The Japanese have been banned from shipping packages of any significant size to the land of the free as the US believes they are likely a bunch of freedom-hating terrorists.
Japan Post, Japan’s main international package delivery service, have announced (less detailed English announcement here) that due to terrorism fears in the USA they have been forced to indefinitely stop accepting any items over 453g (16 freedom ounces) in weight for air shipment to the US or its various island territories.
The size restrictions are apparently intended to limit the size of bomb the Japanese can send.
Companies holding business accounts with Japan Post should in principle be exempt, meaning international retailers operating from Japan will probably be completely unaffected, but small businesses and individuals are now unable to ship packages of any great size to the US in a timely fashion.
Other international postal services in Japan may have different policies (although many are already highly restrictive, refusing to ship figures and so on if they lack CE marks, software, adult items, etc.). The patient should also be able to make use of sea shipment options.
Similar air shipment restrictions in other freedom-hating countries are likely.
The background to the crackdown is that bombs disguised as toner cartridges were shipped to the US from Yemen, and as a result the Department of Homeland Security imposed sweeping restrictions on “certain inbound international air cargo shipments” thought to be high risk, which evidently includes those coming from Japan.
Fortunately, as a result of the policy Americans can now once more freely imbibe the heady air of liberty knowing that the homeland is again secure and it is even harder than ever for any subversive Japanese otaku goods to reach their shores.
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just WOW
There are three pillars of government: freedom, equality, and security. However, there can only be two pillars standing at any given moment. When the country was founded there was freedom and security. In the 1900's the country became focused with freedom and equality. Now the government wants the security pillar again but has to get rid of one.
If you think about it that way it's no surprise they are doing this.
WTF?
Poor US otaku...
Nakki to Homeland insecurity;
Fuck you I want my packages sent, that is all.
*braces for prison*
LOL! Maybe someone from China should send one and let the lulz unfold as they will obviously not do this thing to them.
Bulk proxy services are the first to go, followed by restricting all weight limitations.
I feel bad for you guys in the states =(
My condolences.
Uh oh...my 27 Fate Testarossa 1st Movie *Airstriker* figures are going to be delayed indefinitely....what am I going to do now?
Smuggle-i mean....ship it by sea or surface =D
If it mattered, I have a buddy who lives up in Vancouver BC(Cough, canada), all I'd have to do is ship it to him, and just take a ~2hour drive to get it.
Still, Sigh @ US(America) -.-
WTF!? I WAS GONNA ORDER MAH MIKU FIGMA!! I HATE BEING IN THE US NAO!!!
Blow up the White House. They will blame it on foreign terrorists anyway.
Wat? That makes no sense. Don't bash like an idiot.
453 Grams? How big is that exactly? Numbers are so invaluable to me...
I swear if this forbids me from getting my Kudryavka Nendoroid next year... I'm leaving America.
makes my country look like it's full of idiots...
it's only RUN by idiots, damnit!
Sorry, but I'm not going to buy this till I see it covered on a real news website. It just seems a little too ridiculous to be true.
Japan and Yemen really have a lot in common. I mean, they both end in the letter n, they both... er,... they both...?
They are both in the east.
@Megidola
You replace Y with S and now you have a country full of Bukkake, the land of Japan's dreams!
... Yeah, that was a bad pun of me.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin was a wise man.
Most stuff can be obtained online anyway >.>
even if you get things online,you'll sill need to be sent over via whatever
"it's only RUN by idiots, damnit!"
True, but this is a representative democracy where voters... you know the rest.
Result of Hatsune World Domination! USA is fearing her!
Don't pretend voters actually mean anything anymore in this country. Even if a vote votes something down, back room deals will override any vote and push things through anyway. Such as say... 700 billion in 'economic stimulus.' The saddest part about it though is enough stupid people needed to be fed the illusion of economic safety by that being passed that it was a necessity... but even then it still didn't work.
Stupid people have got to stop being so fucking stupid.
@Taiga
453 grams is 16 ounces, or 1 pound.
