The Four Color Media Monitor

In this article, first printed in the New York Times, we find out that Manga in Japan is taking a plunge into anti-Chinese and anti-Korean sentiments:

A young Japanese woman in the comic book "Hating the Korean Wave" exclaims, "It's not an exaggeration to say that Japan built the South Korea of today!" In another passage the book states that "there is nothing at all in Korean culture to be proud of."

In another comic book, "Introduction to China," which portrays the Chinese as a depraved people obsessed with cannibalism, a woman of Japanese origin says: "Take the China of today, its principles, thought, literature, art, science, institutions. There's nothing attractive."

To make matters worse:

The two comic books, portraying Chinese and Koreans as base peoples and advocating confrontation with them, have become runaway best sellers in Japan in the last four months.

In their graphic and unflattering drawings of Japan's fellow Asians and in the unapologetic, often offensive contents of their speech bubbles, the books reveal some of the sentiments underlying Japan's worsening relations with the rest of Asia.

I just can't believe it. What is happening with Japan today? This doesn't make me eager to travel there, and if there's anything I can say after reading this horrific news, it's that I'm even less interested in reading Manga than ever.

This also shows that Japan still isn't apologizing for the Rape of Nanking in 1937.

Labels: Europe and Asia, manga and anime, misogyny and racism