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Forum - View topicINTEREST: Otaku Anti-War Protest Organizer Reacts to Singer Masayoshi Oishi's Comments on Prote
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Seibaa
 Posts: 21 |
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If opposing needless war and bloodshed disappoints my oshi then they're not my oshi anymore, simple as that. As a human being I think it's my duty to say "let's not murder innocent civilians".
It's obvious he was trying to be vague so as not to target a specific movement but he's making it sound like *any* kind of opposition to war is inherently problematic. "Don't stand up for peace, ever! Just sit back and I will end this war with my whimsical twangy guitar playing!" |
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Slizardo
 Posts: 24 |
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Your oshi can still be against war but not want to be associated with a protest especially if it's one causing a public disturbance or outright turns violent or just wants to not derail a topic with this stuff at every opportunity like during a vtuber stream playing video games or in every single discussion topic about unrelated things like anime or manga. Administering purity tests is just toxic and said oshi are better off without fans who try to force that stuff in their communities and spaces. People are under no obligation to deal with anything they don't want to or become advocates. |
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Egan Loo
Posts: 1471 |
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The March 28 otaku anti-war protest was neither of those.
Keep in mind that Masayoshi Oishi raised this topic on his own accord on his own radio program. |
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yeehaw
 Posts: 884 |
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I was looking through the youtube comments and someone made a great point, that it's an incredible double standard to say this is somehow giving otaku a bad image or something while saying nothing about all the far-righters on twitter with anime avatars
Also someone asked how are we supposed to support our oshis when the price of everything is skyrocketing, which is also a good point, a nendoroid these days cost what a scale figure used to! |
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TexZero
Posts: 606 |
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Well i used to enjoy Masayoshi Oishi's music. But if this is his take, im not sure he's an artist i can continue to support.
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Doubleclouder
 Posts: 163 |
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I was reading the comments to the video and I really liked this one.
"Why is it that people tell artists to express their political views and speak out, but the moment an artist expresses a critical opinion, they start freaking out, shouting, "Are you condoning war?!"? Nobody is condoning war. Can we please stop trying to silence anyone who disagrees with us by labeling them as a war supporter?" If only 3800 people showed up to a protest in a country of 123,000,000 people I suppose most Japanese inhabitants would be considered pro-war by these people's logic. In general I hate the idea you have to have some kind of belief to call yourself a fan of something or |
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An Unchosen One
 Posts: 206 |
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That comment is such a blatant lie that I'm tempted to think both you and whoever wrote it are intentionally misconstruing why Takahashi or anyone else would take issue with what Oishi said. He outright said that he considers it a problem if otaku are viewed as anti-war. Why? What problem is there if non-otaku see otaku as being opposed to war? |
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Egan Loo
Posts: 1471 |
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The March 28 otaku anti-war protest was one of a growing number of protests this year. According to the Mainichi Shimbun paper, about 30,000 demonstrators gathered on April 8. According to The New York Times, over 90,000 demonstrators gathered last week. https://mainichi.jp/articles/20260408/k00/00m/040/544000c https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/09/world/asia/japan-antiwar-protests-constitution.html |
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Purple Tentacle
Posts: 47 |
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According to this article "Oishi's main worry about the use of “otaku” for the March 28 protest were the perception from non-otaku: “I worried if non-otaku saw this news and think, 'Oh, so all the otaku gathered for an anti-war protest,' that would be problematic.” He was also worried this would cause a rift among otaku between those who take part in protests and those who don't." Oishi makes it pretty clear the issue is framing it as an "otaku event". Otaku are already stigmatized in Japan. They don't need to be automatically associated with protests or other political activities as well which would just put another negative stereotype on them. They also don't need people doing what you're doing right now and trying to goad them into being political because "it's for a good cause, why don't you do it, what's wrong with this" which is the rift he mentioned. Americans should be very used to the way that tactic is used on people to support movements that end up turning out to be terrible. I don't know if Japanese protests ever get as violent or awful as American ones but yeah no surprise people don't want to be associated with stuff. Imagine people thinking you support firebombing warehouses or police stations because you went to AnimeExpo or something. Not something a lot of people want to be associated with despite what some terminally online people might think. |
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Egan Loo
Posts: 1471 |
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One of Hiroyuki Takahashi's points is there isn't an inherent reason that "protests or other political activities" should be negative either. In his own words, "But what's the problem with people thinking otaku are anti-war?" Another of Takahashi's points is that the protest didn't claim to speak for all otaku. ("And does calling yourself an 'otaku' automatically mean you speak for all otaku?")
Again, the March 28 otaku anti-war protest was not violent, and Oishi himself didn't raise that as an issue. As the responses to Oishi indicate, simply separating two negative stereotypes does nothing to actually dispel either stereotype. Arguably, doing that helps perpetuate the stereotypes. (Also perpetuating a negative stereotype — the irony of stigmatizing protests against violence as violent, when this protest wasn't.) |
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An Unchosen One
Posts: 206 |
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I'm willing to bet you're no more familiar with how protests are seen by the general Japanese public than I am, so this sounds like more like an assumption about what he meant than an explanation.
