The Kyote #1: The Gruesome Deaths That Inspired Godzilla
The News, This Week in Japanese History, & Much More
Welcome to the first edition of The Kyote! It’s March 3rd, Hina Matsuri, so today Japan is celebrating its daughters (and spending money on dolls). It’s also National Goldfish Day, so spare a thought for the millions of little guys sacrificed for commerce at your local festival.
The Quiz
A picture question Japanese readers will answer instantly. Can you?
Question: What is her profession?
Answer at the foot of the mail.
The Headlines
Top Japan-related stories this week…
Why U.S. Prosecutors Are Lying About the “Yakuza Boss” Charged With Supplying Plutonium to Iran
This week prosecutors in New York released a jaw-dropping superseding indictment in the case of Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, in custody since his arrest in April 2022 on charges of conspiracy to smuggle drugs and illegal weapons, further accusing him of attempting to sell plutonium to Iran.
Portrait of a man begging to be arrested. Image source: superseding indictment, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, case S3:22-cr 2566
The new indictment describes how Ebisawa brokered a deal with a rebel group in Northern Myanmar to supply all sorts of destructive goodies to anyone with a spare fistful of hard currency. AK-47s and surface-to-air missiles are mentioned, followed by some dubious, blurred photos of a Geiger counter before we reach this line on Page 11:
This is what Bertie Wooster would call “a bit of a facer”.
By this point however, Japan-watchers will have been wondering why there is zero detail on the specific criminal group Ebisawa is a member of, beyond the vague description of him as “a Yakuza leader” — and for good reason, because he is not, in fact, a gang member at all, let alone in a leadership position.
How can The Kyote be so sure? Simple: in Japan the traditional semi-official status of crime families means that membership is a matter of pride rather than secrecy, to the extent that the National Police Agency keeps an up-to-date database of members of proscribed groups — and Ebisawa doesn’t appear on it (Link: Japanese). A true paid-up member of the Yakuza caught smuggling plutonium would from made the top of the evening news — but this story has gained hardly any cut-through in Japan, while the story was going viral in the English-speaking world.
In fact, according to Yahoo! Japan, Ebisawa is actually a two-bit crook from a commuter suburb in out-of-the-way Tochigi Prefecture who until recently lived in a $400/month house, drove a 20-year old car and hung around cheap restaurants mooching coffee off acquaintances (Link: Japanese) — but the people he met while visiting Myanmar believed his fiction that he was a criminal mastermind in his home country.
In this light the indictment starts to read more tragicomedy than thriller — a born loser upgrades from scams like Black Money and “I know Where Saddam Hussein Hid Billions in Dinars & All I Need Is A Few Million Yen To Find It” by larping as a Yakuza boss around South-East Asia, thereby accidentally making contacts that actually can sell you radioactive shit plus surface-to-air missiles. Ebisawa must’ve thought after a life of rampant disappointment he’d finally caught his big break, and reacted just as you’d expect a small-time grifter would — by immediately attracting the closest undercover U.S. Agent, telling them everything, posing for incriminating snaps, then finally taking the pornographically stupid decision to agree to travel to New York to finalize a deal to smuggle plutonium to America’s enemies.
So, just what type of a jackpot has Ebisawa bumbled into? Check this out:
Whilst any story involving Iran and weapons-grade plutonium can never truly be described as poignant, there’s another aspect of the whole affair that provokes a wry smile: Japan’s signaling to the U.S. that they’ve been fooled into thinking Ebisawa’s a big-shot, then wondering why reputation- and budget-obsessed federal prosecutors don’t immediately correct the record and admit they ran an expensive international sting operation on essentially the old drunk at the bar who boasts how they’re friends with the biggest drug dealer back home.
Let it be noted that Ebisawa has pled not guilty, but at 60 he must be hoping for a quick trial followed by a deal to serve his sentence back in Japan.
(He’s too dumb to know it, but he’s lucky the Mossad is otherwise engaged right now; the Israelis tend to deal with people who aid the Iranian nuclear program by leaving them at the curb stuffed into garbage sacks).
Full indictment available here.
Japan Actually Genuinely Screwed
Official statistics reveal Japan’s birthrate and population both decreased by record margins in 2023. Just like neighboring South Korea, a demographic apocalypse is looming for countries with insane working hours for little reward and chronically underdeveloped childcare industry due to the traditional (but slowly changing) culture expecting women to quit the workforce once married.
