Yakuza and the DPJ

I just noticed that the December 2009 issue of the FCCJ's Number 1 Shimbun had a report entitled "Jake Adelstein and Tokyo Vice" by Gavin Blair. The report mentions an Adelstein's claim that the Japan's largest yakuza group, Yamaguchi-gumi, is supporting the DPJ.

Something that definitely falls into the controversial category is Adelstein’s claim that the Yamaguchi-gumi – Japan’s largest criminal organization – switching its traditional support for the LDP over to the DPJ about a year before the Democrats’ election victory. While somehow reminiscent of the Murdoch press in the U.K. shifting allegiance from the Conservatives to Labour (and recently back again) when either side emerged a likely winner, there may have been more to it than simply backing the winning horse, according to Adelstein. He quoted two Japanese weeklies – Asahi Geino and Shukan Jitsuwa – as reporting that the switch to the DPJ had been decided at top-level Yamaguchi-gumi meetings.

According to this passage, Adelstein seems to have quoted only vulgar weekly journals such as Asahi Geino and Shukan Jitsuwa, whose credibility is questionable. Also, Gavin Blair, the writer of the article, reported that the alleged Yamaguchi-gumi's support was definitely controversial. However, as long as I know, it is not controversial. Japanese news media already reported it in 2007. I remember this, because it was a big surprise for me that the whole Yamaguchi-gumi decided to support a single political party. There had been a few times that Japanese media reported that individual politicians had connections with some members of yakuza organizations. When such connections were revealed and reported by the media, they were always big scandals for the politicians that may lead to political death of them. Therefore, it was a big surprise that it was revealed that a whole yakuza organization officially decided to support a single political party.

Since Japanese media do not keep their articles on the web for a long period, the news articles have already been removed from the web. However, I could find a cache of an article. According to the article, a member of Yamaguchi-gumi was arrested for buying votes for a DPJ candidate in the election of the House of Councillors in 2007, and it was revealed that the headquarter of Yamaguchi-gumi had issued an official notice that ordered member organisations to support the DPJ.

NYT article on Japan in an alternative universe

On the Occasion of Barack Obama’s Inauguration, New York Times had an article entitled "Japan’s outcasts still wait for acceptance" by Norimitsu Onishi .

English-language news media often publish inaccurate or sometimes hilariously exaggerated articles on Japan. However, since majority of Japanese do not read English-language media, they do not know that such articles have been published in foreign media. As a result, misconception caused by exaggerated articles is rarely corrected. When Mr. Onishi wrote the NYT article, he was perhaps expecting that his report would become one such article. The article, however, had so much exaggeration that Mr. Okumura at GlobalTalk 21 has been posting a series of counterarguments. So far four Six relevant articles (plus one) have been posted there. They are must reads for those who are interested in the issue of outcasts in Japan.

Introduction,
First Installment,
Second Installment,
Third Installment,
Fourth Installment
Interlude
Coda without a finale

WaiWai column had been violating the copyrights of 32 publishing and newspaper companies

Mainichi issued a statement admitting that WaiWai articles had been violating the copyrights of 32 publishing and newspaper companies .

In the column, articles were used without the consent of their publishers -- including publishing and newspaper companies. Our follow-up investigation has found that we used and translated articles published by 32 publishing and newspaper companies without their permission.

We allowed another publisher to run some of these WaiWai articles in publications it printed, and received fees for the reprint. We are now in the process of repaying these reprint fees.

We are continuing to apologize to the publishers for violating their copyrights.

Mainichi also admitted that the printed edition published before 2001 also used articles of other publications without permission from copyright holders.

The defunct printed edition of the Mainichi Daily News, which was published before the Mainichi Daily News became an online newspaper, also used and translated articles from other publications without permission from their copyright holders between October 1989 and March 2001. We are continuing to offer explanations and apologies to the publishers of these articles.

