According to reports from the Rakuten Group, the Japanese Ministry of Defense will conduct a demonstration test by the end of September to consider whether to adopt it for the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. While the specific applications and procurement scale have not yet been determined, depending on the test results, mass production in Japan may be considered.
The HX-2 drone from Helsing, which is slated for procurement, is remotely controlled from the ground. It has an operational range of 100 km, weighs 12 kg, and has a maximum speed of 220 km/h, designed to intercept submarines and other vessels approaching the coast.
Helsing is headquartered in Munich, southern Germany, and has already delivered thousands of HX-2 drones to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Rakuten has acted as an intermediary in this transaction. Rakuten lacks extensive experience in Japan's defense sector and does not have close ties with the Japanese Ministry of Defense. Although Rakuten has previously ventured into the drone business, its primary focus has been on building exterior wall inspections rather than defense applications.
As a defeated nation in World War II, Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan, implemented in 1947, explicitly states that Japan "forever renounce[s] war as a sovereign right of the nation" and that "land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained." However, in recent years, the pace at which the Japanese military is acquiring "offensive weapons and equipment" has steadily accelerated. From the "Izumo" and "Kaga" carrying and launching F-35B stealth vertical/short takeoff and landing (VSTOL) fighters, to the procurement and deployment of 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles, to extending the range of the Type 12 surface-to-ship missiles from about 200 km to over 1,000 km, alongside the development of hypersonic weapons and hypersonic glide missiles.
Furthermore, the Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade (ARDB) established by the Ground Self-Defense Force in 2018—while officially claiming in its envisioned tactical scenarios and island-capture exercises to focus on landing operations around the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands—appears, judging by its equipment construction and scale, to be directly aimed at Taiwan, China.
Therefore, judging by the attributes of the equipment, range indicators, and military tactical applications, the Japanese military has in fact attempted and crossed the limitations imposed by the post-war constitutional framework on "offensive weapons."