The first analysis of the low birthrate phenomenon was the White Paper on National Lifestyles in November 1992, so we mark over 30 years of recognizing the problem but coming up with few policies beyond telling women they are baby-making machines and need to get on with performing their function.
Here’s the short-time scenario that really worries The Kyote: if the Nankai Trench does ever give out and cause the long-predicted megathrust earthquake, Japan will simply not have a labor force sufficient to reconstruct even a fraction of the disembowelled cities.
Hideo Kojima Facing 99 Counts of Sexual Harassment
No, not that Hideo Kojima, of Metal Gear Solid fame — this another Hideo Kojima, mayor of the town of Ginan in Gifu Prefecture, who makes a spectacle of himself by crying self-pityingly at a press conference called to admit some (but not all) of the 99(!) counts of unwanted touching he was facing. Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens all too commonly in Japan’s gerontopatriarchy. Some pick-up in Western media due to the shared name, but the two Hideos’ names are written differently in Japanese: (creepy old man 小島英雄 vs video game auteur 小島秀夫).
The Word
A vast array of English words and phrases have been absorbed into the Japanese language, usually undigested. This is the “Lost in Translation” effect. Here’s this week’s word:
G is for Guts Pose
What it should have been: “punching the air”
The kind of fist pump given when winning the Super Bowl, or pledging to do one’s best, is know as the guts pose.
Usage:
彼は試合に勝った直後に、大胆なガッツポーズを決めて、観客を沸かせた。
“After winning the match, he struck a bold guts pose, thrilling the crowd”.
The History
This week in Japanese history the following events occurred…
The Gruesome Deaths That Inspired Godzilla
On March 1st, 1954, the crew of the Dai-go Fukuryū Maru fishing boat are irradiated by a U.S. thermonuclear bomb test on Bikini Atoll despite being outside the declared danger zone. The men suffer acute radiation poisoning on what must have been at best a tense voyage home; once back in Japan and under medical care the U.S. government shows its customary tact and diplomacy by ignoring requests for information before grudgingly sending two doctors — who prevail upon the Japanese authorities to confine the now very bald fisherman to hospital to be badgered with questions and all manner of medical tests.
One of the men dies a swift but agonizing death, while the remaining 22 are not discharged until 14 months later, to be met with mass discrimination by a Japanese public which had yet to be informed nine years post-Hiroshima and Nagasaki that radiation poisoning is not, in fact, contagious. Most eventually drop from gruesome cancers, except for one poor bastard who instead burns to death in a highway crash.
The event helps inspire the movie Godzilla, released 6 months afterwards, with its allegory of nature rebelling against the destructive power of nuclear weapons in the form of a giant monster kicking its way through the streets of Tokyo. Adding to the sense of the macabre? The fact that the boat’s name — Dai-go Fukuryū Maru — means “Lucky Dragon Number 5”.
More at Wikipedia.
“I Have a Bad Case of Diarrhea”
March 1st, 1959 saw the Fuji Television network commence broadcasting. Amongst much notable output over the following decades, Fuji TV’s most enduring contribution to the culture began 36 years later: notorious language learning/aerobics crossover farrago Zuiikin' English. Warning: do not watch the following unless you’re willing to risk laughing so hard you end up being grappled off to a room with comfortable walls.
Link active at time of publishing. Use at own risk.
The Film
Each week The Kyote introduces a movie which was retitled for the Japanese market.
Film: BASIC INSTINCT (1992)
Japanese title: 氷の微笑
Literal Translation: “ICE SMILE”
Oh, you thought Basic Instinct was a thriller, most notable for the “erotic” elements? Actually, the most important elements of the film were a) ice, and b) the knowing smile Sharon Stone’s Catherine Tramell character had on her dial throughout proceedings. A gorgeous example of Retitling Case #9: Changing Title to Unimportant Minor Aspect of Film's Plot/Situation.
The Hashtags
What are Japanese netizens discussing? Top trending hashtags on Japanese X/Twitter each day this week.
Monday Feb 26th: #令和のガンプラルール
ENGLISH: “New Rules for Fans of Gundam Models”
Fans of scale replica robots from Bandai’s Gundam fictional multiverse attempt to codify rules for their hobby. Community suggestions include:
・Don't hoard models to the extent that it inconveniences others
・Don't buy pirated models
The over-riding message is, however: death to resellers!
