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Ad Parodies Japan on Climate Change with Spirited Away

On Friday, the American citizen's group Avaaz published an ad in the Financial Times newspaper's international editions that uses images from the anime Spirited Away to criticize the Japanese government's stance in the ongoing climate summit. In particular, the ad incorporates a photograph of Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan into a key image from the anime film's English promotional campaign. The ad from Avaaz and another climate change organization called TckTckTck reads as follows:

Japan Presents
A Threatening to Abandon Kyoto Film
Climate treaty:
Washed Away?

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan is living in a
fantasy–imagining he can refuse a new Kyoto Protocol
commitment period without wrecking hopes for a global
climate treaty. As UN talks in Mexico bog down, the
world needs Kan to wake up: if he abandons Kyoto, the
climate treaty will be washed away!

The 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference began at the Mexican city of Cancún on November 29, and it will end on Friday. Japan revealed at the conference that it will not accept future carbon emission targets; a consensus between the nations on future targets would be necessary to extend the current Kyoto Protocol agreement past its 2012 expiration date.

According to the public relations department of Studio Ghibli (the anime company behind Spirited Away), the studio did not receive a request from Avaaz to use images from its film. The current Japanese Copyright Law requires permission from the copyright holders for any kind of copying or use, except for personal, library, or academic purposes. Japan does not have the same fair-use clauses that the United States and other countries have.

Source: 47News