The City playmaker and her team-mates were once again impressive as they saw off the challenge of Norway with a 3-1 win in Wellington.
Japan will now face the winners of the Sweden v USA clash which takes place in the early hours of Sunday morning (UK time).
The Japanese have emerged as dark horses to win the World Cup having won all four of their games so far, scoring 14 times and conceding just one.
Norway, in contrast, have been largely disappointing during the tournament and were architects of their own downfall when Ingrid Engen put through her own net on 15 minutes to give Japan the lead.
The Norwegians did level five minutes later when Chelsea’s Guro Reiten superbly headed Vilde Boe Risa’s cross.
That led to a decent spell for Norway who went into the break level at 1-1.
However, just five minutes after the restart, Japan were back in front when Hasegawa’s pass in the box was intercepted by Boe Risa who, in turn, gifted the ball to Risa Shimizu who made no mistake with a deflected shot to make it 2-1.
That goal sparked another spell of pressure from Norway who raised their intensity as the game wore on, but on 81 minutes, Japan killed the game off with their third of the evening.
Hinata Miyazawa raced onto a perfect weighted pass from Aoba Fujino to calmly slot the ball past the advancing Norwegian keeper for her fifth goal of the tournament and book place in the quarter-finals for a team that, on this evidence, are peaking at just the right time.
