A recent comedy broadcast on Australian TV has attracted outrage in Japan for its crude anti-whaling histrionics, accusing the Japanese of being a barbarous race who will happily eat the flesh of Pandas, Koalas, and even humans.
The show in question, ABC’s “The Chaser’s War on Everything”, is a well known and popular Australian satirical production, but a number of its stunts have been harshly criticised by Australian media for being extraordinarily tasteless (though it has also been hailed as a beacon of Australian humour, which perhaps explains much).
Japanese viewers are understandably disgusted at the programme, which attempts to portray the Japanese as a race of savages who will eat anything, thus explaining their unbelievable barbarism in persisting in eating whale meat.
The video can be seen below – for those not interested in viewing it, it simply shows passersby in a Japanese city being offered free samples of various meats, and then being tricked into thinking they have eaten Panda or Human or similar, all in English for the benefit of viewers:
The tasting is obviously a contrived and selectively edited fabrication, the sort of thing TV the world over is notorious for.
It would be as ludicrous a slander to suggest the Japanese are latent cannibals as it would be to suggest Australians are a nation of congenitally deviant criminals, and it is about as valid to criticise Japanese cuisine for including occasional whale meat as it is to criticise Australian cuisine for including anything which crawls through the outback as part of “bush tucker,” with kangaroo, camel, emu and a variety of insects on the menu in many speciality restaurants.
More noteworthy to many than the tired issue of Japan’s implacable whaling lobby is perhaps the acceptance of crass anti-Japanese sentiment it represents, whether intended in a spirit of levity or otherwise – it is difficult to imagine the same programme daring to venture criticism of Islam or similar on such an extreme level, yet it seems in the case of Japan it is acceptable…
Naturally, 2ch and Nico are outraged:
“Madness.”
“The Australoreans talk big for such a weak little country” [オーストコリア / Austrokorea is a favoured insult on 2ch due to the perception that there is an influential Korean minority in Australia]
“As expected of a nation of convicts.”
“Because Japanese eat whale they think we’ll eat anything. Despite the fact we’re not Chinese…”
“They’re a race of degenerates, it can’t be helped.”
“They are about on the same level as Koreans.”
“It would be better to make a show where they take Australians to Korea to eat dog, and to China to eat cat…”
“They’re so crude I laughed…”
“Whale bacon is seriously tasty – try it!”
“It’s the worst country in the English speaking world.”
“They’re just looking to sell more Aussie beef!”
“Where on earth can you buy Panda meat anyway?”
“After Aboriginals come the Japanese?”
“Complain to their embassy.”
“Come to think of it, the one who wrote the Mainichi WaiWai was Australian too…”
“Racism? Japanese are less than people, so this isn’t racism, apparently…”
“China probably made them do it…”
“Of course, Japanese TV is well known for its sophistication, isn’t it?”
seriously…if it’s allowed in Japan to eat human, are you gonna do it, it’s a serious question no sarcasm…
Simple solution to the problem: Stop eating fucking whales when you know it’s banned by international law.
“Satirical” is where I stopped reading. If you get offended by satire you need to pull the stick out of your ass and/or grow a sense of humor.
Its funny how most people can’t let go of the past for Australia like ‘convicts’ ect. I mean seriously now that person from japan, do you really wonna go there?
oh well 😛
Even though I’m usually on Japan’s side, this report is biased as f♥♥k.