I see it all the time. Japanese comedians putting on big rubber noses so they can act like a foreigner. Is it offensive? Is it comparable to a white person taping their eyelids and pretending to be asian? What is the appropriate reaction to such a thing?

Here we have Tom, a foreigner who is in the process of improving his Japanese. Tom’s whole comedy act revolves around misunderstanding Japanese. For example, when his friend is telling him that the movie Titantic is about a big “fune(boat)” sinking, he thinks his friend is talking about “Fune”, a character from the Sazae-san comic series. The comedy act isn’t harshly offensive towards foreigners, but how are we supposed to interpret it?

Watch the video here.

At least he doesn’t do a fake gaijin-accent….