The initial Japanese publication of the 'Protocols' heralded the emergence of antisemitic views and growing public interest in the role of Jews in world politics. During 1986 Uno Masami and Yajima Kinji came into the public limelight with extremely successful antisemitic books. 1995 was a turning point in Japan's postwar attitude towards Jews. There has been a sharp decline in attention to Jews, and the last several years were marked by a relatively high rate of translations into Japanese of serious works on Jewish history