On August 21, there was a major protest (over 8,000) took protest in Odaiba, Tokyo, as people marched against Fuji TV, one of Japan’s television network. In Japan, such a large-scale protest is rare.
However, the English-media, as per usual, has not covered the incident accurately at all! Instead, they have simply reported the protest to have started as a result of “people getting upset over Fuji TV showing too much Korean dramas”. Which is totally inaccurate.
The issue is more than just “showing too much Korean dramas” (although the network does show an inordinate amount of it (40 hours a week), compared to other networks). The issue here is that the network is accused to be guilty of submitting subliminal messages, in which viewers feel as if they are being told to like Korean dramas. The protestors were demanding “a proper journalism that is not prejudiced”.
Here are few of the recent incidents from the network under fire that have caused a few eyebrows to raise.
Subliminal messages:
*Japanese flag being censored in a music video. Furthermore, in sporting matches Japanese national anthem is not broadcasted, while Korean national anthem is fully aired.
*The world map in a weather report segment of a news report has Korea as the center. Or they show Korea when the weather report is only about Japan.
*The Korean flag is presented in the center of the TV set, or a TV set has been accused of submitting subliminal messages by featuring a pattern seen on the Korean flag.
*Korean food is always ranked highly in any food ranking conducted in the TV shows Fuji TV runs. Although Korean food is popular in Japan, the popularity that the shows purported was highly unnatural. For example, for the survey in which they asked “what is your favourite hot pot dishes?” people from all age group (even senior citizens) claimed to like “Kimchi hot pot” the most according to the survey.
*When Mao Asada, a Japanese figure skater, was invited to the studio, the interview took place with a large cardboard cut-out of her tripping. Which was a pretty vile thing to do.
*The names of K-pop artists are frequently mentioned or printed on the background without any proper justification/reason.
TV dramas:
* In “Zettai Reido”, the names of former Japanese prime ministers were used for the names of criminals.
* In “Ikemen Paradise”, the heroine was seen wearing a shirt with “Little Boy” printed on it. Little Boy is the name of an atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The episode was aired the day after the bomb was dropped in Hiroshima. It is highly unlikely that none of the Japanese staff knew what the name “Little Boy” stands for.
*A magazine shown in “Soredemo Ikiteyuku” had “**** JAP” in Korean printed as the headline.
Miscellaneous:
* Commentators in a TV show commented on Mike Havennar’s (Japanese soccer player of Dutch decent) appearance, and made fun of how “he doesn’t not look like Japanese at all”. (Well, seeing that his parents are Dutch and he became Japanese after being born and raised there….)
*During the prime minister’s conference, the microphone accidently picked up conversations between the Fuji TV staff, where they scoffed by saying, “Ugh, they are talking about nuclear power again”. “Man, I’m gonna start laughing”.
These are just a few examples.
If it was a one-off incident, it could be considered to be a coincidence. However, if it’s a repeated thing, people will start to question if a subliminal message is being emitted.
Although the western media is trying to portray the protest as being a xenophobic racist protest, a TV network that refuses to air its own country’s national anthem or censor its country’s flag should be bashed by all means. No one likes being told what they should like (at least explicitly), and a TV network shouldn’t be airing messages that can be construed as subliminal. That being said, I’m pretty sure some of the protestors were xenophobic, which is unfortunate.
Tokyo Ruins Everything 
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