Shinzo Abe, the first Japanese prime minister born after World War II, has put changing the way Japan views its wartime history front-and-center ahead of a major parliamentary election this weekend.

Heading into Sunday's upper house elections, Abe is stressing a "Beautiful Japan" platform of promoting patriotism, overhauling the constitution so that the military can play a bigger role abroad and revising school textbooks - critics would say whitewashing history - to bolster national pride.

"I have renewed my resolve to make further progress toward realizing a new Japan, a country admired and respected by people in the world, a country our children's generation can have self-confidence and pride in," he said in a speech marking Constitution Day in May.