Please go to this site and read it.
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-41761

Our true aspect was not written in the article.

Neither the chance of the protest nor the chance of the correction
are given to us.
And, the voice of our protest tries to be destroyed now.
Mainichi Shimbun is putting the press restriction.
The image, animation, and sentences etc. of our protest have been deleted.
They try to conceal the fact.

We hate rape.
It’s the same as you.

We will angry if anyone called a prostitute our mother.
It’s the same as you.

Mainichi Shimbun apologized to the Japanese.
However, they stick out the tongue in foreign countries and are
ridiculing us.

We are not prostitutes.
We are not the right-wing groups.
We are Japanese races.

We also have patriotism.
It takes pride in Japanese we.
And, we love Japan.

Please know that it is not our culture that Mainichi Shimbun was reported.

That’s how Waiwai has been typically used by a certain kind of gaijin on the internet. Waiwai has been their favorite source of information on Japan. They did take information form Waiwai seriously. Rarely did they introdocue Waiwai articles as the kind of media that they really are, i.e., utterly dubious tabloid stories.

The outrage of the Japanese people is justified. There have also been some rational non-Japanese people who expressed concerns about Waiwai before this incident. On the other hand, those gaijin loosers who are complaining about the cancelation of Waiwai now are the very same kind of fellows who have been enjoying the spread of vicious misinformation about Japan with the help of Waiwai. “Nobody take them at face value”? That’s a complete bullshit. You are thinking too highly of your people.

I also concur with Robert above: you had to be an idiot not to realize what WaiWai was.

And this whole brouhahah being started by 2channel is classic. Its denizens really don’t have much room to talk.

..yeah like THAT will ever happen.

When it is written in Japanese it is tabloid titilation,but when translated,foreigners are mocking Japan? I do not think so.Where there is smoke there is fire.

As a long time reader of the Mainichi Site and WaiWai, I’m really sorry to see it go.

It’s really sad that a few NEETs or dare I say extremists, whipping up nationalistic views, have spoiled what was a little window into Japanese Weeklies for us who don’t have the reading skills. I think the whole episode is actually a worse testimony to some segments in Japan.

I can’t say I’m a Japanese expert, but I have spent many trips exploring Japan’s traditional sites, some of the less well known ones, and exploring some of the everyday areas of Japan’s cities. I have many close Japanese friends in Japan and abroad, so I feel I’ve had my share of opportunities to delve into some of the hidden (not so hidden) sides of Japan with friends and by myself. Including some of these funny articles. As a well rounded/travelled person I feel we the readers are in the best position to judge what these articles are and who they are written for… They are really written for the Japanese male, who loves this kind of titillation, so what is wrong with us foreigners learning about this… We know these stories are sensationalized, just like in our own countries. Hey we live in a free and open world, these people need to worry what kind of country they really live in.

I love Japan and it’s people, but yes I do have some strong views about some of the close minded people there. This story sadly just cements them in my mind. I’m just glad I know there are some really great people there as well, but unfortunately history tells us it’s the close minded ones that do the most damage.

So it’s a shame the Mainichi has pulled this segment and not had the guts to stand up to these people, are they going to stop publishing all their local papers/columns who run these stories?… Are the foreigners eyes too sensitive to this…

You can expect I’ll be doing my best, along with others internationally, to shine the light of truth on the nationalistic Japanese bullies of 2chan.

Besides, it’s not a stretch for those of us who have seen video clips of their crazy game shows and violent and perverted anime (school girl fetishing and tentacles) to believe outrageous news about a seemingly outrageous country.

You can chalk this up to stupidity if you want to compare my gullibility to yours (maybe you know Japan better), but these are the circumstances I see.

Nobody was ever forced to read these articles. They were not headlines or front page pieces. They were on a separate section of the site. To say that these articles ditracted from the seriousness of the Mainichi as a newspaper seems analogous to saying the same thing about comics in English newspapers.