More intentional misconstruing. No one is being goaded into being political, the problem is Oishi suggesting that protesting at all is a problem.
The only reason most US protests become violent is because of the police. Right-wing ones tend to be the exception because cops don't do anything until counter-protesters fight back, but the majority of the ones that make the news are peaceful until cops start assaulting the demonstrators. |
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Dancing Green
 Posts: 73 |
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It's understandable why people want to keep political movements away from anime and especially their "oshi" if it makes them look bad. I remember when a Zombieland Saga character got dragged into political violence threats and misogynistic threats against women in the UK and ended up being taken to Parliament over it. It made Zombieland Saga fans look horrible and tarnished the shows reputation. It doesn't sound like they used a specific show here but trying to lump all otaku in general into this which I get why people would be put off by I wouldn't want people to make an assumption or stereotype about me just because of my hobby.
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Egan Loo
Posts: 1471 |
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The line of thinking above implies that anime fans and even creators should not express themselves. As noted in the article, some anime/manga creators and performers got personally involved in this (again, nonviolent) movement. Anime creators have been involved in political movements since the pioneer Osamu Tezuka and the eventual founders of Studio Ghibli over half a century ago.
If some people make generalizations, assumptions, and stereotypes about otaku, doesn't the fault lie on the people making generalizations, assumptions and stereotypes — not on the otaku? |
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Fluwm
Moderator
 Posts: 1625 |
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Let's not lose sight of the fact that "otaku" aren't much of a social group in the first place -- they exist entirely as a set of assumptions (usually negative) applied to a group of people who don't really have anything in common with each other beyond being nerds.
And, frankly, it's pretty laughable seeing folks frame not liking war as some horribly undesirable trait to be stereotyped with, in contrast to all the other stereotype brushes Otaku have been painted with over the past several decades. (Which I won't get into specifically, because I don't want to derail this thread, but come on: y'all know the sorts of things I'm alluding to here.) |
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FishLion
 Crazy Fangirl Posts: 861 |
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I think it's a little goofy to say no one should use a group identifier when making political statements because it could tie the idea to the group. I don't know if Japan is similar, but plenty of groups in the US are called [blank] for [blank] and it is to give context to the message being spread.
For example, the US has "Moms for Liberty" and yet I am perfectly capable of meeting a mother and not assuming she is part of a right wing group. The real problem with this guy and to a degree the general populace lies with people viewing groups as a monolith, it's not different from people who see a political movement on Twitter and then upon meeting someone else say "well someone called for violence as that identity on social media, so I wouldn't trust that group." Anyone who sees a reaction by fans across the political isle and assumes that any average fan must share those opinions is making massive generalizations about people and probably cares more about denouncing those opinions than having an honest conversation about what the fan feels or believes. It's like how I saw weird left wing and right wing conspiracies about Pragmata were both parties swore up and down there is a secret message in the character design and plot only for most normal people to be confused why they would assume that. The people that see opinions on social media and assign them to an entire fan base or even political system is not even attempting to engage with the complexity and variety of people in certain movements. That is also why you get people assuming Collective Shout is left wing because they identify as feminists without understanding that world wide there are many anti-free speech groups that call themselves feminist and then support banning certain types of speech or media. They actually specifically market themselves that way to be misleading, it's the same reason anti-porn groups are rebranding as anti-exploitation with the quiet part being that all porn is exploitation to them. There are many examples of groups specifically naming themselves after principles and going against them, so a moniker alone cannot inform anyone what someone's beliefs are except in a very specific cultural context and if people use that as a guide they will get fooled into supporting vile things and attack people who don't deserve it again and again. So let the group of anti-war otaku say that they are otaku, saying they should keep their mouth shut because it could cause associations is equivalent to saying nobody should have any political opinions. Politics exist in context, and the same way that group wanted the context of them being Moms in the group name this group wanted the context and uniting factor of otakuness in the title. Nothing is more or less wrong with that than any other group, some people just have a vested interest in erasing all political context from media and having people talk about the connection distresses them. Anyone who thinks a group can't make a political statement or they are tying their entire hobby to politics is using very black and white thinking. After all, even making a statement of political neutrality is a political statement. If this guy really didn't want otaku associated with politics he should not have used his cultural clout among them to make a statement of neutrality. By telling people to make art that is pro peace and support their oshi but not protest directly calling yourself otaku he is making as strong of a political statement that otaku should prefer anonymity and incremental change to political participation. I know many people prefer that method, but I don't understand how saying ignore politics is any less political than saying pay attention to politics. It's still a fundamentally political statement made to achieve a desired outcome, he can claim that what he wants is to not entangle these two concepts but if they truly were separate then I don't think that many otaku would feel a sense of camaraderie and show up to protest under the label and it would just fizzle. |
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