Masaki Tomiyama is desperate.
Every few days, he takes to the streets of his Fukuoka neighborhood with a microphone in hand, and makes an impassioned speech against a set of unpopular security bills bulldozed through the Diet by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling bloc four months ago.
The 52-year-old is fighting for his own son — a junior Ground Self-Defense Force serviceman who he fears may be dragged into foreign conflicts once the contentious law takes effect in March as scheduled. The law, enacted based on Abe's reinterpretation of the pacifist Constitution, enables the Self-Dense Forces to fight abroad as part of collective self-defense — or defending allies from aggression — marking the first time Japanese forces could engage in combat since World War II.