The WaiWai was never presented as a serious news vehicle, and the sources for the translations were always cited. Blaming the Mainichi for others misunderstandings and misuse of the editorials is in itself ridiculous. The Mainichi did not misrepresent the issues, anyone who took the editorials as fact was doing so by their own leap of faith.

This is a witchhunt, and the idea that the editors of the articles are to be severely punished is also very disappointing.

Nerds on 2-channel simply asks Mainichi and editors for the appropriate explanations, but Mainichi-shinbun, editors and translators have thrown away their responsibility to answer to their question.

Not only nerds, but also many of women realized they have been secretly abused by Mainichi, its editors and translators for years. They know how to extract answers from the media company and they followed that way.

In a sense, it is a pity day for Japanese because they face the fact that Japan’s leading media company won’t feel any of obligation to their articles.

This wasn’t really the problem. It also evidently isn’t entirely true—things got out of hand when other news outlets and blogs picked up certain stories and either ran them as truth or embellished even more than Wai Wai did. The fact that the lines traced back to Mainichi both gave credence to the stories, and damaged Mainichi’s reputation (where that stood before Wai Wai, I can’t tell you), depending on whether the reader actually read that byline you point out (or understood it).

As far as I can gather, people wanted more than a simple tagline as disclaimer (since, and you’ll know this if you’ve worked in the service industry, people don’t/can’t read signs), or they wanted it gone.
My guess is the damage it was doing to their reputation when people traced a crazy rumour back to their site probably had something to do with Mainichi’s decision…

The stories offered a glimpse into the underbelly of Japan. Anyone who took them as gospel — especially with the disclaimer at the bottom of the page — is a spoon of natto short of a sushi roll.

It’s a shame that one of the biggest newspapers in Japan bowed to some nationalistic nerds on 2-channel who can lead a witch hunt, slandering the foreign translator, but reserve none of their anger for the publishers of the original articles.

Looks like its back to NHK for a while and its spicy lead stories on “Heavy rain may hit Kyushu.”

The stories in WaiWai were often very entertaining and also written in an entertaining tabloid style. For example, there was recently a story about people being arrested for making a lewd movie in a branch of a famous fast-food restaurant chain. The title of the WaiWai story was “I’m Rubbing It”, which had me chuckling at my desk all day long. Very entertaining.

If vociferous minorities start witch-hunts against every single entertaining news source that they happen to object to, then all we’ll be left with is extremely bland content.

I find it interesting to note that you say “Mainichi’s clientele do not like WaiWai articles”. Not everybody thinks like you. Many people enjoyed those news stories.

Also, I don’t believe the main complaint about these stories is because they conflict with Mainichi’s news policy or whatever. I think the main complaint is that the complainers don’t like to have this kind of information about Japan presented to the world in English.

However, my point is that there is no need to worry about this. People realise that these are tabloid style stories sourced from Japan’s weeklies and are thus to be taken with a pinch of salt. I read these stories but they haven’t influenced my (positive) impression of Japan at all.

In this day and age every country in the world has its weird and wacky stories made global via the internet. If Japanese people are chuckling about weird stories from my country I am very happy to hear it! If I haven’t heard the story I hope they’ll let me in on the joke… As I said, perhaps these complainers need to think about getting a sense of humor.

ex.
Japanese people get frustrated when they hear about this kind of stuff.

However, since this is a blog about Japan and there are a lot of people who have knowledge about the country, it’s probably better to use a sentence like this:

ex.
It’s frustrating as a Japanese person when I hear about this kind of stuff.

The first example sentence is good if you talking to people who have little knowledge of the country. If the person you are talking to knows a lot about the country, it can sound as if you speaking down to them or trying to show off your knowledge.

Every news agency has its policies. Mainichi has refrained from sex related entertainment. Mainichi’s clientele do not like WaiWai articles, because they are against the shared policy of the news agency.

“A newspaper has a section that you don’t like… don’t read that section!!”
Readers also have the right to complain the editor that such articles are against the shared policy. Do you think they do not have such right?