This is essentially a retraction of a portion of their previous statement issued on July 20th. According to the explanation in the previous statement, publication of problematic articles had started after the task of writing WaiWai articles fell into the hands of just one editor after the print edition of the MDN was suspended at the end of March 2001. The following is the relevant portion in the statement issued on July 20th.

At the time the print edition was suspended, the MDN had a staff of 15 foreign and three Japanese staff writers. Following the shift online, the staff was downsized to five foreign and three Japanese staff writers, with the Japanese staff subsequently being reduced to two. The task of writing articles for the WaiWai column essentially fell into the hands of just one editor.
(....)
The column editor assumed that different standards for accuracy applied to news stories and those carried in the WaiWai column. For this reason, both the print and web versions carried the following disclaimer: "WaiWai stories are transcriptions of articles that originally appeared in Japanese language publications. The Mainichi Daily News cannot be held responsible for the content of the original articles, nor does it guarantee their accuracy. Views expressed in the WaiWai column are not necessarily those held by the Mainichi Daily News or the Mainichi Newspapers Co." He did concede this might have been inadequate, though, considering that web readers did not necessarily differentiate between news articles translated from the Mainichi Shimbun and the stories in the WaiWai column.

Moreover, his knowledge and understanding of copyright laws were insufficient. When he first began writing WaiWai stories, he was told by a senior native English-speaking colleague that quoting from Japanese magazine articles was acceptable inasmuch as it was not straight translation but augmented with commentary and explanations. He took this advice at face value without further inquiry and continued to produce large volumes of magazine article translations. There were cases where personal interpretations that were not in the original article crept into the WaiWai story as a means of attracting reader attention.

WaiWai Correspondents' Club, Part 2

About a month ago, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age published reports concerning the WaiWai issue. Both articles that were similar to each other were written by a reporter Justin Norrie. I had something to say about those reports, but, since I am not good at commanding English as you readers may easily notice, I had not been able to write about them. I just noticed that Jun Okumura at GlobalTalk 21 has written about the article published in the Age. In the post, he wrote many of the things that I wanted to write. Please take a look at his post here.

I'd append here some additional comments concernig the Justin Norrie's article.

In the article, Mr. Norrie wrote:

In the past month the 39-year-old, originally from Melbourne, has become one of the most reviled figures in Japan, (...)

There seems to be a factual error. The editor of the WaiWai column, Ryann Connell, is not 39 years old, but 53 years old. According to his profile page written by himself, he was born March 25, 1955 (this page has a link to the cache of his profile page. Click the link at the top of the linked page to see the cache).

Then the article says:

When contacted this week, Connell said he was unable to comment. But The Age believes he has received death threats and is under strict police instructions to stay at home until things die down.

Connell was unable to comment, then how The Age was able to "believe" Connell had received death threats?

Mr. Norrie's another article in the Sydney Morning Herald has a similar paragraph.

When contacted this week, Connell said he was unable to comment on "any aspect of the case". But the Herald understands he has received several death threats and is under strict police instructions to stay inside his suburban Tokyo home until the matter dies down.

Connell was unable to comment on "any aspect of the case", then how the Herald was able to "understand" Connell had received several death threats? No one but the Herald and The Age can understand.

His reports on the WaiWai issue were so interesting that I tried to find other articles written by him. Of the articles found, this one titled "Boyos abroad raising the flag, shaming the nation" was especially interesting. He wrote in the article:

In the run up to Australia Day this year, organisers of the Big Day Out music festival triggered a nationwide round of chest-beating by declaring the national flag unwelcome at the Sydney event. Their aim, they said, was to prevent aggressive displays of nationalism and ethnic violence.

While the festival passed peacefully, the anticipated outbursts of drunken thuggery and cultural friction were unravelling 8500 kilometres away, on the freezing streets of Hokkaido, in northern Japan.

