Sato Masaaki, An Appreciation

All the major newspapers have their editorial cartoonists. Some are better draughtsmen than others, with a great or lesser grasp of the tradeoff between image and caricature.

Almost all, however, are unfunny, or what is worse, unclever.

The exception is Sato Masaaki, the cartoonist for the Tokyo Shimbun. He foregoes artistry or style, choosing instead crude drawings with a bite. He has willingness to use all shared knowledge, including his readership's much derided but still considerable understanding of the English language, in order to charm and incite.

Here is his cartoon of Tuesday, "Through the ABC Song," where he use the letters of the Roman alphabet to draw a picture:


Click on image to see in a larger view.

In the last panel, the caption reads, "The image of all alone in the Pacific."

Children are taught the use of kana to draw faces, such as the simple face below composed of two he for eyebrows, two no for eyes, a mo for a nose, a he for a mouth and a ji for the jaw line and a tuft of hair.



In this the digital age the tradition of constructing faces out of characters has been extended in the profusion of multi-line emoticons and the massive stroke drawings of the list-serves.

But to use all the letters in the alphabet to draw a picture of a Hinomaru-flaunting Abe Shinzo making a go of it all alone on a tiny island in the middle of a Pacific -- in this there is a precious madness.

The kicker?

For once, I have no idea what Sato is driving at.

And I know there has to be an allusion or pun in this. Because with Sato, there are always multiple levels of meaning.

Recall the New Year's Eve song contest cartoon from last year? Where Abe is singing "Here Comes The Sun" not only because it offers an apt description of his return to office but because it is the signature song from the album...wait for it...Abe Road?

As Elaine Lies and her co-authors recently explained, "Abe Road" is not just a groan-and-grin inducing pun on the PM's name and the name of the last Beatles studio album. The "Abbey Road Group" is indeed what the quartet of pragmatists Abe, Watanabe Yoshimi, Suga Yoshihide and Shiozaki Yoshihisa called themselves last year. (Link)

So any guesses as to what Sato's ABC song is really about?

Image courtesy: Tokyo Shimbun

Sky Tree Downs Averted

In a few minutes' time the Tokyo Sky Tree, the world's tallest free-standing tower, opens for business. I must confess I am royally sick of the whole circus surrounding what is, in grossest fact, just a tower from which to beam out digital broadcast signals, the 1958 vintage Tokyo Tower being too short (333 m) for the job.

I am sick of the pun on the height of the Sky Tree, 634 meters = 6 Mutsu + 3 san + 4 shi = Musashi, the name of the ancient province where much of modern Tokyo is now located (J). I am sick of the product tie-ins. I am sick of the uniforms of the information girls. I am sick of the cost to ride up to the second observation level: 3000 yen, or US$37.85 at current rates. I am sick of everyone's ignoring the reality that compared to the Burj Al-Khalifa, the Tokyo Sky Tree is a pipsqueak.

Leave it up to the cartoonist at the Tokyo Shimbun to find a new, refreshing angle to look at the opening, one that can make even a grump like me smile:

In the first panel, citizens are looking up with safety glasses at the ring eclipse that appeared in the skies above Tokyo on May 21.

In the second, the people are looking up with cameras, binoculars and the naked eye at the Sky Tree, which opens for business today, May 22.

In the third panel, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko remarks to Democratic Party of Japan Secretary-General Koshi'ishi Azuma, "The citizens of Japan have come alive, haven't they?" Koshi'ishi cannot for the life of him understand what has the PM thinking this way.

The hook in this instance is in the title on the left of the panels. It reads:

「２日だけのぅつむかない日々」

Futsuka dake no utsumukanai hibi.

"Just two days when people are not looking at the ground as they normally do."

The hook is the term utsumuku,"to look down," "to keep one's eyes down." The second half of the word, muku, and the images in the first two panels, take the reader on a mental leap to what is probably the best known Japanese song in the English-speaking world, "Sukiyaki" -- the only Japanese-language tune to ever make it into the Top Ten of Billboard's music charts, this in July 1963.

The song, by composer Nakamura Hachidai and lyricist Ei Rosuke, was a huge hit for the singer Sakamoto Kyu in 1961. It begins with what is probably the third best known opening line of any Japanese song, after the national anthem and "Sakura, sakura":

上を向いて、歩こう。。。

Ue o muite, aruko...

"Let me be walking, looking up..."

The song, written after the first burst of Japanese economic growth and on the heels of the "doubling of incomes in 10 years" economic strategy announced by Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato, typifies the hopeful attitude of the times.

In the song, the young man is trying not to cry but ends up doing so because he is all alone. However, he vows to keep looking up -- just as the whole of the country was, hoping for a better tomorrow.

Here is Sakamoto singing and whistling the song in 1983 (You Tube).

Hence Prime Minister Noda's conclusion, after two straight day of people looking up: "Hey, the hope is back!"

