The cenotaph in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park was unveiled on August 6, 1952. It bears the words: Yasuraka ni nemutte kudasai. Ayamachi wa kurikaeshimasen kara. Please rest in peace, for the mistake will not be repeated.
The sentence names no one. It does not say whose mistake it was or who will not repeat it. The City of Hiroshima states that the mistake refers to the war and the use of nuclear weapons by humanity as a whole, not to the acts of one person or one country.
Hansei (反省): reflection on one’s own conduct, with regret for what went wrong.
Hanseikai (反省会): a reflection meeting, held after an event or project to review it.
Nanakorobi yaoki (七転び八起き): fall seven times, rise eight. Recovering each time, however many failures come.
Taiichi Ohno, the former Toyota vice president regarded as the father of the Toyota Production System, published Toyota Seisan Hōshiki in 1978. In it he wrote that by asking why five times and answering each time, one can find the chain of cause and effect and the real cause hidden behind a problem.
Toyota employees are drilled in the method from their first days as new hires.
On March 27, 2003, the Japan Science and Technology Agency released a trial version of its Failure Knowledge Database. It held about 560 cases of accidents and failures in four fields of science and technology.
The project collected and analyzed such cases and organized their lessons as knowledge to be shared. It was supervised by the engineering professor Hatamura Yōtarō.
On April 24, 2006, Japan Airlines opened its Safety Promotion Center for the safety education of JAL Group employees. It displays remains of the aircraft of Flight 123, which crashed in 1985: the rear pressure bulkhead, the front part of the vertical tail, part of the rear fuselage, and seats.
After a scandal, a Japanese company may appoint a daisansha iinkai, a third-party committee of outside experts. A guideline of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations describes its purpose. It investigates for all stakeholders and publishes the results, in order to restore the company’s trust and its ability to continue.
One type of committee analyzes the causes and, where needed, proposes concrete measures to prevent a repeat, saihatsu bōshi-saku.
A hanseibun is a written statement in which a person reflects on misconduct and apologizes for it. Writing one is a common disciplinary practice in Japanese schools.
A saying widely attributed to Honda Sōichirō, the founder of Honda, runs: Seikō wa kyūjūkyū pāsento no shippai ni sasaerareta ippāsento de aru. Success is one percent, supported by ninety-nine percent failure.
The magazine Bungei Shunjū listed it in 2013 among his sayings. No original source for this exact wording has been found.
The Japan Transport Safety Board investigates aircraft, railway and marine accidents. Article 1 of the law that set it up states its purpose. The board investigates the causes of accidents and of the damage they cause, and asks for measures based on its results, in order to help prevent accidents.
Article 18 adds that the board’s investigative powers must not be interpreted as granted for criminal investigation.
In October 2014, TV Asahi began broadcasting Shikujiri Sensei: Ore mitai ni naru na!! (Teacher of Blunders: Don’t Become Like Me!!). In each episode, a celebrity who once failed badly teaches a class in a mock school.
The guest teacher explains the lessons drawn from that failure, so that the students can avoid making the same mistake.