At Niseko, a small ski resort town dubbed "Little Australia" in honour of the Antipodean property developers and skiers who have driven its revival, the Japanese owners of Cafe Pow Pow had thoughtfully thrown a barbecue to mark the special day for their patrons.

They had supplied Australian wine, beer, meat pies and fish and chips - even fireworks. Before long their guests quaffed the lot and - amid the occasional refrain of "Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!" - began throwing punches and glasses around the bar, then out in the street, in one of at least three brawls across the town that night, witnesses recalled.

"This fighting is common for Australians," a female bar worker at Pow Pow told the Herald. "They get drunk, take off their clothes, sometimes smash glasses and have fights - like it's fun."

The Australia Day skirmishes received no media attention.

Australian residents in Niseko had something to say about the report. The Australian Alpine Club Niseko wrote in their blog post titled "lost in translation?",

Justin Norrie, the Tokyo correspondent for the 'Sydney Morning Herald' recently wrote about alleged bad behaviour by Australians in Niseko, apparently evidenced by a brawl at Cafe Pow Pow on Australia Day this year. Bar staff from Cafe Pow Pow were quoted and the reporter observed that "[T]he Australia Day skirmishes received no media attention." The story has since been widely circulated on the internet.

A slight problem with the story is that according to Cafe Pow Pow and some who frequented the establishment on Australia Day, no such event occurred. This might explain why it received no media attention.

Haha.


Update:
The following article was also interesting.
Australia also should "Rail at Australian's Tabloid Trash" about Japan.

WaiWai Correspondents' Club

The latest issue of Number 1 Shimbun, a Monthly journal issued by the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, has an article entitled "Wai oh Why?". The editorial of the issue says,

No. 1’s primary focus should be on stories that directly concern and are of interest to journalists – we’re a press club, after all.

For example, in this month’s issue, we’re running a fascinating story by Gavin Blair about the Byzantine machinations surrounding the Mainichi Shimbun’s closure of the WaiWai Web site.

The article shows how much ill-informed foreign correspondents in Japan are. The article describes the fuss on the WaiWai column as follows.

By June, Mainichi had issued an apology, removed all the archived stories, asked search engines to do the same, and promised to punish those involved.

Still, the protesters were not satisfied, bombarding companies that advertised with the Mainichi with demands to withdraw their sponsorship and calling for further punishment of its editors and Connell.

I don't think this is a correct description on the fuss about the WaiWai column. The initial apology from Mainichi issued on June 25 did not mention that the WaiWai column contained wrong information, although it was what many Japanese demanded. The apology from Mainichi stated,

Some of the articles in the "WaiWai" column carried in the Mainichi Daily News, the English Web site of the Mainichi Newspapers Co., Ltd., were inappropriate and made many people uncomfortable. (...)
WaiWai was meant to introduce aspects of Japanese society and social behavior by quoting magazines and other print media published in Japan. In late May, we received criticism saying the content was vulgar. The Mainichi Daily News Editorial Department deemed that some of the articles had inappropriate content and deleted those articles.

What many Japanese demanded of Mainichi was to clarify to the foreign readers that the WaiWai column contained wrong information about Japan, as I wrote previously. However, Mainichi's initial apology only stated that the WaiWai column contained "inappropriate" articles. It did not explain how the articles were "inappropriate". In addition, the apology could be taken by foreign readers as a statement suggesting that the articles contained correct information on Japanese society and social behavior, since it stated: "WaiWai was meant to introduce aspects of Japanese society and social behavior by quoting magazines and other print media published in Japan". The apology as a whole suggested that the only reason that Mainichi deleted the articles was that they were "vulgar". This apology indicated that Mainichi did not understand what in the WaiWai column made many Japanese upset. In addition, although the Mainichi announced punitive measures for people who had been responsible for the publication of the WaiWai articles, the Digital Media Division President was promoted the head of the Mainichi Shimbun Corporation on June 25, despite the fact that he had been the most responsible person for the WaiWai issue. Thus, the fuss continued until Mainichi issued more comprehensive apology on July 20.

