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Forum - View topicNEWS: Manga Fan Tarō Asō is a Frontrunner to Lead Japan
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InsaneLampshade
Posts: 24 Location: England |
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In what way is that ironic? |
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Pepperidge
 Posts: 1106 Location: British Columbia, Canada |
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Because they're very conservative.
This man is a bigoted hack, and I seriously hope that he isn't voted in. I would imagine that his public backing would be significant, regardless... I wish otaku weren't so easily won over, which is often the impression I get when I read about his campaigns. |
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MJP
Posts: 126 |
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Taro Aso is just more of the same. Abe, Koizumi, pretty much every prime minister since the end of Yoshida has been pro-business, anti-Korean, and historically revisionist. If a German prime minister started denying the Holocaust and the acts of Dr. Mengele, there'd be hell to pay. Yet nobody raises any global craziness when a Japanese prime minister tries to negate the existence of comfort women, the oppression of Koreans, and Unit 731.
Anyone who's excited at Aso coming to power strictly because he's a manga fan needs to look up Unit 731, Comfort Women, and the Rape of Nanking on Wikipedia and realize that almost every Japanese prime minister has either denied or negated their existence or refused to compensate the victims. This is one of those points when I'm seriously ashamed of being a fan of Japanese pop culture. I was raised Jewish and given all the Holocaust education. I can only imagine what it's like for one of the millions of Chinese citizens affected by Japanese war atrocities that are so casually dismissed today. |
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chrisb
 Subscriber Posts: 651 Location: USA |
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Wow, I seriously hope that anime and manga fans in Japan aren't seriously thinking this man is great based on only him liking anime. It would be like all American baseball fans voting for someone just because they used to play on a team.
I didn't mind Abe much, I actually liked how he was much more moderate, Koizumi was rather hypocritical but tolerable as well, this man however seems worse in the way he handles foreign affairs and his attitude to surrounding nations is awful, especially China and Korea (seriously visitng the gravesite of war criminals?) Hopefully the new political group can atleast stop Taro Aso from getting everything he wants. |
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rg4619
Posts: 163 |
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I doubt Aso's "love" for manga (and his aim to increase awareness and popularity of it outside Japan. Stems from national elitism, not fandom) is any more than a nationalistic and political tool.
Yeah, his reputation as a bigot/rightist/revisionist is particularly bad. Koizumi and Abe are positively moderate in comparison. As far as East Asian relations go, it'd be disturbing for someone like that to be in power. |
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CCSYueh
 Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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So do you really expect a change? They've been downplaying it so long, they really can't change streams now. I'm sure there are a fair share of Japanese who are like my mother-in-law & believe what they're told (church for my mother-in-law. She's positive her church leaders would never lie to the congregation) so for the government to say, "hey, you know we've been lying to you for over half a century". A few elections back I remember there was a candidate saying there was no way out of it, taxes needed to be raised. Guy didn't last out of the primaries because the American public wants to wear rose-colored glasses just like the Japanese do. I work with many people of Asian descent (mostly Phillipino) & few have anything good to say about Japan. |
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luisedgarf
Posts: 670 Location: Guadalajara, Mexico |
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Well, Being hypocritical is the (East) Asian way of life, especially for Japan, South Korea and Israel, if you guys know what I mean 
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MJP
Posts: 126 |
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I never really expect a change. The LDP is so heavily entrenched in the political and economic life of Japan, plus the massive malapportionment of votes (Most of the farming prefectures in the north and west of Japan have more voting power than cities) ensures that business interests will always be so heavily concentrated into politics. Given the right-wing nature of Japanese nationalism and political culture, there's not much that can be done, especially with North Korea always swinging the club every now and then.
Besides, we keep overestimating the influence of manga in Japanese life. Being a manga fan is like being an avid reader or movie buff anywhere else, just an enthusiastic consumer of media. |
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chrisb
Subscriber Posts: 651 Location: USA |
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The political nature of Japan is quite surprising considering how they're more liberal on social aspects and I'm not too sure but I think they have a small-form of socialized medicine. I guess their conservative nature is just to strong in their foreign affairs and nationalistic stances. I'm actually surprised at how well the other political group did considering they've lost more and more seats every election. I guess more of the citites populations voted.
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10468 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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They do indeed have socialized medicine, universal healthcare to be exact. Patients do have to pay a portion of the costs of any hospital stay though, 10-30% depending on their manner in which they are insured. Even foreigners benefit from healthcare as long as they are permitted to stay in Japan for a year or more. They also have various other socialist systems in place for the welfare of their citizenry, including employment insurance, workers comp, public assistance (for the unemployed, elderly and infirm), etc... There are also many little things that become apparent when you visit Japan. The first is that people are employed to do all sorts of things that would normally go ignored in many other countries. For example every major parking garage will have at least 2 safety attendants directing traffic and protecting pedestrians (these people would have their jobs cut in North America as a waste of money). This contributes to the country's low unemployment rate (4.x%). Homeless people are generally accepted and allowed to stay where it's warm & dry, they often line the entrances to JR stations at night, I've seen rows of homeless people sleeping inside the stations in places they would be quickly evicted from in North America. -t |
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GATSU
Posts: 15610 |
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Well at least if he loses, it'll be a victory against moe.
tempest:
In L.A., they had to take the issue to court. The ruling was that the L.A.P.D. couldn't kick out homeless, if they didn't have any other place to go. |
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Descent123
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Trying to use Anime as a tool to win is terrible but useful in getting votes.
I don't know that much about what's going on in Japan, but trying to teach different history to children that's far from the truth (China back in WWII) is a big no-no. It's funny because I consider Anime/Manga to be more Liberal in nature than Conservative. Aso said back in 2001 Japan is a nice country where "Rich Jews" would like to live. I'm Jewish and I would like to punch him in the face for that statement. |
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SharinganEye
 Posts: 402 Location: Les Etats-Unis d'Amérique |
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As for whitewashing history books, it's a "been there, done that" thing many times over. In fact, there was a row over it this year alone: Okinawa slams history text rewrite |
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Descent123
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Yes. Sad but true that almost anything can be use for ammo in politics. |
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hamtaroboy2006
Posts: 56 |
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Well there are always people in politics who use "ammo" to get what they want.
For example, you have the lawyer Jack Thompson who uses the "video games are too violent" deal to push his agenda, but that's another story. |
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