At least where I am, people seem so completely detached from politics that it takes something really visible to get their attention at all, and Abe's books (I think one of them was "To a Beautiful Country" or something along those lines, and from the reports I've heard it seems to be another tract on the uniqueness and superiority of the Japanese), and high-profile nationalist moves may just have done that.

Despite the high profile of the black-bus folk, they don't really seem to have all that much support.  Then again, ultra-nationalists probably wouldn't spend much time talking to me, so I may be entirely wrong on this point.