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INTEREST: Pokémon's Creatures, Inc. in Hot Water Over Visit to Controversial Yasukuni Shrine


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Engineering Nerd



Joined: 24 Apr 2008
Posts: 897
Location: Southern California
PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 2:57 pm Reply with quote
I just check the Japanese comment section from the news source. Oh my goodness, the shear hatred, shitposting, name-calling is beyond disgusting. I know nationalism is a thing in Asian countries (and I was born in Asia), but that should not be an excuse for being apologists for what happened in the past, and totally being insensitive.

You might call this Twitter unrest as overreactions, but after checking what the netizens’ reactions are, it really reinforces one of my core beliefs: You cannot move on to the future without heartfeltly admitting your past
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v1cious



Joined: 31 Dec 2002
Posts: 6199
Location: Houston, TX
PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 3:16 pm Reply with quote
Is this the same shrine where Bieber got dragged for taking a selfie? At least he had the excuse of ignorance, a major Japanese company should've known this would stir up controversy.

Last edited by v1cious on Fri Jan 11, 2019 7:35 am; edited 1 time in total
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Daisylock



Joined: 04 Jan 2019
Posts: 22
PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 3:22 pm Reply with quote
Engineering Nerd wrote:
I just check the Japanese comment section from the news source. Oh my goodness, the shear hatred, shitposting, name-calling is beyond disgusting. I know nationalism is a thing in Asian countries (and I was born in Asia), but that should not be an excuse for being apologists for what happened in the past, and totally being insensitive.


There's nothing wrong with patriotism and being proud of your country.
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Takkun4343



Joined: 19 Jul 2007
Posts: 1493
Location: Englewood, Ohio
PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 3:24 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
What the hell was the point of going to the war crime shrine? I'm never going to buy anything Pokémon again.

That's certainly an overreaction if I've ever seen one.
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Lord Oink



Joined: 06 Jul 2016
Posts: 876
PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 3:29 pm Reply with quote
One of the scummiest tactics journalists do is take 4 or 5 Tweets and then attempt to create a controversy by citing those handful of Tweets and attempt to make it seem like it's actually thousands of people saying this. If you take a look at the source, you'll notice those Tweets are from newly made accounts or from accounts with very few followers, and maybe 3 or 4 likes on the tweets themselves. They're clearly not any kind of majority-held opinion. Seems like a big ball of fake news to me.

Bonus points for one of those accounts being a Korean anti-Japan account that posts numerous anti-Japanese Tweets. Obviously a great unbias source to be quoting Laughing
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Cardcaptor Takato



Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 4784
PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 3:33 pm Reply with quote
Do the white people commenting in this thread defending Creatures Inc know nothing about the war criminals the shrine venerates? It's fine if you still like Pokemon but please edeucate yourself first.
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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 4563
PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 3:34 pm Reply with quote
Daisylock wrote:

There's nothing wrong with patriotism and being proud of your country.

Patriotism is not nationalism. Being proud of what your country has done well goes hand-in-hand with acknowledging what it has not. Every country struggles with this to various degrees, but there's a particularly loud and toxic strain of Japanese nationalism that tries to whitewash some very heinous war crimes in the past century.
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 5886
PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 3:48 pm Reply with quote
Daisylock wrote:


There's nothing wrong with patriotism and being proud of your country.


When your country basically tried to conquer most of Asia and did stuff like what Unit 731 did and you pretend none of that was bad It kind of is wrong.
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Cutiebunny



Joined: 18 Apr 2010
Posts: 1746
PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 4:41 pm Reply with quote
Cardcaptor Takato wrote:
Do the white people commenting in this thread defending Creatures Inc know nothing about the war criminals the shrine venerates? It's fine if you still like Pokemon but please edeucate yourself first.


You're offended but then you label everyone who defends these workers visiting the shrine as a white person. That's pretty narrow-minded.

Pretty sure the "white people" commenting understand history and I doubt everyone posting is clueless as to the purpose of that shrine. Every culture venerates certain individuals and places that have some negative event or characteristic. For example, in the US many people respect Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson owned slaves. So did George Washington, yet both men are still on US currency. People who have good intentions in one area can often make poor decisions elsewhere, especially if this behavior is culturally accepted.

While I agree that a visit to the Yasukuni Shrine should have not been broadcasted on social media considering this company's international interests, at the same time, I look at the intent of this trip. Was it to pay homage to war criminals and their actions or was it an innocent visit to the nearest large shrine to celebrate the new year? To me, it seems like the latter was intended.
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gloverrandal



Joined: 20 May 2014
Posts: 406
Location: Oita
PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 5:01 pm Reply with quote
Cardcaptor Takato wrote:
Do the white people commenting in this thread defending Creatures Inc know nothing about the war criminals the shrine venerates? It's fine if you still like Pokemon but please edeucate yourself first.


I'm not white and I don't think Creatures Inc did anything wrong. I would suggest you refrain from making such sweeping generalizations in the future. You're also a foreigner who are attempting to police what a Japanese company does in Japan which is not the best of intentions either.
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 02 May 2011
Posts: 2930
Location: Email for assistance only
PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 5:08 pm Reply with quote
Lord Oink wrote:
One of the scummiest tactics journalists do is take 4 or 5 Tweets and then attempt to create a controversy by citing those handful of Tweets and attempt to make it seem like it's actually thousands of people saying this.


Have you checked the company's mentions? They're being bombarded with tweets over this. It isn't just a "handful" of people.
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Heishi



Joined: 06 Mar 2016
Posts: 1314
PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 5:24 pm Reply with quote
You know, this wouldn't have been an issue if the ultranationalists didn't sneak their war criminals in the shrine back in 1978.

If Japan made a collective effort to put them in a better spot, people wouldn't get riled up over this.
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-SP-





PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 5:30 pm Reply with quote
Seems like there is backlash over everything these days, maybe people should actually educate themselves before making stupid comments on the internet. Also there is a reason why the shrine includes the names of war-criminals.
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KabaKabaFruit



Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Posts: 1869
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba
PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 5:52 pm Reply with quote
It's pretty easy to designate the men that fought for their country as war criminals when said country wound up losing the war.

I bet it would be a LOT easier to downplay or brush off war crimes from the winning side when it is the winners that write the history books.

Just saying.


Last edited by KabaKabaFruit on Thu Jan 10, 2019 5:54 pm; edited 1 time in total
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nargun



Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Posts: 924
PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 5:52 pm Reply with quote
Heishi wrote:
You know, this wouldn't have been an issue if the ultranationalists didn't sneak their war criminals in the shrine back in 1978.


There's actually a pretty legit argument to be made that they died as a result of their war service and thus are fitting to be memorialised in what was, after all, a government-established national war memorial.

But to run that you'd need to be all, "this is a war memorial, not a good-person memorial" Maybe followed by a "pretending that these people's deaths 'don't count' is basically whitewashing the actions of the japanese military, we can't pretend that only good people die in wars". But that's not going to happen, and even if it did...

[I blame MacArthur.]
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