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NEWS: Official Yu-Gi-Oh! Tournaments in Japan Updated to Ban Non-Japanese Nationals

there's also the one time he got in trouble with people for using his characters to get political to the point he had to apologize for using the characters to say "The current administration is betraying the country, and I'm worried about the future of Japan! It's terrible!" right after the Abe administration was urged Japan to import more foreign workers back in 2019. A message of bringing people together could just be a "for Japanese people only" kind of thing.

Traptrix Lover wrote:

there's also the one time he got in trouble with people for using his characters to get political to the point he had to apologize for using the characters to say "The current administration is betraying the country, and I'm worried about the future of Japan! It's terrible!" right after the Abe administration was urged Japan to import more foreign workers back in 2019. A message of bringing people together could just be a "for Japanese people only" kind of thing.

Lest anyone speak for the deceased, please provide a citation that Kazuki Takahashi was referring to foreign workers in Japan. Abe's cabinet proposed the legislation in 2018, long before the 2019 political cartoon.

https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2018/05/2f6e0d37f0be-japan-to-welcome-500000-foreign-workers-to-help-plug-labor-shortage.html

This was a less controversial policy than others from the cabinet. (As the above source notes, the majority of those polled supported it.)

It's especially galling to pretend that Takahashi was against foreign workers when the actuality of the statement they're referring to was against Abe's conservative party and wanting people to vote them out in the upcoming July elections in 2019, and while he apologized for drawing his characters saying so he still defended the opinion he had them say (and never took down the post either).

Pegasus at least had a sympathetic background and also upheld the terms of the tournament (unless that was something 4Kids added in the dialog).

It's especially galling to pretend that Takahashi was against foreign workers when the actuality of the statement they're referring to was against Abe's conservative party and wanting people to vote them out in the upcoming July elections in 2019, and while he apologized for drawing his characters saying so he still defended the opinion he had them say (and never took down the post either).

do people really think Takahashi had that much involvement with the card game and organizing the tournaments?

But I'm not sure I would classify simply holding up a legal tournament result as a redeeming quality given all the other things he did.

Y'all really just be fine with making up that a dead man who's not here to defend himself is anti-foreigner based solely on fictional characters in a children's comic and he hated having his cards being censored. The final nail in the coffin of this conspiracy is Takahashi’s own statements condemning the Iraq war and hoping one day people could live without borders.

It’s also overlooking the positive and sympathetic portrayals in Yugioh like Rishid and Ishizu and Rebecca and her father and there’s far more evil and selfish Japanese duelists in Yugioh than there are foreigners.

ATastySub wrote:

It's especially galling to pretend that Takahashi was against foreign workers when the actuality of the statement they're referring to was against Abe's conservative party and wanting people to vote them out in the upcoming July elections in 2019, and while he apologized for drawing his characters saying so he still defended the opinion he had them say (and never took down the post either).

You're right that he never elaborated on his stance beyond "the current administration is betraying Japan", but 1) that kind of wording generally has nationalistic tones to it and 2)if you look at the policies being made around the time you can infer what he might have been complaining about.

I know some people hate the idea that their favorite creator might have politics against their own but if I had a gun to my head and were forced to say if Takahashi leaned left or right I would choose right just on numbers alone and the information we do have.

I have no real dog in this race since I don't care which group Takahashi belongs to but just for reference the terms Takahashi used in his Instagram post were 「 売国政府 」baikoku seiken (traitorous administration) and「独裁政権」dokusai seiken (dictatorship administration) which are common dog whistles used by netouyo in Japan. Search 売国政府 right now and you will find a lot of conversations about the recent NTT law repeal in Japan and accusing Kishida of selling out to foreign companies like Blackrock. I can't find fault in people making the conclusion just like if someone in America start talking about the "deep state" and made assumptions about them based on that.

However one views modern Japan, it doesn't have the characteristics used to define fascism.

It seems a bit ridiculous this has gotten so much discussion despite being nothing more than a footnote mentioned in passing but it appears to have gotten attention because an English YouTuber in Japan complained about it so I suppose that's why.

The true irony is this would probably affect Chinese and Korean people living in Japan more than American/European folks but I doubt anyone here or there care about that very much and we're just making it to be all about us because that's what we always tend to do. I assume the majority of Japan doesn't really view this as anything noteworthy though.