This is a special issue with three contributions reviewing issues of Japan's wartime forced labor regime centered on (but by no means limited to) Korean and Chinese labor, the high death rates among workers, many of captured and sent to labor in Japan or Manchuria. The issues have a special salience in 2015 as Japan is on the verge of succeeding in its application for World Heritage status emblematic of the nation's early  industralization for a number of sites of wartime forced labor. The issues, to be decided in the coming weeks, have been vigorously contested by the South Korean government on grounds of the Japanese government's silence about the dark legacy of these sites.