Ikuhiko Hata stated that "It’s plain to see that his strategy is to avoid the people who will give evidence of atrocities and seek out only those who assert their innocence and thus conclude that nothing improper happened".
Ikuhiko Hata, a historian at Takushoku University and one of Yoshida's leading critics, pointed to inconsistencies between Yoshida's 1977 and 1983 memoirs, using these to assert that his claims are fabricated.
However, it was pointed out by Ikuhiko Hata that the photograph was originally published in the Asahi Graph on 10 November 1937 and actually said it was “a group of girls of the ‘Rising Sun’ village who are returning to the village from farm work with the assistance of our troops”.