After delivering misinformation on the fuss, the article in the Number 1 Shimbun suddenly changes the topic to a minor group who made a demonstration in front of the Mainichi's headquarters.

The Zainichi Tokken o Yurusanai Shimin no Kai - Citizens' Group against Special Rights for Zainichi (Japan-born Koreans) – organized a demonstration in front of the Mainichi's headquarters on July 2 after WaiWai had been purged and punishments announced.

Several days before the demonstration, the Zainichi Tokken o Yurusanai Shimin no Kai (Zaitokukai) announced on various boards at 2-channel that they will demonstrate in front of the Mainichi's headquarters. However, majority of 2-channelers who had been criticizing Mainichi responded to the call by warning other readers that attending the demonstration by the Zaitokukai would be perceived by other people as if the anti-Mainichi movement was organized by the particular organization. Many 2-channelers advised other readers not to attend the demonstration. Thus the demonstration on July 2 was a very small one. The attempt to attribute the anti-WaiWai movement to that minor group is just a delusive attempt to create the "Byzantine machinations" from nothing.

The author of the article seems to be fond of the WaiWai column featuring a tale of fishermen. He wrote,

It would be a shame to say goodbye to WaiWai without recalling at least one of its infamous stories in a little more detail. One, which combined the elements of humor, debauchery and a total lack of credibility, was the tale of fishermen having their way with various creatures of the ocean. Originally told by comedian Taro Makeburu, a former fisherman, to a Jitsuwa Knuckles columnist, it contained some of the following pearls: (...)

A small tidbit. The comedian mentioned in this article was not Taro Makeburu (負古 太郎) but Furutaro Make (負 古太郎). Furutaro Make was a member of the comedian group, Takeshi Gundan, lead by Takeshi Kitano. His name is a parody of a Japanese actor Shintaro Katsu (勝 新太郎). The kanji for "winning (katsu, 勝)" and "new (shin, 新)" in the Shintaro Katsu's name is changed into kanji of opposite meanings, "losing (make, 負)" and "old (furu, 古)", respectively, in the Make Furutaro's name. Just by seeing his name in the beginning of that article, Japanese can know that a bunch of jokes will follow in the article, but the authors of the WaiWai column and the Foreign Correspondents' Club's article had neither knowledge on the Takeshi Gundan's comedian nor ablility to investigate that background.

This WaiWai article fortunately contained a joke about moray that even foregin people could doubt the credibility of the article. Apparently that is the reason the Foreign Correspondents' Club's article mentioned that particular WaiWai article. However, can readers with little knowledge on Japan and Japanese people judge that the story on the bestiality restaurant is a fiction when he/she read it? The Foreign Correspondents' Club's article that intentionally avoided to mention problematic articles looks to be a desperate attempt to cover up the harmful nature of the WaiWai column.

As a minor note, the Foreign Correspondents' Club's article provided in the end a link to transcripts of WaiWai articles that is violating Japanese copyright laws; The Foreign Correspondents' Club, as an organization, seems to be trying to encourage and promote the violation of the laws. It's sad that this kind of people are working as foreign correspondents in this country.

How beastiality restaurant was made real in the WaiWai column

The Website of Mainichi Daily News (MDN) has the results of the investigation of problems of the WaiWai column. The most criticized about the Mainichi's WaiWai column was that it contained wrong information about Japan as stated by one of the members of third party organization.

The WaiWai column lent credibility to articles that Japanese readers would ordinarily take with a grain of salt. Foreign readers cannot tell whether or not the Japanese magazines that originally published the articles are reputable and can be taken at face value. There was a danger, therefore, that the column could invite great misunderstanding. It is frightening to think that the responsibility for such a column was left completely in the hands of an individual staff writer. A company that gives precedence to the number of web hits over consideration of what information should be conveyed cannot be properly called a newspaper.

