Right wing people black vans

Went to Azabu Juuban the other day and noticed outside the subway station a man with a microphone shouting about something, with a white truck behind him and some written messages. Could be heard several blocks away.

Then on the street a few black vans with old Japanese flags and loudspeakers appeared, playing old music. I have learned these are right wing people. Then not long after that, several police cars appeared as well, shouting something in loudspeakers.

I imagined they going after the black trucks but not sure, as I don't know what "status" are for right wing people in society in Japan.

Could I be right or wrong about that? And do these black vans pose any threat to me as a tourist visiting?

I know Yakuza do not bother you but not sure about other gangs or so.

No threat to tourists or anyone else.
I�fd guess they may have been close to the Russian or Korean embassy. There is kind of a �ggame�h between these right wing protesters and the police and those embassies. They go to ev the Korean embassy and shout that Korea shall �greturn�h some islands. Then after a while the police comes and asks them to leave which they do just to drive to the Russian embassy to shout for them to �greturn �g some other islands. Then police comes there and asks them to leave and then probably they either go to some otger embassy or go for lunch.
Unless you have an island that they want you should be safe 🤓

Yep - this has been going on for donkeys years.

I used to work at an international school which was near the Korean ambassadors residence and we used to get them drive past on the odd occasion. They did not really do anything apart from be noisy.

Thankfully we also had some yakuza neighbours who when they showed up the van would make a quick getaway.

Short answer:

Be it yakuza or extreme right-wingers, they won't bug you if you don't bug them.

Long answer:

First of all, right-wingers and extreme right-wingers are two different things. The former is just another way of looking at the world. Many right-wingers can be friendly gentlemen. The latter can be dangerou (although, again, they don't bug you if you don't bug them).

Secondly, I think it's a bit hard to distinguish ordinary election campaigns (including those of non-right-wingers) from extreme right-wing campaigns, unless you know the language and/or culture. Ordinary election campaigns can be pretty loud and annoying, too, with flashy banners all over the place. But if they're playing wartime songs (we call it "gun-ka"), that's almost always extreme right-wingers. (But then, it's hard to distinguish wartime songs from some of the cult religion songs.)

Third, there is no such thing as a design for "old Japanese flags". If you're talking about the "kyoku-jitsu-ki ������" in which you see red rays spreading out of a red circle, that was never a flag representing the country, and is still commonly used in celebrations in fisheries and such. The Asahi Shinbun newspaper is known to lean toward the left wing, and their company flag looks just like the kyoku-jitsu-ki.

So, the flag is not "old", it never represented Japan as a nation, it doesn't automatically mean right-wing, but the extreme right-wingers have a unique way of presenting them.

And islands are only a very small percentage of what extreme right-wingers are shouting about. Additionally, it's not only the right-wingers that are concerned about the islands. Ordinary people who live near those islands are desperate in trying to regain the right to freely go to the islands. Many have graves, relatives and memories in the northern islands, and fisheries are having trouble doing business near the southern islands. It's very complicated.

In any case, the newest thing among the extreme right-wingers isn't the islands, the Russians or the Koreans at all. But I refrain from going off-topic.

To sum up, the point is that they're "extreme". They don't represent our country, and if you see them using violence or hate-speech you can discuss it with the police, and if you happen to be scared you can keep quiet and walk away. Nobody is going to bug you, and nobody will blame you.

I found those ones back in 2013 when I was in Hiroshima close to Peace Park and saw them and the police and nothing bad happened, just they were loud true, but no fights and no physical violence.