Archive for September, 2008

Shinjiro Koizumi enters politics

Junichiro Koizumi announced his retirement from politics last week, and he wants voters to elect his son to replace him. Junichiro first ran for political office when he was 27-years-old, and now that his son Shinjiro has reached that age, he has chosen to have Shinjiro inherit the family job:

Some supporters shouted messages such as, “Good luck! We’ll follow you,” and “Fourth generation!”

Indeed, if elected, Shinjiro would be a fourth-generation politician. His grandfather and great-grandfather both served as state ministers.

After graduating from Kanto Gakuin University in Kanagawa Prefecture, Shinjiro attended Columbia University graduate school in the United States.

After studying the Japan-U.S. relationship at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank, he returned to Japan in June last year and became his father’s aide.

“He is more amiable than his father,” said one supporter in Koizumi’s constituency, which comprises the cities of Yokosuka and Miura.

Junichiro Koizumi’s other son, Kotaro, is an actor, and I’ve heard several people comment on how Shinjiro looks very similar to his handsome brother.

Extreme form of herpes hitting sumo wrestlers

AFP reports that a severe strain of herpes simplex virus type 1 of herpes is hitting sumo wrestlers in Japan:

Known as Herpes gladiatorum, or scrumpox, it causes painful, virus-filled blisters to form on the face and the neck that can damage the skin. Fever, headaches and an infection of the lymph nodes can also result.

As H. gladiatorum is highly infectious, players who have the blisters are usually taken out of competition to prevent them from passing it on.

In a study published in a British journal, Japanese scientists looked at blood samples from 39 sumo wrestlers in Tokyo who had been diagnosed with H. gladiatorum between 1989 and 1994.

Tests revealed that some of the wrestlers had been infected only once, while in others, the disease had recurred several times.

DJ Ozma and Tunnels dress up as black women

The image above is taken from the official site of Lotte’s new Splash gum. It shows comedy group Tunnels (the guys behind “human tetris”) and musician DJ Ozma (the “bounce with me” dude) dressed up as Yajima Beauty Salon, a new comedic musical group. Yajima Beauty Salon consists of a three “American” characters, the mother Margaret and her two daughters Strawberry and Naomi. According to the backstory on the group’s homepage on Avex, the Margaret character is a former nude dancer from Las Vegas, and she has brought her daughters to Japan to search for their father, a Japanese beautician named Yajima. The mother apparently has the dancing nickname “black bolt.”

I’ve only seen them in the Lotte commercial so far, so I’m not entirely sure how far they take the fake American comedy act. I did, however, find this YouTube video of them performing:

The song begins with an announcement that they came from Nevada, and the lyrics include phrases such as, “Is Kaminarimon nearby?” (a popular tourist site) and “Where can I meet a samurai?” and “There are no Kabuki theaters in Kabukicho” (Tokyo’s entertainment/red light district). It seems like they are attempting to entertain audiences from a cute faux foreigner’s perspective.

They may not be covering their faces with dark black shoe polish, but some foreigners seeing this will no doubt be reminded of blackface minstrel shows. Its members are likely totally unaware of the fact that their act could offend anyone, and there doesn’t seem to have malicious intent. However, seeing entertainers put on make-up and afro wigs to look like a different race for comedic reasons always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. DJ Ozma and Tunnels have made some really funny stuff in the past, but this act is quite lame.

[via TokyoGraph]

Mainichi apologizes for WaiWai column’s copyright violations

Mainichi has issued yet another apology for its WaiWai column, this time expressing regret that some of the WaiWai articles violated the copyrights of other publishers:

In the column, articles were used without the consent of their publishers — including publishing and newspaper companies. Our follow-up investigation has found that we used and translated articles published by 32 publishing and newspaper companies without their permission.

We allowed another publisher to run some of these WaiWai articles in publications it printed, and received fees for the reprint. We are now in the process of repaying these reprint fees.

We are continuing to apologize to the publishers for violating their copyrights.

Mainichi has pledged to return the money it charged for republication of WaiWai articles, and it plans to “educate management and employees” about copyright issues.

Forgive me if I am wrong, but my understanding was that the WaiWai columns were embellished summaries of news reported by weekly tabloid magazines, not straight translations. If writing summaries and explanations of stories from a foreign language news publications is not acceptable, are news agencies like Reuters and Bloomberg paying Mainichi’s publishers money every time they mention news originally reported by Mainichi? And what about the Japan Times’ Tokyo Confidential column?

[hat tip to Fusou Note]