The publisher of the Weekly Young Jump comics magazine had received strong protests for printing the "inappropriate" strip by 57-year-old cartoonist Hiroshi Motomiya last month, the conservative Sankei Shimbun daily said.

The cartoon was titled "Kuni-ga Moeru" (the country burns) and told the story of a young bureaucrat in the years when Japan was heading to World War II and then rose from the ashes after its defeat.

An excerpt from the strip, carried by the Sankei, depicts Japanese soldiers slashing at Chinese captives forced to line up for execution, with comrades cheering up for the gruesome scene.

The Sankei did not say who made the protest, but Kyodo News agency reported that those responsible included a group of 37 members of local assemblies including those from Saitama City, north of Tokyo.

The Shueisha publishing house decided to write an article explaining why it went ahead with the depiction in the comics weekly, the Sankei said.

The Sankei said there was still a dispute over the number of victims in the Nanjing Massacre or whether it actually took place.

China says some 300,000 civilians were butchered when Japanese troops embarked on an orgy of destruction, rape and murder in the eastern Chinese city. Allied trials of Japanese war criminals documented 140,000 victims.

However, some Japanese right-wingers have claimed the massacre never took place and say photographs and other evidence documenting it are fakes.

No immediate comment on the report was available from the publisher.

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