Gov't considering to change Japanese passport design by 2020

An American employee showed me his passport. Wow, it's really full of very nationalistic imagery. Japanese will be in trouble if we did the same thing. Cherry blossems are fine.

Abe wants pictures of Yasukuni shrine and black van fascists on alternate pages.

Patriotic is the word you're looking for. People abuse the word "nationalism". Besides, I can hardly think of a document more fitting for a little country pride than a passport.

What nationalistic imagery is on the American passport?

Happened to have mine in my pocket, I see a couple of pages with glaring eagles, a naval battle scene (skipper standing on the gunwale under lyric from Star Spangled Banner), a man-o-war (ship, not jellyfish), Mount Rushmore, cowboys herding cattle, etc.

But, I guess would seem a lot more nationalistic than cherry blossoms. If you hadn't seen that penultimate scene in The Last Samurai.

http://judoinfo.com/kdk.htm

The cherry blossom was considered an especially beautiful and important symbol for Japanese samurai because at the height of its beauty it would inevitably fall to the ground to die. Samurai also had to be willing to sacrifice themselves in their prime, and the cherry blossom was evidence that this is the natural way of things and could even be beautiful and pure. Life is as delicate and light as the falling petals, and there is a natural time for all beautiful things to end. The samurai strove to understand the nature of life and death by meditating on the blossom of the cherry tree.

I hope they get some inspiration from the Norway passports