Abe's Legacy Lives On Four Years After Assassination as Site of Killing Remains Unmarked 

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Four years have passed since former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot and killed while campaigning in Nara on July 8, 2022. Japan is still grappling with how to remember him—both in the tributes paid by the political figures he shaped, and in the physical absence of any marker at the place where he died.

Mourners Return to the Scene

On July 8, mourners gathered at a makeshift flower-offering stand near the Nara train station outside which Abe was shot two days before a national election. 

A woman in her 40s from Gose City wept as she laid flowers, asking that Abe's spirit watch over her family as she continues raising her daughter, who has a developmental disability. A woman in her 70s from Nara City called him the finest prime minister the country has had. Another local resident asked only that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi be kept safe. 

A high school student from Osaka pushed back on media coverage he felt shifted blame of the assassination onto Abe himself, calling it "extremely unpleasant" and accusing reporters of trying to trivialize the case. 

A Site Without a Memorial

The site of the assassination itself, however, still carries no plaque, no monument, nothing to explain what happened there. Two flower beds were installed nearby, planted with marigolds and zinnias, but without any accompanying explanation. Nara City considered a memorial but shelved the idea after receiving comments that it would "bring back memories of the incident." 

Other assassinations of sitting or former Japanese prime ministers left some trace at their sites. Takashi Hara and Osachi Hamaguchi were both attacked at Tokyo Station, which still bears plaques marking each incident. 

By contrast, the site of Makoto Saito's assassination during the February 26 Incident in 1936—a private residence in Yotsuya, Tokyo—has since been replaced by an apartment building. Nothing there indicates what happened, a precedent some fear could repeat itself in Nara. 

Spirit of a Fighting Politician

On July 11, at a gathering in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward, Prime Minister Takaichi delivered a speech to politicians, journalists, and former officials who had worked alongside Abe.

The Prime Minister recalled a visit to Washington in March, when she saw a photograph of Abe still displayed in President Trump's office. She said Trump speaks of him fondly and often, still calling him warmly by his first name. 

During a trip to India the same month, she said Prime Minister Narendra Modi told her that the Quad framework itself was part of Abe's legacy, one he takes great pride in.

Takaichi spoke candidly about the burden of following him. "There's no way I could ever fill Abe's shoes," she said. "All I get is criticism from the comparison." 

She admitted that their personalities, abilities, and ways of working are entirely different, but said she has learned to tell herself, "I am who I am"—even as she continues to wrestle with the weight of the role. Still, the Prime Minister said, she hopes to be, like Abe, a fighting politician.

She also recalled how clear summer skies still bring him to mind, since he was known as a man who always seemed to bring sunshine with him. At moments like that, Takaichi said, she can almost hear his voice telling her to keep her chin up and keep looking forward.

Enduring Influence

Other speakers linked Abe's legacy directly to the week's biggest political development: the lower house's passage of a bill allowing former imperial family lines to return to the throne through adoption. 

Yoshiko Sakurai called it "the most important step yet in Abe's long-standing push to move beyond Japan's postwar order." She argued that a Japan freed from that postwar mindset is a country that should "take pride in itself and stand confidently among the nations of the world."

Liberal Democratic Party executive acting secretary-general Koichi Hagiuda recalled Abe's 2021 social media post showing him eating Taiwanese pineapple, which he shared after China halted imports of the fruit from Taiwan. 

Abe had simply written that his dessert that day was pineapple, and that it looked delicious. The post went viral and helped spark a buying movement in Japan that, according to Hagiuda, now accounts for nearly 99% of Taiwan's pineapple exports.

Kazuhisa Shimada, a former administrative vice minister of defense who served as Abe's secretary, described what he called the "Abe Doctrine," crediting Abe with shifting Japan's security posture toward a more defensive stance. 

He recalled a 2013 visit to Iwo Jima, where Abe, walking onto the airstrip built over the site of Japan's wartime garrison, suddenly stopped, knelt down, and pressed his hand to the ground. Shimada said it looked as though Abe were speaking to the soldiers resting beneath it.

A Legacy Still Shaping Diplomacy

Takaichi closed her remarks by returning to the diplomatic weight Abe still carries even years after his death, telling the room that his memory "keeps supporting the strength of the Japan-US alliance" even now. Whether that legacy will be matched by something as simple as a plaque at the scene of his killing remains, for now, an open question.

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(Read a related article in Japanese.)

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