I lived in Greece in the 1960s and every time a film poster showed a gun of any kind, the government blacked it out in case someone made a replica out of soap and stormed the presidential mansion.

model rockets and explosives. thats a good idea. one that i apparently have never thought of, or heard of before. thanks for the tip.

Probably a sound idea. Although I did enjoy model rockety as a hobby as a kid, it was also a simple and easy bit of fun to create pipe bombs out of the powder that could be extracted from the motors. Luckily I never lost any limbs, and there were no terrorist underpinnings to my pyromania.

I suppose you've read about some of the rocket incidents from the days of the Sekigun (Japanese Red Army) and other such organizations. A rocket was fired at Kyoto Gosho (the old imperial palace in Kyoto) once. I vaguely recall there were rockets used by farmers protesting the construction of Narita airport.
Perhaps the ban has something to do with these incidents.

For some reason, I find myself imagining a different historical timeline in which the Zengakuren really get to grips with rocket technology and go on to establish a collectivist moonbase. Back in rocket-free Japan, ultra-rightists use cutting-edge rubber band technology to hurl black vans at them in a nod to Kubrick. In the Toho version of the story, an orbiting research station (sort of Shibuya-kei meets Space Channel 5 or maybe Nakameguro in Space) sights an approaching meteorite and the film then becomes a celebratory account of people putting their various differences aside and working together for the benefit of all.

Amongst all the distraction, no one notices that Japan has managed to grab back the Kuril Islands.

Just a thought.

For some reason, Japan is all cool with loud rightist vans, bouryokudan violence, and a history of assassinations of socialists, but let's make sure that we sweep the existence of the Zengakuren under the carpet of history forever. Were the JRA a bunch of misguided and lame losers searching for terrorist glory? Yes: Shigenobu Fusako and the URA gang up at Asama-san wrecked the whole Leftist ship. But one day I wish that when I passed by the kouban, the photos in the little box were not of Leftist revolutionaries, but some of the Neo-Nationalists who have caused at least as much damage over the years. I don't see the Communists running burning cars into the Diet these days. I see them making mochi and protesting the war in Iraq.