles that reproduce what Hiroshima was like at the time of the bombing and its reconstruction, which the city lends out to local governments throughout Japan in order to pass on the experiences of the bombing.

<Interview with Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui>

The press tour ended with an interview with Mr. Kazumi Matsui, the mayor of Hiroshima. In his opening comments, Mr. Matsui stated that the average age of hibakusha was now over 86 years old, and there were concerns over memories of the atomic bombing fading. Stressing the importance of passing on those experiences and wishes for peace, he expressed his hope that this press tour would spread awareness of the realities of the atomic bombing around the world, and promote international consensus on moving towards a world without nuclear weapons.

The journalists then asked questions, as well as holding individual interviews with the mayor. Questions included what the biggest challenge in passing on the memories of the bombing was and what message he would like to send to the governments around the world with the recent increase in discussions about nuclear armaments. The journalists listened closely to the message being sent out by the mayor of Hiroshima on the 80th anniversary of its atomic bombing.