Japan pretends to be ignorant about other peoples’ hangups so that they can piss everyone off; it’s part of some plan that they have that they refuse to discuss in public, and yet I know about it!

Japan is an island country; this is a very obvious statement but its meaning should not be taken only literally. The separation Japan has from Europe and North America (along with the mostly homogenous society) leads to many interesting situations every once in a while when something produced in Japan finds its way into the wilds of the international markets. In the past couple years there have been times when Japan, as a whole, has been called racist for works that a Japanese company created. Although assumed to be true, it’s important to ask whether or not these examples are actually racist.

You know how is arms got so big? Punching black people because he’s a racist asshole.

I don’t know how many of you are gamers, but if you remember game news from around a year ago you’ve heard of the Resident Evil 5 controversy. Many arguments were made saying that the game was racist. In retaliation many gaming websites made well written pieces about how the game is not actually racist, even if someone might think that it is. While I can see why certain people would think that the game is racist, when you take into consideration all of the circumstances (which none of them managed to do) you quickly realize that it’s definitely being misunderstood in a way than the creators of the series ever intended.

Little did the robot know but the depiction of him vs. praying mantises was considered racist.

If you haven’t read any of the criticisms you should probably give them a look-over and see what kind of arguments they are using. Do you see a common thread between all of the reasons they are using? They all rely on a US/Western perspective. Let’s pretend you’re a person in a whose spent their lives in another country, never lived in the US (thus no western education), and probably your only knowledge of segregation is that there were slaves up to around 150 years ago in the US. Armed with just this, do you think it would be racist to use Africa as a set piece for a video game? Many of those decrying racism said so because the protagonist is white. If you lived in an area that had very few black people (with most being African, not North American) would you think it strange for the main character in an earlier chapter of a series to come back at some point? Would you even consider that people would take the events out of the context of the game’s scenarios and imprint racist overtones over the story?

They were really just trying to take it back from the racists.

During the US primaries in 2008, Emobile (a Japanese cell phone company) released this ad. Pretty much immediately after this ad was made it was put up on youtube and people were screaming the r-word (not this one). In the ad (you’ve watched it already, right?) is a monkey giving a speech and borrowing many things from Obama’s speeches at the time. Because of this people were angry thinking that this Japanese company was being racist and calling black people monkeys. The question then is “Was it intended to be taken this way?” Many Americans who watched the ad seemed to think that the answer was yes. Is it?

Softbank came out with a series of hit commericals a couple years past. These commercials showcase a strange family with an interesting makeup; without asking for clarification, some people have said that this, in and of itself (please read this one), is racism. Anyways, the father in the series is a white dog. In English there is the phrase, “fighting like cats and dogs”; in Japanese there is a similar, but different, phrase, “犬猿の仲”. This phrase, lit. “like dogs and monkeys”, translates to “like cats and dogs”. By this point I hope you see why Emobile did what they did. Emobile, being in competition with Softbank, was trying to get customers to switch from one of the biggest carriers to one of the smallest. To show the competition between the carriers they used a visual metaphor for a Japanese phrase. Some American politicians are very famous in Japan (Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to name two) and so it would make perfect sense to use such a popular figure, especially given the conflict.

Stupid humans don’t recognize a sleeper hold

I do not fault people for thinking that it was racist. All (or almost all) of the people who thought the video was racist most likely grew up in a country that had both racial conflict and such derogatory names; it’s only natural to think that anyone who makes an allusion to something that you consider offensive is meaning what they say, especially when it was something so racist. However, even though they made that connection in the brain that the imagery could be taken as racist they didn’t think about it enough to consider whether or not the people making the clip in question actually meant what they are being accused of; it’s ridiculous to expect a person who is not considering race/colour (i.e. not a racist) to stop what they are doing and start worrying about skin colour.

Crap, so I can’t just pigeonhole people just like a racist person would do? That’s not fun.

Think, within the context of a person who barely knows anything about America besides the exported culture, about what’s going on in the clip below (strangely, the TV program in that clip isn’t in Japanese). Is this racist? What do you think is the motivation? Do you see anger, hatred, and a lack of inclusion in their faces? Or do you get the feeling that they’re ignorant of the subject material and would be surprised to find that there are people that would find this to be racist?

Also, remember that Australians must be racist because of this clip. It has to be that, nothing to do with the country of the rival team being mostly black and that everyone in the freaking world loves chicken.