Another example: A year ago, someone posted a story on Digg saying that “sex with minors is OK in Japan” which originally came from WaiWai. Japan Probe wrote about it: http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=2040
Even though some people in the comments pointed out the inaccuracies in the article, the submitter still insisted it was true because it was from Mainichi Shinbun. He didn’t recognize that the story came from a tabloid.

This is why people have a problem with WaiWai. Even though the tabloid stories were in WaiWai and nowhere else, Mainichi didn’t make it clear that these stories were from tabloids. They posted the name and cover of the tabloid the story came from but that was it. Even though the stories are written in tabloid-style writing there were still people out there who believed them.

I agree that 2channelers have been unreasonable in the past, but I can understand their thoughts on WaiWai. Even a lot of the comments here feel about the same way. You don’t see other major newspaper sites put up a crazy tabloid section, so why should Mainichi do that? They should have spun it off to its own site completely separate from Mainichi. That way people can still laugh at the crazy tabloid stories, but not take them as the same as any other article.

They act like celebrity gossip is news and that bashing/supporting guns/gays/abortion is politics. They avoid the real issues at every chance they get, and when they cover them, their pieces are slanted, biased, and extremely pro-corporate.

All newspapers in America should be treated like tabloids. From what I’ve seen it’s not much different in Japan either.

Don’t trust the corporate media.

To the first comment: TK is the initial of my name. I am actually Japanese.

“Hungarian TV station pulls program mocking Japanese”

[“VIENNA — The Hungarian television station TV2 has told the Japanese Embassy in Budapest that it plans to suspend a popular Japanese-mocking show that drew the ire of the local Japanese community and Japanese diplomats in Hungary.

The program features a Hungarian TV reporter who wears a black hairpiece and fake teeth and passes herself off as a goggled-eyed Japanese woman, using the stunt to ambush and interview Hungarian celebrities.

Apart from that caricature, the prime-time TV show, “Micuko —the world in slanted eyes,” also pokes fun at everyday Japanese life and Japanese customs.

The Japanese community in Hungary was furious and the Japanese Embassy in Budapest filed a protest with TV2 as well as the Hungarian Foreign Ministry late last month.

Hiroshi Abe, an official at the Japanese Embassy in Budapest, said Wednesday that “Micuko” producers told the embassy late last week that TV2 decided to suspend the show for three months beginning next month.

As for the black face and yellow wig, I think it depends. You can imitate Japanese with black wig without necessarily degrading them.
As for fake nose, I agree with you. Thanks to Japan Probe, it is decreasing. I’ll help to protest against such shows.

A newspaper has a section that you don’t like… don’t read that section!! Many people do find that section amusing and they realise that it’s basically an entertainment, sourced from (as the Mainichi used to put it) “Weird and wacky tales from Japan’s wild weeklies”. That title alone is enough to give anyone with an ounce of sense an idea of the content.

I suppose if you are still living in the Victorian-era then you will want to “discipline the pervert English writer”.

But my advice to the Japanese engaged in this witch-hunt is to lighten up. Try and find a sense of humor. Japan media outlets often poke fun at foreign things or people. If it’s about a wacky story from my country then I’m fine with that… in fact I’m happy to join in the discussion. I don’t feel some kind of nationalistic duty to defend my country’s honor.

As I mentioned before, everybody (except possibly very stupid people) realised that WaiWai was to be taken with a pinch of salt.

These 2ch NEETS need to get a life!

Personally, I thought it gave an insight into a section of the Japanese media (and not a minor section) that would normally not be accessible to non-Japanese speakers (or readers for that matter) – at least they were funny as compared to one of today’s “serious” news pieces “‘Hearty’ potato crop delights Himeji resident” nice work from one of Japan’s largest newspapers.

Wai Wai articles are a mixture of paraphrasing and free translation. The paraphrasing put distance between the Mainichi and the original (“According to Shukan Gendai…”; “The journalist also writes…” etc etc). The free translation parts used the idiom of English language tabloids to convey the scurrilous nature of the originals and, generally, did it well.

I can’t understand how anyone can complain that Wai Wai lent credibility to the stories and then also complain that the translations were not literal which would actually have given them some credibility.