Now what, are they afraid of having an IED disguised as a figure being imported onto their shores?
@denn
Sorry but voters don't mean shit here anymore. That's why people that win by popular vote, still lose because of the electoral votes.
453 Grams? That's less than half a litre of water!
Seems like there is economic motive
@everyone.
Sigh. Read and THINK. Please.
If our leaders are elected by us, then what does that say about us as a people? What does that say about our society and our relation to the media?
Thus if our leaders are idiots, and leaders are the so called "cream of the crop" then what are we? Who are the real idiots in this nation?
@Schrobby
Franklin was also boinking any women (un)lucky enough to fall into his lap. Thus making him cool and a pervert.
A man after my own heart. ^^
I feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of Otakus suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.
Denn... our whole point was that voting no longer truly matters toward our perceived freedom. While we may have elected a person or two based on whatever shit they were shoveling that election, what then happens is an entire cabinet is formed that we have no real control over whatsoever. And this cabinet of advisers is built entirely on the trust the people have in the trust the person they elected has in those people. And like every human in existence, they can't know everything about everyone, so when someone with more experience in one area makes blanket statements like "Let's reduce package sizes across these countries for safety, the paperwork's ready" then the one we elected basically with a nod can determine things that affect thousands to millions of people in an instant.
I'll go with Ben Franklin on this one. If a bearded man with beady eyes gets on the plane with a turban, we look at him strangely, and we have every right to, as well as search him. That's our safety net. Does that means we should extend that to every Muslim teenager? ...well sort of, actually since younger ones are usually more apt to be stupid and impressionable and want to die for something they don't truly understand, but my point is no, we shouldn't!
Just ship it to Canada. We'll happily redirect your packages while garnishing a small profit on the side....muhahhahaa...
I hope those States Otaku can survive long enough.
Good luck US Otaku, may god be with u.
Good grief, with this measure, they are turning the US otaku into potential terrorist... ^__^
Nobody in the US votes for the right candidate, because the republican and democrat parties nominate the wrong candidates to run. So we are stuck between choosing the lesser evil. While we could be intelligent and vote for an independant who is intelligent and possesses great ideas, the public still has some attachment to a two party system, so independant votes end up a waste.
God bless America
Does that means I have to smuggle in my giant Miku figma from now on...
@11:32 ahh haa but you forget that we don't choose the candidates in the first place. The parties do and then we vote from their. So it leaves plenty of room for idiots, dictators, and what have you to be thrown into the voting process. Then apply some rhetoric and the voting demographic get sucked into the booths by evil people or by idiots. So again the country is RUN by idiots, it's not inhabited by idiots. There are still some intelligent people left in this country. Not a lot mind you but there still are some :P.
453 grams is a little bit more than a bag of salad, or potato chips.
I am certain someone on that Homeland Security advisory board has a thing against hentai. Also that department is created under the Republican reign, and rank-and-file are hired career bureaucrats. Even if O'bama's regime appointed new leaders to those posts, they're not going to fire the rank-and-file bureaucrats.
Land of the Free, Home of the Paranoid.
Are they going to do the same thing with the packages coming from China? Hey, I'm just wondering here...
It's not like the states have a base in Japan or anything.
they do.
You have no clue what's going on in Okinawa do you?
i hope he was being sarcastic...
He was clearly being sarcastic.
He most definitely was being sarcastic, no way someone would say that without trollin'... Or so I hope.
Of course I was being sarcastic, duh!!
I wanted to put out this fact (that USA has currently a base in Japanese territory) to make this embargo look even worse.
Sarcasm is good to use on the internet because everyone gets it immediately.
Not everyone gets sarcasm in the internet. Some don't get it at all...
For exemple, the chinese government and the fanatic religious, neither of them get it, even if their lives depended on it. ^_^
what were we talkin bout again?
our country being robbed of our 2D pantsu.