Claims have been made that the column shed light on certain aspects of Japanese society. This claim is unsupportable, for rather than shedding light, it provided something close to misinformation.

The results of the investigation did not include any detailed description of the examination of individual articles probably because quoting the articles should results in violation of copyright laws; The articles had already violated the laws by translating articles without permission of copyright holders. This was vaguely stated in the Mainichi's investigation document; "Issues relating to the translation and summarization of copyrighted material are being discussed with the publishers of the source magazines."

Some Japanese bloggers and 2-channelers are trying to collect source magazines that were used for WaiWai articles, in order to examine how original articles were changed and modified when they were translated for the WaiWai column. Recent finding of the source magazine for the WaiWai article titled "The Cook, the Beast, the Vice and its Lover" revealed how that WaiWai article was made.

The WaiWai article start with the following summary describing about beastiality restaurant.

A disgusting and twisted restaurant in the Tokyo entertainment district of Roppongi is enticing warped rich folk with the opportunity to figuratively have their cake and eat it, too — with animals, according to Jitsuwa Knuckles (9/25).
(You can read the transcript of full article at the following URL.
http://logipundit.wordpress.com/2007/09/27/beastiality-restaurant-opens-in-tokyo/)

When Japanese see the name of the source magazine, they can automatically notice that the story is fictional as I wrote before, but foreign readers may take the story at face value. However, it was not the only problem of the WaiWai article.

Finding of the source magazine revealed that the original article was written as one of the articles featuring urban legends; The articles had a header stating that the contents were urban legends.

The header says "エロバカ都市伝説: 各地に広まった身近な都市伝説を徹底収集" which means "Vulgar and foolish urban legends: thorough collection of familiar urban legends dispersed in various places". The author of the WaiWai article omitted this information when he wrote the article. Considering the nature of the source magazine, I don't think the contents of the articles were actual urban legends but think they were creation by the writer. Anyway, the writer of the original article was at least responsible enough to suggest that its content was not factual, stating that it was an urban legend. However, the author of the WaiWai article shamelessly omitted the header so that readers can take the story at face value.

Also, in the original article the person who invited a commenter to the restaurant was a congressman, but in the WaiWai article that person was changed to a lawyer. Why did the author of the WaiWai article make this change? Did he have ill-feeling toward lawyers? No one but the author knows.

Japanese weeklies and tabloids

Concerning the closure of the Mainichi's WaiWai column, it may be worthwhile to describe how an average Japanese person (it's me) look on Japanese Weeklies and Tabloids. The following is a list of some Japanese weeklies and tabloids categorized into three groups.

(A) Shukan Shincho, Shukan Bunshun, Yomiuri Weekly, Sunday Mainichi, Shukan Asahi

(B) SPA!, Shukan Gendai, Shukan Post

(C) Asahi Geinou, Shukan Jitsuwa, Jitsuwa Knuckles, Tokyo Sports

Magazines in group A have relatively reliable articles. Writers in these weeklies actually gather news materials and data to write their articles. They care not to be sued. These weeklies are both for males and females of all ages.

Magazines in group B has lower reliability than those in group A.

SPA! is a subculture magazine, main target of which is males in their 20s and 30s. Articles are mainly for entertainment; they may contain fictional stories. This magazine tend to publish controversial articles. I remember that I read an extremely disturbing interview to Issei Sagawa in this magazine in the early 1990s. In the interview, the interviewer, Taku Hachiro, made a talk with Sagawa in a yakiniku (barbecue) restaurant. In the middle of the dinner, Taku asked to Sagawa, "This meat is really good. Which do you think is better?". Sagawa replied, "Err...either one has its own taste. So I cannot say which is better." I also remember that SPA! had been advocating AUM Shinrikyo cult just for entertainment when many people were concerned about its cultic nature in the early 1990s. Also I remember column series published in the late 1980s that positively introduced Toyama Koichi as a left-wing extremist highschooler. Toyama Koichi's video circulated in the Japanese blogosphere last year when he stood as an anarchist candidate in the election for the Governor of Tokyo. I was really astonished when I noticed that he was that guy who had been known by the readers of SPA! in the late 1980s as an anachronistic left-wing extremist highschooler wearing a helmet and carrying a gebabou stick.

