Posts Tagged ‘2-channel’

Japanese netizens reaction to nude photo of Serena Williams

English translations of a few selected comments left by users of 2-channel, Japan’s largest online bulletin board, in response to the news that American tennis player Serena Williams posed nude for the cover of a recent issue of ESPN magazine:

Gross.

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Even though I know it’s gross I couldn’t help but open it.
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Don’t paste such gross pictures.
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I’m not turned on by black (kuronbo) nudes.
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Looks like fried dough cake.
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Black color sure is pretty.
She seems so strong.
But I don’t think anyone could stand up to (keep up with ) her unless they were black …
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If she were white and not black I’d find her about 20% more erotic.
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She looks like Akiko Wada.
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Isn’t sex with black women supposed to be awesome? I mean, they seem to have so much stamina…
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That I’m not turned on isn’t due to her being black but rather a question of the make (of her face).
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I have to tell you, I think it’s erotic.
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Something about it is awesome.
Black people’s skin glitters and is healthy and pretty.
The part I can see, at least.
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If you fight her you’ll definitely lose.
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Standards of beauty vary a lot between countries and races, but is Serena hot to a black person?
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Although I’m looking at this as a Japanese person, she’s a pretty person.
In America special reports on athletes are included but
I was raised in America I wonder if my sense of it has become American-ish.
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It’s good to have a little bit of padding.

Over 500 comments were left in the original thread. Most were negative (about 30 comments compared her to a gorilla), but there were quite a few that thought she looked good.

[The Japanese news article translations in this post were provided by myGengo's simple human translation system and have been revised by helical.]

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Man arrested for threatening Crown Prince Naruhito on 2-channel

The latest in a series of actions by police that show they’re taking online death threats seriously:

Police say they have arrested a 31-year-old man for allegedly posting an Internet threat to kill Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito.

Takeshi Yamamoto, an unemployed man in Gifu Prefecture has been charged with posting the threat, which caused a police alert on an anonymous bulletin board, Kyodo News reported Saturday.

The man reportedly has admitted to posting the message, ”I will kill the crown prince,” through his home computer Aug. 13. But he now maintains it was just a hoax.

Man arrested for threating to attack a non-existent train platform

A man has been arrested for posting a thread on 2-channel announcing his intent to murder people at a location that does not actually exist:

“I didn’t think threatening to attack a railway station that doesn’t exist would constitute a crime,” he was quoted as telling investigators.

Sakiyama posted a message on an online bulletin board on June 28, threatening to launch an indiscriminate attack at “Ueno Station on the Saikyo Line,” local police said.

“I’ll show you how to avoid being arrested after threatening to launch an attack,” the message read. “At 9 p.m. today, I’ll murder many people at Ueno Station on the Saikyo Line.”

Ueno Station is real and so is the Saikyo line, but the Saikyo line does not actually pass through Ueno Station. Authorities had responded to the threat by having officers put on alert in areas of Ueno Station that actually exist.

Anger over Mainichi WaiWai column continues…

Last month, Japanese bloggers and 2-channelers scored a major victory by bringing public attention upon Mainichi’s WaiWai column, a popular section of Mainichi’s English language website that reported on some of the wildest and most perverted stories from Japan’s weekly tabloid magazines. Mainichi’s English language WaiWai column has since been discontinued and the company has apologized and punished employees that were deemed responsible for the column.

Many of those that had called and e-mailed complaints to Mainichi about the WaiWai column were probably satisfied with the result. However, some don’t think it’s enough. Blogs that called for the end of Mainichi’s WaiWai column are continuing their attacks on the paper and demanding that individual authors be outed and punished for writing WaiWai pieces.

There are also videos popping up on YouTube about the issue, such as this one that calls for a hanging of some sort (its description specifically names Ryan Connell as the author of WaiWai):

I also came across this blog post about a protest held yesterday. They include videos of the demonstration:

The man talking on the loudspeaker expresses anger over the “perverted” [hentai] column on Mainichi’s English site. Towards the beginning of his speech he implies that the disinformation being spread by Mainichi’s English website has caused crimes against Japanese women in other countries, a claim so idiotic I stopped watching the video at that point.

Meanwhile, Mainichi seems to be taking some additional measures. A source connected to GPlusMedia, the company that runs GaijinPot.com and JapanToday.com, has informed us that Mainichi has been pressuring the company into censoring some forum threads and articles that mention WaiWai and the controversy over it.

Update: The demonstration mentioned above also made TV news (including a mention of Japundit as a foreign website running WaiWai articles).

Update 2: The Aussie press has an article about Ryan Connell, claiming that he “has become one of the most reviled figures in Japan,” and that he is under police protection after numerous death threats directed at him and his family have appeared online. [via Marmot's Hole, hat tip to Julián]

2-Channelers Redesign Union Jack

There is currently a debate going on in Great Britain over whether their national flag, the Union Jack, should be given a new design that incorporates the dragon from the Welsh flag. The Telegraph asked its readers to submit designs for such a new flag, and apparently Japanese web forum 2-channel discovered their call for submissions and put its skilled users to work on helping the U.K. solve its flag problem.

Here are a few of the designs submitted:

Personally, I like the one with the leeks, but the one on the top is also pretty neat.

More designs can be viewed at the Telegraph’s website.

Update: Now with video!