First off,”Yasukuni” WAS FILMED WITH THE FUNDS from the subsidiary of Agency of Cultural Affairs.Yes,it was filmed partially from the money from Japanese tax payers.

Secondly, “The Rape of Nanking” and “Princess Masako” both can be read in Japanese.
As for “The Rape of Nanking”,Iris Chang refused the citation of basic factual errors(there were lots in the book,actually) by the publisher,Kashiwa Shobo.she thinks KS trying to white wash her work because of “pressure from the right wing”which is highly imaginary,since KS has been publishing many works on Japanese war crimes for decades.
And as for “Princess Masako”,Kodansha did chose to drop publishing it,but the book eventually got new contract with publisher,Daisan-Shokan.
Anyway,I found the book very unreliable.
I think debito is the last person to defend Japan in such case.But here it is.
http://www.debito.org/?p=112

And ofcourse Ben Hills feels being “threatened” by anonimous e-mails that are clearly against his “Oriental Charles and Diana story”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/22/2011521.htm

“In fact, NHK routinely refuses to share its vast public library of stock footage with other news/media around the world which is in stark contrast to the likes of the BBC, CNN, etc.”

Somehow,I don’t think this is true.
NHK has contract with sharing footage with ABC(of the U.S),France 2,KBS(of Korea) CCTV,Aljazeera et al.But not with BBC and CNN.

Its worth noting here that, in relation to my previous post, Japanese TV pretty much controlled by the government. Considered “soft facism” by some, the government or related parties (ultranationalists, conservatives etc) can effectively ban or limit the spread of films like “Yasakuni”, the books “The Rape of Nanking” and “Princess Masako” (both for a while, if not now, not available to read in Japan in Japanese), ban the “Chimpokomon” episode of Southpark (from both TV AND the DVD sets), ban the “30 Minutes over Tokyo” episode of the simpsons etc.

To cap that, although many major networks have had to deal with copyright problems with youtube et al, none have been as aggressive in their opposition than the Japanese TV networks, who baned together to petition youtube. These companies were not only legally defending their own material (which is fair and just), but also, according to some sources, trying to prevent non-Japanese/outsiders from seeing everyday Japanese TV and thus the good bad and ugly.

In fact, NHK routinely refuses to share its vast public library of stock footage with other news/media around the world, which is in stark contrast to the likes of the BBC, CNN, etc. All this is due to NHK’s desire to appease its governmental masters and/or the Emperor and show them only in the best possible light (no matter how convoluted).

Thus, one could argue that it is very difficult, with no local media to question or lampoon anything “Japanese”, for Japanese to understand that their gilded cage isnt as perfect as they are led to believe.

1/ Japanese TV does exactly the same, perhaps even more so. For example, there was a famous case where Africans were invited onto a show and told to wear national dress and eat dinner with big knives, so the Japanese panel and audience could laugh at the “backwards foreigners/blacks who eat Japanese food with silly big primitive weapons! ha ha so berri fun!”

2/ Shows like “Game-Show” can essentially be used to show Japanese people that Japan isn’t exactly considered no.1 and that they should then consider how foreigners are portrayed as such in their shows. Quite often, I come across Japanese who have never considered that their own country is as full of the many problems that are openly discussed and ridiculed in other countries. In fact, some Japanese have reverted to post-WW2 “victim mentality”, when faced with a TV show like this, which is silly.

3/ The REAL crime with this show is thta it is merely a glossy and less amusing rip-off of the UK show “Banzai” (aka: “The Super Banzai TV Show”), which also, in the US at least, received more than its fair share of criticism.

Okay, so less puerile, equally racist.

It’s this “bad place”(i.d. Japan) that urges me to roleplay a nationalist in English, although I sometimes wonder if I am a real nationalist. Aceface, you would be a liberal internationalist if you were an American, I believe.

>Marxy
I don’t care about this show at all. I would be annoyed If NTV or TBS produced it, but I would not criticise it like Mainichi in my blog. I think most of Japanese would not be so offended by this show.

`You are not born to be a Japanese,you BECOME one!`

True.

`So far your assimilation process seems working well.`

Maybe, but I certainly didn`t get used to the pace of life in Japan in order to impress people back home with my `Japaneseness`. In any case, I don`t like natto so that will be an eternal strike against me.

Funny to think of it, but if I had been born in Japan I`d probably be doing research on American movies.