The article refers to Abe's government as "ultra-conservative", not as "right-wing nationalist". I would not say that Abe is nationalist in the normal definition of the word. Japanese politics tends towards right wing, though it tends to be more of an old school conservatism: old money, but with a sense of responsibility towards the people. So, for example, there aren't a lot of services performed by the government and it is expected that businesses somehow voluntarily pay to have these things done. In my rural town the government does not mow the sides road, or trim branches on trees, or maintain the parks. That's pretty much all done on a volunteer basis by local businesses, or residents. There is a big rota and you have to go out once a month and do some work.

Financially, things are conservative as well. Abenomics is literally Reganomics with "Regan" replaced by "Abe" -- trickle down theory and all. And it works just as well as Reganomics didn't too ;-) Abe has also been quite busy trying to rewrite the constitution so that Japan can get into international conflicts where their allies are involved. Previously Japan was only allowed to get into conflicts where Japan itself was under threat. There is some speculation that the emperor only abdicated in order to force the government to do a bunch of constitutional work and delay the constitutional work that Abe had ordered. Abe managed to survive a general election, so if that was the goal it ended up being fruitless.

In terms of nationalism, I don't think that Japan (or its government) fits the definition. There are protectionist attitudes towards food trade, but that is understandable given that more than 1 million people starved after WWII due to the fact that Japan had imported most of its staple foods at the time and got blockaded. There are actual laws that date from the end of WWII that enforce this protectionism, so it's hard to blame the current government :-)

There are, of course, nationalist people in Japan (and even nationalist political parties), but they do not represent Japanese mainstream thinking in any way shape or form. It is very much the loony fringe.

> Is it really such a big deal?

It is! Nagoya city allocated 480 million JPY (4.3m USD) of budget for modifying their system [1]. Kobe city estimates 550 million JPY (5m USD) [2]. There are about 800 cities and 800 townships in Japan, each of them will need to pay a similar amount of cost, because every date in their system is in the era calendar. The total cost is going to be enormous. Yet, as of 2019, if you ask most laypeople they don't even know what era year is the current year. It is only used within government or municipal offices.

[1] https://hicbc.com/news/detail.asp?id=00049F45 [2] https://www.kobe-np.co.jp/news/sougou/201904/0012202757.shtm...