Guilty Crown “Anti-Japanese”

Japanese nationalists are complaining that Guilty Crown is part of an anti-Japanese conspiracy to impugn Japanese territorial integrity.

Episode 17 of Guilty Crown has been accused of being “anti-Japanese” for depicting a map of Japanese territory which fails to highlight the disputed “Northern Territories” (the lower part of the Kuril Islands, between Hokkaido and Kamchatka) as being part of Japan and not Russia:

Opinions range from this being anything from a simple mistake to a conspiratorial attempt by the broadcasters (none other than Fuji TV, the bane of Japan’s crazy right-wingers) to negate Japan’s claim to the islands.

The territorial map for people lucky enough to have not encountered this issue before:

The territories are claimed by Japan but occupied by Russia, having been grabbed just after Japan surrendered at the end of WWII, on the basis that anything Russia can get troops onto belongs to it.

Complicated wrangling over the wording of the post-war treaties and which islands they actually refer to has only led to Russia and Japan maintaining their conflicting claims, with the US and EU generally supporting Japan’s position.

The islands themselves are of essentially symbolic significance, being small, frigid, sparsely populated and largely only of economic interest to fishermen.

Thanks to Fuji TV’s involvement, online this is either being taken as yet more evidence of their supposed treasonous political bias against Japanese national interests, or as evidence of just how obsessive the net right are:

“Uji again!” [uji = maggots]

“Caught red-handed…”

“Uji thinks it’s only an anime so nobody’ll care what they put in it, don’t they? Even if it is just a mistake, they should be pressed over it so they don’t try this sort of thing on.”

“I thought this would cause a fuss. But is’t the map by foreigners, so it’s not an issue?”

“God, these damn right wing nuts are even watching the anime for this stuff. They are so annoying…”

“All our anime is being drawn by filthy Chinese and Koreans, so what do you expect?”

“It’s a map from within Guilty Crown’s setting, so I think it is fine to have it that way.”

“I can’t help but think otaku culture itself is just a grand conspiracy to make Japanese apathetic and indifferent to politics…”

“Wasn’t Japan already destroyed in Guilty Crown? So what does this stuff matter?”

“Leaving aside the matter of the territories, the way they are presenting this issue is incredibly malign.”

“GitS had Japanese control up to Etorofu, didn’t it?”

“Come on, Guilty Crown has Japan being destroyed and controlled by GHQ. It’s a resistance story, so the setting is completely different to the real world.”

“Aniplex subliminals…”

“This lot got into trouble over Geass as well for something similar as I recall.”

“How can people who watch anime like this get any enjoyment from it? Not that this one is very good…”