Tuesday Feb 27th: #初の80万人超減
ENGLISH: “Population Falls 800,000 For the First Time”
The demographic doom of Japan cuts through the Twitter noise for a day. Difficult to summon outrage over a phenomenon with a decades-long horizon though, so quickly on to the next:
Wednesday Feb 28th: #ブルーインパルス
ENGLISH: “Blue Impulse”
Defense Minister Kihara Minoru displays the usual tact and diplomacy expected of Japanese politicians by suggesting victims of New Year Day’s Noto Earthquake might be cheered up by an overflight by Blue Impulse, the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force aerobatics team, rather than, say, fresh water, food, electricity, protection from hypothermia, or repairs to their houses which would allow them to return home. (Suffice to say Kihara bombed harder than any Defense Minister has this side of 1945).
Thursday Feb 29th: #新幹線大爆破
ENGLISH: “Bullet Train Explosion”
No, not a real incident; instead it’s Netflix’s announcement of a remake of The Bullet Train (1975), a classic of the disaster film genre (known as “panic movies” in Japan). The reboot will be directed by Higuchi Shinji, director of previous panic movie remake Sinking of Japan (2006, 1973; in which a Nankai Trench earthquake literally sinks the entire country), as well as co-director of 2016’s entry in the Godzilla series, Shin Godzilla. Kusanagi Tsuyoshi stars, proving once again the rule that any serious entertainment property must involve at least one former member of SMAP.
Friday Mar 1st: #大谷結婚
ENGLISH: “Ohtani Gets Married”
Two-way baseball genius (and financial engineer) Shohei Ohtani reveals on Instagram that he has recently married. Here’s what the U.S. press corps didn’t understand about the subsequent press conference where a beaming Ohtani stayed silent on his bride’s identity: the announcement was an attempt to feed the basic details to the ravenous Tokyo-based tabloids in return for them leaving his new wife and her family alone (such deals, however, rarely work — Japan’s other favorite athlete, ice skater Yuzuru Hanyu, divorced after only three months of marriage due to the media harassment his wife faced).
Ohtani gave no details other than that his wife is Japanese — which also means a pre-nuptial agreement is culturally unlikely, although the advisors who negotiated his new deal with the LA Dodgers that pays him a mere $2m/season until 2033, then $680m over the following decade probably tried to insist on it. (Monday morning prognosticators point to Ohtani recently getting a dog as a sign he was preparing to settle down. The dog’s name is Dekopin, literal meaning: a finger flick to the forehead).
Saturday Mar 2nd: #卒業おめでとう
ENGLISH: “Congratulations on your Graduation”
The top of March is high school graduation season — which means school choirs up and down the land will be belting out their graduation songs, AKA the ultimate weepies, with lyrics about leaving the nest and bidding friends permanent farewell. Is it wrong that a genre of music exists precision engineered to make children weep? And then of course at night the partying begins…
Today, Sunday Mar 3rd: #女の子の日
ENGLISH: “Girl’s Day”
Today is Girl’s Day (女の子の日) AKA the Doll Festival (雛祭り) AKA Peach Day (桃の節句) AKA that other way of of saying Peach Day (上巳), AKA yet another way of saying Peach Day (重三)!
Peach trees used to flower around the 3rd day of the 3rd month of the lunisolar calendar, and while Girl’s Day has now been fixed to March third, the peach remains the symbol of this festival. In ancient times it was an event for nobles at the imperial court to compose poetry celebrating the arrival of spring (and get unpeeled on saké). Nowadays it’s a day to celebrate girls, counterpart to May 5th’s Children’s Day, traditionally a more male-centric occasion. Families often prepare an elaborate diorama of dolls representing the Heian-Era empress and emperor (plus tiers of other court functionaries if ¥¥¥ allows). Lots of pictures shared today on X of those dolls, along with the traditional sushi dish chirashizushi…and also, in this brave new world, a bunch of scantily-clad AI-generated glamour photos of women in celebratory kimono.
The Answer
Question: What is her profession?
Answer: Politician
How you know: that small but shiny lapel pin, signaling she’s a member of the National Diet (plus the “working hard for you, my constituents” guts pose). Here’s a close-up of the badge:
That flower is the kiku (chrysanthemum), the Imperial Japanese seal. This is the House of Councillors (Upper House) version in dark blue; House of Representative (warning, crushingly outdated official website) members make do with a less-impressive purplish effort.
Not recommended: ordering a replica of the badge online then walking unchallenged into the Foreign Ministry and other official buildings (after all you may, eventually, get caught).
(P.S. July 2022 saw a record percentage of female politicians amongst those elected to the upper house: a whopping 28%).
Until next week,
The Kyote
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The Kyote is built in Kyoto, Japan.