It recalls Alan Bennett’s story about overhearing two old women complaining about a restaurant. One said “The food is terrible isn’t it?” The other replied “Yes, and such small portions.”

But your saying has a less connection with this issuse, I think.

“white-skinned cosplay priests perform “Christian” weddings”
As far as I know, those priests are real ones, unless of course, they are misrepresenting their qualifications.

Mainichi is a quality paper. People are dismayed by WaiWai because it continues to run articles of tabloid quality. I think editors at Mainichi should have disciplined the pervert English writer long ago.

These articles are written in a tabloid embellished style. They are very funny. They are taken from Japanese weeklies and rewritten in typical English tabloid style. Nobody (except perhaps very stupid people) take them at face value. They are taken with a pinch of salt.

The vast majority of people realise that because they are taken from Japan’s weeklies they might contain a grain of truth but on the other hand are probably grossly exaggerated (in the original Japanese version and the translation).

If Japanese media outlets published translations of weird stories from my country I would be fine with that! It’s funny.

I think the problem with the people making these complaints is that they are 2ch NEETs with no sense of humor and nothing to do with their time other than conduct pointless internet witchhunts.

This issue involves three important points, I think.

(1) The articles in Waiwai are NOT the actual translation of Japanese tabloids. They are remarkably embroidered, exaggerated, and sometimes faked, because they must attract much interest. Actually, I have compared the English stories with the Japanese ones, as many Japanese do.

(2) The editors did not confirmation that the stories of tabloids are true. They should do that because in many case, almost all the Japanese newspapers did not pick up such issues at all. But, unfortunately, the reader cannot but believe the stories because Mainichi newspaper company is one of the major companies in Japan. In other words, the big company made unusual strange stories of tabloids reliable.

I am quite sorry that even today we have sex crimes, but the articles “clealy” intend to attack Japanese for their unreliable stories.

(3) To spread ridiculous and unreliable stories of tabloids all over the world should not be the primary work of such a major newspaper company. More important for all and more reliabile issues should be spread. Newspaper must not be equal to tabloids, so they are trusted.

Thank you for your reading.

If WaiWai was on a completely separate site from Mainichi, and they had some disclaimer about the stories being from tabloids and not to take them as completely true, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.

Since they were actual translations of stories that appeared in the Japanese tabloid press – are you also campaigning to stop these being published?

Do you get “angry” when you see a salaryman on a train reading gendai?

Isn’t part of the problem the Japanese broadcasting media itself with their draconian licensing policies that makes being able to get officially licensed shows available overseas problematic? As it stands now, no one can make a valid business case due to the licensing fees involved in addition to various other policies such as those instituted by Fuji TV (like no subtitling) and making only a tiny portion of their catalog available. TV Japan doesn’t count because that is a sham setup due to NHK being one of the major shareholders not to mention the joke programming they provide on it care of NHK World Premium. This is why you do not see anyone else trying to compete against TV Japan.

So what people end up taking are tiny little bits and pieces of the stupid variety show stuff they download off Bittorrent and putting it on sites like YouTube. Then by coincidence, some of it ends up kind of matching what gets passed off in WaiWai.

Broadcasters in Korea take a different approach from their Japanese counterparts which is why you have several channels of Korean broadcasts in the US including some interesting cultural programming on KBS World. And none of this is premium channel either which allows the viewer to learn about the actual country itself. This is in stark contrast to what Japan broadcasters offer; literally zero unless you subscribe to some premium channel that offers TV Japan’s garbage and vast catalog of NHK propoganda. So is it any surprise this is the outcome?

Again, I would like to thank you for mentioning to this problem.

But even without Waiwai the selection of articles featured at Mainichi can be somewhat prurient. Their photo-journal section is mostly photos of pretty Japanese females catering to the internet guy crowds:

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/photojournal/graph/photojournal/

It’s more “Maxim” than “New York Times”

I know the WaiWai is good for a laugh sometimes – I’ve been there – but it simply had no place alongside actual news items.