Of course, the song has a tragic coda. Sakamoto died in the JAL 123 air disaster of August 12, 1985 -- still the worst single-plane air accident in history. The 747, crammed with passengers heading home for the Obon holidays, lost its the hydraulic steering system a few minutes after takeoff, becoming a veering, swerving uncontrolled mass of terror. After 44 minutes of out-of-control flight, the plane plowed into a mountainside in Gunma Prefecture, killing 520 passengers and crew.

From the Archives - Regarding the Folding of the Gasoline Tax Revenues Into the General Fund

Saturday's Tokyo Shimbun had a hilarious cartoon regarding the fight over the gasoline tax bill.

Kan Naoto, Hatoyama Yukio and Ozawa Ichirō of the DPJ try to seize the torch from a discomfitted Prime Minister Fukuda as the teal-clad Chief Cabinet Secretary Machimura Nobutaka and LDP Secretary General Ibuki Bunmei rush in to protect the gasoline nozzle topped symbol. In the background, former Prime Minister Abe Shinzō lies prostrate, a gasoline nozzle by his side.
Courtesy: Tokyo Shimbun. April 12, 2008, morning edition.

Which provides an excellent excuse to dredge up a post from the archives:

Will You Compose a Requiem for the Postwar Era?

Ostensibly, the fight is about concrete and budgets.

In reality, it is a fight about the future.

Road funds debate
The Asahi Shimbun

In recent weeks, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been stressing his "unwavering" commitment to reform far more frequently than before. Now, Abe faces the first major test of his political will to push through his reformist agenda. Talks between Abe and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party over a proposal to funnel tax revenues currently earmarked for road construction into general-purpose funds have reached the final phase.

The focus of the debate is what to do with the 3 trillion yen or so in gasoline tax revenue, which accounts for 80 percent of overall state tax receipts set aside for road projects. Given the nation's fiscal crunch, there is undoubtedly a strong case for scrapping this system under which a sizable portion of the government's tax take is used exclusively for building new roads.

By incorporating the earmarked tax collections into the general revenue account, it should be possible to use the funds for any purpose, including road construction and repair projects.

But this policy change is not as easy as it sounds. Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi promised to do the same thing when he swept into office in 2001. But this turned out to be a formidable political challenge because of strong opposition from LDP lawmakers with ties to road construction-related companies, as well as local governments, ministries and the auto and oil industries. In the end, Koizumi's attempt was thwarted.

Late last year, amid the political euphoria that followed the ruling party's overwhelming victory in the Lower House election over the single issue of postal services privatization, the LDP agreed with the government to make the road funds available for general use.

But the task of shaping a specific policy was left to the new administration. So it came as no surprise that Abe would reaffirm this agreement when he reiterated his pledge to push through the reform late last month.

He said at the time, "We must accomplish this reform on behalf of the people to ensure we never again build unnecessary roads." Abe needs to push forward with the policy without allowing the initiative to be watered down.

Will he stick with his plans to advance structural reform or will he steer the LDP back to its old self by making unseemly political compromises with special-interest politicians?

Everyone involved in this fight knows that this is a death match. Once the gasoline tax receipts are folded into the general account, they will never be pulled out and reserved for road building again.

The "road tribe" in the Diet and most of the district seat holders from rural areas also know that this is their Toba-Fushimi. This battle that will determine whether the postwar superstructure survives or is swept away.

Sadly, it a battle the rural districts must lose if Japan is to have any future at all.

Many good things will perish, among them the laudable rough equality in living circumstances found throughout the country. Many towns and villages will die.

However, if anything has been suppressing Japan's economic recovery and reemergence from stagnation over the past 15 years, it has been the vain attempt to maintain existing political boundaries and administrative arrangements. Faced with demographic and international competitive pressures, the country drifts as a handful of prefectures struggle to subsidize the entire archipelago.

Why, pray tell, does anyone live in Saga? Why build new (roads, bridges, tunnels, dams, jetties) there?

To be sure, the system that has evolved, the one the LDP "forces of resistance" are trying to protect, is a finely tuned system, a non-disruptive system.

Parasitism, successful parasitism, works hard to not kill the host...but it still breeds lethargy, ambivalence and immobility in the host organism.

One of the recurring conundrums for the economics writers is the neverending wait for the reemergence of robust Japanese personal consumption (not that they don't have their theories). Surely after so much government stimulus, the populace must start spending its bounty?

When there is no multiplier effect--when a new road or bridge does not increase economic activity in a rural community and indeed it makes a once pretty bit of scenery ugly--fiscal and monetary stimulus leads to nothing.

Stimulus becomes at best economically neutral, like gray wallpaper.

Most of the reaches of rural Japan, even the areas close to Tokyo, live as parasites--they rely on the southern Kantō plain, Aichi and Fukuoka to provide the surplus the rural areas live on. Residents in those urban districts pay for the bizarre privilege of keeping voters from moving to regions where economic growth is taking place.

This has got to stop.

But without visionary, revolutionary and self-confident leadership, it will not stop.

The original December 7, 2006 post can be found here.