State Shinto
"State Shinto" was not an official designation for any practice or belief in Imperial Japan during this period. Instead, it was developed at the end of the war to describe the mixture of state support for non-religious shrine activities and immersive ideological support for the Kokutai ("National Body/Structure") policy in education, including the training of all shrine priests. This permitted a form of traditional religious Shinto to reflect a State Shinto position without the direct control of the state. The extent to which Emperor worship was supported by the population is unclear, though scholars such as Ashizu Uzuhiko, Sakamoto Koremaru, and Nitta Hitoshi argue that the government's funding and control of shrines was never adequate enough to justify a claim to the existence of a State Shinto. The extent of popular support for the actions categorized as "State Shinto" is the subject of debate.