Yamamoto, a 58-year-old Kagoshima native, has faced criticism for his views, but he is convinced that teaching children about "the shadows of history" will help them to think critically. After graduating from Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Yamamoto returned to Kagoshima, where he became a social studies teacher at a public school. In his fourth year, on a school trip to the Chiran Peace Museum for kamikaze pilots in Minamikyushu, Yamamoto says he was caught off guard when a museum guide said the kamikaze pilots "were all happy to head off to attack." [...] Yamamoto interviewed surviving former members of the kamikaze unit and the female students who cared for the men before they flew off to battle in the war's closing months. Yamamoto says that some of them attested that, with censorship in place, "there were no actual motives written in the wills" that the pilots left. [...] When he discussed with students the circumstances of wartime Japan during a special lesson opened to colleagues, he experienced a backlash from some teachers and education critics.