The Korean furore over supposedly racist WWII parody anime Hetalia, which resulted in a partially successful campaign to force the anime off the air in Japan, did not stop at threats of cyber-terrorism; it appears even death threats have been issued against the author, 日丸屋 秀和 / Hirumaya Hidekazu.
The threat in question originates from the same boards (Daum’s “Agora”) responsible for spawning the various petitions which initially led to the anime’s cancellation; the commenter is succinct about his wishes: “Let’s go to Japan and kill the bastard! The author’s name is Hirumaya Hidekazu!”
The author actually lives overseas (in New York), so some research is evidently lacking on the part of the would be assassin, and his potential victim may be safe as a result.
Still, calling for the homicide of a comic author is something which puts him amongst extraordinarily dubious company, as you may recall from recent similar events elsewhere.
As if issuing such a distasteful call to arms were not enough, the same commenter goes on to say whilst affirming his vote on the petition to ban the anime: “I sign! We’ve all got to kill every last one of those filthy Japs!”
The threat was actually made on the 12th, around the time of the original attacks on Hetalia, but for some reason no Koreans saw fit to report it, or remove it. Thus it was left to Japanese observers to uncover.
It is not clear whether any more such threats, or exhortations to murder or genocide, have been made, though sadly this does not seem entirely improbable.
You can see the relevant 2ch thread preserved here, along with a cache of the original Daum pages.
Of course, nobody would deny that such froth is a frequent characteristic of boards the world over; however, in many nations such grave threats are dealt with seriously by police, due to the knowledge that a small but tragic proportion will inevitably turn out to be genuine, something understood only too well in Japan. Whether Korean authorities will be investigating this is not clear.
Koreans… you meant Northern or Southern?
I don’t care about Korea but Hetalia really sucks. I have to agree with the Koreans on this one. All of those small plots from the webcomic are way too character-oriented.
I know this is sort of yaoi anthropomorphism but the whole mood of the series doesn’t have to be whole ‘only-character-dynamics’ or something like that.
Korea doesn’t even show up in the anime!
Calm down!
Seriously, like wow. Aggressively creepy much?
I’m not one to judge as to why some or most Koreans find the portrayal of Korea-tan offensive but…aren’t death threats to Himaruya a bit too much? Plus, the damn petition? I mean, why would the government of S. Korea would want to intervene or get itself involve in something as trivial as a webcomic that was made purely out of comedy. They’re fussing over something like that when the government (not just referring to Korea)should address real problems here. We all know that Himaruya-san has given flaws to almost all nation-tans. How is Korea any different? You don’t hear other nations bitching about their portrayals, like crazy. Besides, I have seen far worse TV shows out there that fills every episode with racism jokes and other s♥♥t. Ever heard of South Park?
Now, Hetalia would only be something to bitch about if Hirumaya Hidekazu makes Korea a hardcore nationalistic who hates Japan, is racist and makes anonymous threats to authors about manga.
So those anonymous, Hetalia hating Koreans should go bitch at those “Korea sucks” websites. End of story.