Continuing his crusade against the evils of tattoos, Osaka mayor Tooru Hashimoto has vowed to “thoroughly deal with” 200 tattooed city employees.
After scandals ranging from the discovery that some city employees have tattoos to the news that one of them took drugs and some have been smoking in non-smoking areas, the mayor has set up a special investigations team to root out the criminal deviants.
He recently held yet another press conference to this effect:
“We seem to have over 200 employees with tattoos. This is abnormal, I’ll deal with them.”
“Anyone can tell whether a tattoo is appropriate for a government employee. A bad thing only makes for a bad atmosphere.
I do what I say I’m going to do.”
However, members of his taskforce have admitted they may actually have some difficulty catching tattooed employees. The source of his “200” number is not clear, as the investigations have not yet actually begun.
As might be expected of the Japanese aversion to tattoos and insufficient conformity, his scheme is gaining wide approval online – although much less than was previously evident, the novelty of bashing a new group presumably having been eclipsed by the obnoxious nature of his outbursts:
“Time for some compulsory examinations!”
“Tattoos do not match Japanese society.”
“They should make public pictures of their tattoos. What’ll the whiners say when they see a bunch of yakuza tattoos?”
“Sack anyone with a tattoo.”
“You can cut the tattoos off them as well, can’t you?” [Japan apparently regards tattoo removal as a way of punishing the tattooed with torture]
“Sack any delusional mayors too, while you’re at it.”
“More of his prejudiced outbursts…”
“Send those tattooed employees back to their syndicates.”
“Osaka should just ban all tattoos everywhere.”
“This from the guy who shocked the lawyer profession with his dyed hair. Wasn’t that associated with hoodlums as well?”
“He’s easy on himself, harsh on others.”
“Listening to this guy go on about this stuff, I can’t help but wonder if the people really elected their mayor for this stuff?”
“Where did he get this ‘over 200’ number anyway? If he doesn’t know and is just guessing it seems pretty dodgy to be saying this stuff…”
“He’s just deluded.”
“His supporters are such idiots that they soon forget anything he says, so it doesn’t matter.”
“He sure loves bashing civil servants.”
“He’s trying to halve the number of civil servants, so I think he’s using issues like this to breach their defences. I think he could perhaps manage 30% cuts with only proper reasons.”
“Keep bashing them! But what we really need is a ban on employing Koreans in the civil service.”
“I don’t think just having tattoos is that bad, but are there really yakuza city employees in Osaka?”
“Some syndicate got 200 in it seems.”
“Do they have any legal basis for all these searches and sackings? How did he find these ‘200’?”
“I keep saying, we need to distinguish between ‘irezumi,’ ‘horimono’ and ‘tattoos’ here.”
“It hardly matters, you still get banned from all pools, bathhouses, etc., whatever type they are.”
“Look at all the yakuza apologists in here now!”
And by “deal with” he means fire. Or rather force to resign since they don’t actually fire people.
kill ’em with fire!!1
wait out of 200-ish people with tattoos 1 did drugs.
-BREAKING NEWS- I just heard people with pierced ears sell illegal weapons.
-BREAKING NEWS-(Geraldo Rivera)just put out all people that wear Hoodie’s are all gangstas
now i think an anime about a tattooed character (female please) would be really good. but why bother, probably that mayor wouldn’t allow it.
Sounds like someone’s going to get a visit from their local friendly yakuza!