Statutory annotations are a standard reference work for law students, academics and legal practitioners in Japan. With respect to the Constitution of Japan a number of excellent works—some going by the name of kommentāru (the Japanese rendering of the German “kommentar”)—are available and provide an article-by-article explanation of what the words of each provision of the charter mean. Depending on the version, there may also be capsule descriptions of important court cases in which a provision was interpreted, as well as summaries of what academia thinks about the subject. As a means of acquiring a basic grounding in what the constitution means, these books are a very useful starting point—if you can read Japanese.

There is, of course, a large body of scholarship in English on the Japanese constitution, including works by some of the authors who have contributed to this volume. However, a great deal of scholarship in English has tended to be focused on specific areas: criminal justice, freedom of speech, religion, and of course the famous “no war” provisions of Article 9. There are only a few books offering a comprehensive overview of the entirety of the constitution, and none offering a text-based, article-by-article explanation. This book is a collective effort by a team of scholars to remedy that deficiency; to make the Japanese constitution broadly accessible in its entirety to the many people who are interested in it or need to know about specific aspects of it for comparative purposes, but are unable to read about it in Japanese.

While this work will try to offer the basic “annotation” format familiar to Japanese readers, there are some necessary differences. First, being based on an assumption that many non-Japanese readers will know little or nothing about Japan or its legal system, an effort has been made to provide additional contextual information. Second, being also based on an assumption that readers will have little or no ability to read Japanese, this book will also point out some of the linguistic nuances in the Japanese version that are either missing or different in the English.

As an academic discipline, constitutional law in Japan can sometimes seem highly doctrinal, not to mention political, particularly with respect to controversial subjects such as the existence and use of the nation's Self-Defense Forces.