The first hostage was not a journalist, he was a mentally ill guy who fancied himself a security contractor.
Changes in Yukawa's life in suburban Tokyo had been fast and disorienting. Over the past decade, he had lost his wife to lung cancer, lost a business and his house to bankruptcy and been forced to live in a public park for almost a month, according to Yukawa's father and an online journal he maintained.
The hard times led to soul searching. By his own account, he had changed his name to the feminine-sounding Haruna, attempted to kill himself by cutting off his genitals and came to believe he was the reincarnation of a cross-dressing Manchu princess who had spied for Japan in World War Two.
By late 2013, Yukawa had also begun a flirtation with Japan's extreme right-wing politics and cultivated a new persona as a self-styled security consultant, according to his Facebook page and blog posts, though he never did any work as a consultant.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/27/us-syria-crisis-yukawa-insight-idUSKBN0GR1KT20140827
Video of "reporter" Yukawa.
Goto himself was embedded with and creating propaganda for the Jihadists fighting the secular regime of Assad, hardly a cool anti-war guy. He was actually a supporter of and embedded with people that many would consider terrorrists.
This incident will help Japanese President Abe with his moves to modify the previously pacifist constitution to allow Japan to militarize and allow it's army to fight abroad.
The Japanese hostage crisis appears certain to play a role in the debate over Japan’s global security posture as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ’s government prepares legislation that would give it more freedom to use military force.
Mr. Abe’s government on Monday convened a session of parliament in which it plans to introduce legislation that will allow Japan to engage in “collective self-defense,” including aiding allies such as the U.S. in regional conflicts threatening Japan’s security, and to come to the rescue of Japanese citizens abroad.
Koichi Nakano, a political-science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo, said the hostage crisis—in which a Japanese citizen was beheaded by Islamic State militants last week—could strengthen Mr. Abe’s resolve to restyle Japan as a more muscular political actor on the international stage.
“Mr. Abe may use the latest case to raise support for his move to expand the role of Japan’s military,” he said.
Japan Hostage Crisis Revives Debate Over Military Force
It's interesting most of the reports say the video "purports" to show the beheading. There is considerable analysis on non mainstream sites calling out these videos as fakes.
Experts say ISIS ransom clip faked as deadline for Japanese hostages passes
