I hope at least you try to show it to Japanese first.
The point is not to make Japanese people shamed by the world—that would make it hard for Japanese to get the understanding— , but to make them critically think there are issues, and Japanese society would be much better society without whatever attitudes you will depict.

I am impressed by terrette’s insight.

I read fun fact in a seperate article about this magazine. It was that because there were no advertisers in the magazine, that the publisher paid for it out of his pocket. So Mr. Saka is out about 25 million yen, according to the article. That is a very expensive lesson for him to learn. Also if they are dropping this kind of coin into a magazine, you must assume that the money had to come from some kind of Right Wing group or something.

Ohhhhh… Mr. Saka you have a lot of explaining to do.

I am not as convinced as Debito that the action was successful because of the threat of the boycott. While not dismissing that factor altogether, I would give more weight to another point he made, which is that the magazine’s hatefulness was in clear evidence to those who inspected it, and that, since they had no financial loss to fear for rejecting it, they were able to act on their conscience. But they also likely acted out of concern for a perceived threat of bad publicity, which is likely a more powerful persuader than the threat of boycott by a very small minority and should therefore be tendered alongside threats of boycotting. Since, as Jeremy says interestingly enough, Japanese do not respond well to anger, and since no one can presume that they will respond any more cheerfully to sick jokes had at the expense of a presumably homogeneous group any more than most of you have done, I think Roaf’s comment, where he says, “Someone should make a “Nihonjin Crime File” for laughs,” misses an important point, which is this: to do that would be to give the mook magazine credit for what it is not, which is to say, a work of criminology or constructive social debate. The proper antinomy for “gaijin hanzai” is NOT “nihonjin hanzai.” Those two notions are not symmetrical. The abnormality that Mr. Saka rages against is not, in fact, actual crime or crime statistics, it is the abnormality that all paranoid right-wingers rage against: the crime of being different from a perceived majority. For Mr. Saka and people who share his pathology, being “gaijin” is already an execrable state–one that is akin to criminality (as all criminality is by nature asocial). That is why Mr. Saka consistently shows himself to be unable to identify with the perspective of anyone who is “gajin.” Doing so is what keeps him “pure” and keeps “gaijin” by definition menacing and terrifying. This pathology is in evidence despite the comic exaggeration of many parts of the magazine Mr. Saka tries to justify.

In conclusion, a truly balanced (and constructive) reply to the evocation of “gaijin hanzai” would be a magazine that, making no reference to “gaijin hanzai” or to magazines that exploit that notion for the sake of profit, focuses on positive things foreign-born residents do in Japan. Showing that “gaijin” are not in fact outside of society and its norms is the proper response. And that is the kind of focus that needs to enter Japanese press more often, in my opinion. When a foreigner in Japan commits a heinous crime, note that the news organizations feel no compunction at immediately linking the crime to the question of immigration (as if “immigration” could explain the nature or cause of the crime in question). However, how often have you seen on Japanese media of whatever type the story of a foreigner having done a good deed or contributed to society be linked to “the question of immigration”? My assessment is that it doesn’t happen. It would be interesting, precisely for that reason, if it did happen. That, I feel, would be a constructive way of replying to Gaijin Hanzai File and to the mentality that it exemplifies and promotes. In short, a constructive reply would not mimic the stupidity of the mook, nor take too small a target (a single editor of a single magazine) at the risk of awarding it with profit and public interest, but would counteract the mentality that shapes it.

We need to form a group that has politcal power. Not extremist like the jack asses in the black vans but a group that will protect us from discrimination. You can see what we can achieve by peaceful protest in numbers. We need to have a place or a group that we can rely on when these types of issues arise.

We need an advocate that can request peacefully that we as a minority recieve equal rights and equal protection. There are anti-discrimination laws in Japan but they are over looked and ignored. I feel that it is time that we make a voice for ourselves.

Any ideas out there on what we can do to organize?

This might be hard for you to believe, but Gaijin Hanzai Ura File is funny. I’m dead serious. It’s actually a comedy. Some people might find this style of comedy to be tasteless, but all comedians have their critics.

Lets look at Ali G’s character Borat. We can all agree that he is a bigoted racist. He constantly makes fun of Jews and Gypsies saying horrible things about them, and people laugh. Not all people laugh though. Some just don’t like it and some only watch a minute or so of his act and decide they need to write letters to governments, boycott shows, ect. Sound familiar?

But you still don’t believe me about the mad do you? Well let’s look at some of the pages together. First, how about that cover. If that’s not an intro to a serious piece about gaijin crime I don’t know what is. All the goofy faces and big scary fonts, it may as well be MAD magazine.