Ill just have my manga shipped to Norway, then to here through a friend. :3
well, the work around for this is quite simple, you just need a company that resends items. so that the japanese company sends to some EU company that then sends it to the US residence. this is utterly stupid from DA USA.
I like this explanation - it has kind of worked out that way.
stupid
in the true american way
Wow, you sound so right. I've never thought of it that way, but wow. Man I am impressed, that explains everything that I've been trying to figure out about how life works!!!! geniuus!!!
No this isn't sarcasm, but I just wrote this down to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
@Peter Barton
You obviously have no idea... absolutely no idea what happens in the world, much less your own country.
Dammit. Well, art books, and doujin shouldn't weight -too- much....I hope.
Now I am fucking happy I don't live in USA.
http://www.majiroxnews.com/2010/11/13/japan-post-to-stop-parcels-to-us/ gives more detailed information
Peter, what are you talking about? All three of those pillars can be standing AT THE SAME TIME. The problem is that the 'security' pillar that they want to raise is usually the pillar of discrimination and harassment painted as security.
Like what the TSA is doing today, with the screenings by backscatter machines and patdowns, which will NOT stop any terrorist and will just encourage them to set off a bomb IN THE AIRPORT TERMINAL!
We don't have to make 'compromises' between those three things. The people who say that we do? Idiots, to be blunt and truthful.
That was my first thought when I saw the title of the article. Followed closely by "Aw mother fuck!"
This is honestly the dumbest shit ever, I'd rather be at risk for "Terrorist" threats than have all this stupid fucking security. I wonder how much it's actually helped at all, considering there was the christmas bomber last year that lit himself on fire in an airplane. That obviously got passed security. I'll take my chances with the terrorists.
Also the government is lying about 9/11.
/rant
All the shit about terrorism is just smooth talk to cover more censoring and lost freedom.
Jews did WTC.
/trufax
yeah, can i electively decline all this extra "security"? i trust my own brains over government paranoia.
I hope this doesn't affect my figure packages.. :<
Or my Gunpla. How can you restrict Japanese shipping!?! Aren't you supposed to be its biggest ally!?!
US otaku unite! Stop this bullshit!
Cause it's worth fighting for!
although I'm not from America but I still support you guys!
Oh great another reason for resellers to increase the prices on my figs...
They'll probably tell you to remove that image too..
NOOOOooooo I'm an American otaku and I refuse to be barred from my Japanese goods this isn't the first time I've really just felt like WTF AMERICA but this is by far the worst policy they've come up with =< stupid stupid homeland insecurity!!!!!
I don't think any further sarcasm is needed after this article... So straight to the pojnt: US Diplomacy is composed of retarded ppl. Not Down syndrome before any US moralist screams at me. Plain retarded.
The US Is Getting Ridiculous... Seriously.
I think personally this is a ruse by the Japanese not to send good to the USA, as someone who works for DHS I have yet to hear of this. I think there's BS going on.
Holy shit.... Im glad I just graduated and in living in taiwan right now.
If this is true, I think homeland security is doing the right thing. I dont want to see another 911. Good job governement, but feel sorry for the people. Just wait till this blows over.
9/11 was an inside job
and ripping off people's rights its not a "good thing"
castian is correct on that. america's "false flag" tactic. opressing it's people and killing them too.
after reading this article the only silver lining i can see is, the united states' debt to china probably got reduced by about a billion dollars...
hint. hint. get the connection?
said the same thing "WOW"
I'd be more worried FOR the Japanese by crazy American crazies and anarchists we have over here actually.
I guess my hentai mags will have to be lower than 400g in the future. heh
To be perfectly fair, it's not just Japan that has supposedly recieved the advisory: a lot more countries in Asia have recieved the advisory, Japan was just the first to comply.
Also this only affects private shipments as mentioned in the link, commercial businesses contracted with Japan Post will still be able to ship large items abroad. So if you ordered your stuff from a respectable Japanese or International dealer you shouldn't have any problem with merchandise at all. It'd only be a problem if say you ask a friend to send some goods for you.