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Forum - View topicINTEREST: This Week's Doraemon Takes On Politics
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8501 Location: Penguinopolis |
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I'm just a bill, sitting on Capitol Hill...
I think kids will probably just like how silly it is since Nobita is just being selfish and suffers for it, as usual, and probably ignore the political implications. |
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mdo7
 Posts: 6374 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Wow, That episode of Doraemon has balls to goes up against the consumption tax hikes, I'm not sure if I should praise this episode or not. Also this got my attention:
In other news related to PM Abe and his party: KBS World (via Kyodo News Agency)-Japan PM Abe Faces Another Lawsuit for Shrine Visit and this isn't the first time, a 2nd lawsuit happened back in April. Sorry if I go slightly off topic, I didn't mean to bring this up since this is a bit of a political sensitive topic. |
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danilo07
 Posts: 1580 |
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Based, on the description we got, I would say quite the opposite. It seems to me like they made out anyone who criticizes consumption tax, to be a spoiled brat who abuses the power of democracy for his own gains. |
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Hoppy800
 Posts: 3331 |
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I'm glad the take that happened because Abe needs to be talked about especially with him still wanting to increase the consumption tax to 10%, it's more concerning as I now have to pay into this tyrants coffers because he decided that is was a wise idea to charge for digital purchases (including the PSN). He needs impeachment and fast, he is not good for Japan whatsoever.
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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Doraemon basically tries to be pre-school educational along with its wacky wish-fulfillment fun. (Eg., episodes where Nobita goes back in Japanese history, or gets a gadget that parodies famous folktales.) Here, it was pretty much the Schoolhouse Rock "I'm just a Diet Bill", giving preschoolers the idea of how much work goes into the economy, and why you can't always do whatever you want even if you get elected president--And Nobita will ALWAYS be lazy, self-indulgent and use gadgets to get what he wants, whether it's getting more money for snacks or how to skip homework, until he learns better...That's how it was in pre-boom 1980, and that's how it is in today's series. The fact that one political party sees "Sneaky disingenuous current-issue propaganda to our children" sounds a lot like Republican senators seeing "Deliberate attacks on the wealthy" in the Disney Muppet movie. |
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trunkschan90
 Posts: 593 Location: California |
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If this episode was dubbed in English they would replace the portable diet with a portable Capitol Hill or maybe the White House (the President is the one who signs the bills into laws)
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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Also, the Diet building blowing up from overuse sounds a lot like the old/new Doraemon episode where Nobita tries to start a pet walking service for some quick part-time cash, hopefully goes out and gets more clients than his spare-time can handle, and Doraemon gives him a "Toy company" of miniature toy employees to boss around, to teach him about business time management. Drunk with power, Nobita sends his little employees out to do all his pet walking, chores and homework, until he eventually comes home to find his toy employees going on strike, and ousting him as CEO at the next stockholders' meeting.
Typical Nobita, but it'd be harder to think of any recent-scandal CEO thinking they'd deliberately written the episode about him. |
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CastMember1991
 Posts: 866 |
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Wow, if only a TV show here in the States grew some balls to call out the incompetence of our government. It happened in Japan, so why not here?
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Surrender Artist
 Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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Impeachment doesn't really exist in Parliamentary systems. The Prime Minister is elected by and must hold the confidence of the House of Representatives*. A Prime Minister can be removed from office of the House of Representatives passes a motion of no confidence or the Prime Minister's party loses an election. (Even within an American context, impeachment is restricted to being used for 'high crimes', the Philadelphia convention rejected proposals allowing, "maladministration," as a cause) Prime Minister Abe's cabinet is, paradoxically, more popular than its policies at the moment, although it bears nothing that the consumption tax increase was committed to by the Democratic Party during its time in power, which ended with a whimper in December of 2012. At any rate, Japan seems to lack any effective opposition parties for the moment and the precedent of the Liberal Democratic Party** having been power for all but about five and a half years of the last sixty suggests that they will win another term in the next election, which must be held by December of 2016. (This sort of undermines the logic of a parliamentary system as it constrains the extent to which the party in power will expect to be disciplined by the electorate) It's no surprise that they proceeded with the increase. Japan's debt-to-GDP ratio is very high and the current government has been pursuing expansionary policies.
Well, there is The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, although the latter will end in December. Besides, it only shows that the consumption tax increase is unpopular, not that it's bad policy, which is a little complicated a question for popular entertainment. If anything, Doraemon betrays excessive confidence in the system by having the Diet dissolve, albeit by exploding, when the legislative agenda gets out of hand. *The Japanese Diet consists of the House of Representatives and House of Councillors, but as in almost all Parliamentary systems, the upper house is not a 'confidence body' that can decide or remove the Prime Minister; it can veto bills, other than the budget, but those vetoes can be overridden by 2/3rds of the House of Representatives. **Which is, the old joke goes, not liberal, not democratic and not a party. |
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Wyvern
 Posts: 1597 |
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Thanks for this informative post! I love learning about foreign politics. What's interesting is that a lot of people will balk at the idea that Japan's system lacks impeachment, but impeachments are actually ridiculously hard to pull off. Just look at the American model, where we've only had two successful impeachments in history, and neither resulted in the president being removed from office. A removal by No Confidence vote is actually a much more effective tool for kicking a crap leader out of office (though it's also easier to abuse.) |
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CastMember1991
Posts: 866 |
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Not something like the Daily Show, I was thinking more in the lines of Jay Leno's version of The Tonight Show or Tim Allen's Last Man Standing Something that critiques the government's intrusion in our lives the same way this Doraemon episode did. On the other hand, I have a bizarre feeling Bill O'Reilly might tackle this particular episode this week. I'm sure there's a 98% chance he won't though. |
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Hoppy800
Posts: 3331 |
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Hmm so it's the women in his cabinet that makes Abe look good, if only he'd pass policies that benefited women and not rely on the old ways and status quo, he wants women to work and to have babies but having women with children in the corporate environment today in Japan is not feasible without enough affordable childcare facilities and the abolishment of policies that punish women that have children from working their way back up the corporate ladder or returning to the same spot they were before the child came into being. |
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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So, board policy is, we're all falling sucker for the "Anime has struck with bold political criticism of Abe's tax policies!" story without the faintest question because it's such a net-sexy topic, and nobody's going with "It's just Nobita being Nobita" and "Looney overreacting press, who never watch the show anyway because there's too much social stigma of grownups associating with it", then, because it's too boring?
Just checking. Didn't want to go against the majority. 
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CastMember1991
Posts: 866 |
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I share your disgust. The ignorance of these forums is staggering. That's why I don't go on the ANN forums very much. |
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reanimator
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No matter where you live, a country goes down to toilet when people in power serves themselves first.
@mdo7 I found your obsession with anything Korean is starting to get out of hand. |
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