Everyone, next please turn to page 102, my favorite. Oh no! It’s delinquent foreigners kissing girls in public! What is the world coming to?! The caption in the bottom right corner says, “Damn- he’s a good kisser!”, and on the next page you find phrases like “This is the Emperor’s park” with pic of a guy with his shirt off, and a great one that says “Hey, hey hey, would you please stop fingering girls on the street”.
Yeah, this all sounds pretty serious J Have you ever heard of sarcasm. If you can’t laugh at that, then I guess this magazine is not directed at you.

Yes, he is taking the piss out foreigners, but he’s also taking the piss out of you. He’s getting hate mail and death threats from FOREIGNERS because of this. Are you still missing the irony? The interview in Metropolis is funny too because the guy doesn’t try to defend it as comedy, he plays it cool, and lets guys like you get all worked up and promote his work for him. You are creating a buzz, not him. You know I wouldn’t have even looked at the thing if it hadn’t been for all this bullshit. You need to lighten up and learn to laugh a bit. But thanks for turning me on to a good magazine.

“However, the US and Japan were engaged in a total war. The largest war human history has seen. Japan’s depictions of Americans at the time were remarkably similar to American depictions of the Japanese. The only real differences seem to be that the Japanese were portrayed as small, nefarious monkeys, whereas Americans were portrayed as big, hairy, womanizing apes.”
I agree.

“Unlike the US, Japan has neither apologized for nor confronted this issue.”
But here I am not sure what you are trying to compare.
I know the amercians pows were mistreated (And I think you know the fate of some Japanese pows.)But did Japananese government intern American-Japanese in Japan at the time?

The “so do you” distraction is a lame and ineffective counterargument. Where racism exists in America, let all those who live there challenge it and fight against it. The fact that some Americans are racist does not disqualify an American resident in Japan from speaking out against racism in Japan. Likewise, the fact that some Japanese bigot published this comic and that some Japanese enjoy reading such trash does not disqualify Japanese people from speaking out against racism elsewhere.

While I have a deep affection for Japan and its history, there are a couple of points that need to be made here.

First, it is true that there was extreme racism against the Japanese in the US during and shortly after WWII and this was wrong. The US has apologized for the internment of Japanese and Japanese-Americans during the War and the US has been very open about its racism. You’ll notice, Bakachan, that it is quite easy to engage Americans on the subject of American racism and that, almost to a man, they agree that the US has race problems and a history of racism.

However, the US and Japan were engaged in a total war. The largest war human history has seen. Japan’s depictions of Americans at the time were remarkably similar to American depictions of the Japanese. The only real differences seem to be that the Japanese were portrayed as small, nefarious monkeys, whereas Americans were portrayed as big, hairy, womanizing apes.

Unlike the US, Japan has neither apologized for nor confronted this issue.

Second, James is absolutely correct in pointing out that the issue of 外人犯罪裏ファイル is a separate issue.

The issue at hand is a current, not an historical one. America’s racism of the WWII era no more justifies Mr. Sakai’s abject racism today than Japan’s treatment of POWs during the war would justify American torture, starvation, or murder today.

There are many things to admire about Japan, but tolerance is not one of them. If the strawman if hyopcritical comparison is to be drawn up, Japan would do well to keep as quiet as possible. There’s no way Japan is going to come out on top in such a comparison vis a vis any Western country.

The issue at hand is about a Japanese publication that singles out and sensationalizes crime by foreigners. The racism shown by Americans towards Japan during WW2, while horrible and worthy of condemnation, happened over 60 years ago. Our grandfathers may have thought that the Japanese are subhuman savage monkeys, but I hardly see how you can use that to negate criticism of racism and xenophobia that is going on today.

He also seemed to tie the fears of Japanese economic power during the bubble era into the whole idea of thinking the Japanese are subhuman. As far as I know, most of that movement had more to do about trying to protect under-performing domestic businesses from being defeated or bought out by Japanese firms than it did with any racism.

Of course there is racism in America. There is racism in every country on this planet. America has a lot of race issues, but I guarantee you that no national convenience store would ever be able to stock a magazine with the sole purpose of singling out and sensationalizing crimes by foreigners living in the USA without catching some serious flak from the media and consumers. It’s up to people living in America, including foreigners in America, to work to improve race relations in America. As I have moved to Japan and as far as I can tell it will remain my home for the foreseeable future, I am trying to help improve this country.

So lemme get this: it’s okay to qualify as a cause for boycott the selling of a racist magazine, but ridiculous to bring into discussion the issue of anti-Japanese feeling on a much larger scale, might I add, in the US? No, my dear James, the only one being ridiculous here, I’m afraid, is you.