Friday, February 02, 2007

I thought that we were over this

Here's a publication that might just be in the news over the next week--if only because Debito Arudo is on the war path about it.


Here it comes...the Freedom of Speech vs. Hate Speech debate.

I glad I am not the spokesman for the parent companies of the convenience stores hawking this atrocity.

Here's an absolute winner of a page from inside the above, downloaded from the Japan Probe blogsite:


I guess I am really glad I am not in the Gaimushō's North American or Middle Eastern and African Affairs bureaus, either.

Oh dear.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

I thought we were so over this.

Silly me.


Later - Whoa. That was fast.

It seems that Family Mart ordered all its outlets to pull the magazine from their shelves on February 5.

Pressure tactics work, sometimes.

I myself could not find a copy of this publication on the shelves of a Family Mart I visited on February 3.

That the Family Mart in question was next door to Asia University and the name of the young woman working behind the counter's was Ō may have had something to do with it.

Now we can all go back to naming and shaming NOVA English teachers for buying marijuana and cocaine from a canary.

OK, cue, "Casey Jones" by the Grateful Dead.

"Drivin' that train..."

2 comments:

  1. What does Artoo Deetoo have to do with...

    ...


    WHAT?! Looks like the work of a certain cartoonist on crack. The artwork of course LOL.

    I'm ambling over to the Family Mart on the other side of the railroad track after lunch to see if I can get me a copy. Within the next... five days? And does "within one week" mean that the magazine will be replaced by next week's issue?

    Incidentally, Eichi Shuppan, the publisher in question, seems to have carved out a niche with magazines that appeal to young people with relatively limited income. Does that fit the demographics of the Japanese conveience store or what?

    FYI: http://www.eichi.co.jp/

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  2. Anonymous11:56 PM

    Dammit! I've seen that horrible book too in a famous Japanese bookshop, I was willing to buy it to show the rest of the world how Japan still is in 2007. In Europe, it would become a scandal -- just think about Mahomet's cartoons -- but in Japan, no reaction. So much frustration felt vis-a-vis other countries, poor Japanese.

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