Main target of Shukan Gendai and Shukan Post is males older than 30. These magazines regularly contain nudity. Their writers usually gather news materials and data by themselves to write their articles on politics and economy. My impression is that they often twist news materials to make them meet their agenda. Articles on politics are always with anti-government taste. Articles related to sex contain fictional stories for entertainment.

Magazines in group C have little reliability. It is highly probable that anyone who sues these magazines for libel will lose the case. Any article published in them usually does not constitute defamation of character since few Japanese believe what are written in these magazines. A rare case that a plaintiff won was Professor Uekusa's case. Asahi Geinou reported several incidents of molesting by Prof. Uekusa in 2004-2006 after he was arrested for molesting in other cases. However, all of the molesting reported by Asahi Geinou were revealed to be groundless. Writers of Asahi Geinou made up the incidents just for entertainment using the name of Prof. Uekusa. The judicial decision was that the fictional reports in Asahi Geinou were defamation of character; some might believe the reports even though they were written in Asahi Geinou, since everyone at the time knew that Prof. Uekusa was a pervert.

Although Asahi Geinou has "Asahi" in its name, it has nothing to do with Asahi Shimbun, a major Japanese newspaper. I suppose that the name of the magazine itself is a joke, openly pretending to be related to Asahi Shimbun when everyone knows the magazine has nothing to do with Asahi Shimbun.

Shukan Jitsuwa and Jitsuwa Knuckles are called jitsuwa-kei (実話系) weeklies since they contain "jitsuwa" in their titles. Literal meaning of Jitsuwa is "true story", but stories in jitsuwa-kei weeklies are fictions related to extreme violence and sex written in the style of news reports and inside reports. They also have fictional inside reports of yakuza organizations. You can see cover illustrations of Jitsuwa Knuckles in this page (scroll down the page to find the cover illustrations).

Magazines in group C are not sold in usual bookstores. I know neither where they are sold nor who buy them. The blow job story and the beastiality restaurant story mentioned in the previous post originally appeared in Asahi Geinou and Jitsuwa Knuckles, respectively, both of which belong to group C.

Of the tabloids belonging to group C, Tokyo Sports has different taste than other magazines. It is a daily newspaper that is famous for its hoax articles. Some say that what are credible in Tokyo Sports are only dates of issues. It's sold in kiosks in JR stations with regular newspapers.

The problem of the WaiWai column was that it took stories from magazines in group B and group C out of literal and social context without putting a proper disclaimer. Especially problematic were articles from group C. The WaiWai should have put a disclaimer stating that they were fictions in the form of news reports and inside reports.

Mainichi Shimbun vs Japanese women

On June 21, the Mainichi Daily News decided to cease publishing the infamous WaiWai articles, responding to the criticism from Japanese people. Many of the articles in the WaiWai column had been taken from fictional stories from tabloids and skin mags published in Japan. Complaint from Japanese people was that, whereas many of the original Japanese articles were fictional stories, the MDN did not mention in their WaiWai articles the nature of the original articles. Since foreign readers do not know the nature of the magazines, they might think that the stories in the WaiWai articles were based on fact.

Foreigners who have enough knowledge on Japan also seemed concerned about the circulation of wrong knowledge derived from WaiWai articles. For example, Yudan Taiteki wrote in a thread on The Japanese Page,

by Yudan Taiteki on Tue 05.01.2007 5:12 pm
(...)
The one that I'm tired of seeing over and over again is this idea that it's normal for Japanese moms to give their sons oral sex during exam study time to decrease their stress. This concept is so absurd that you would think nobody could possibly take it seriously, and yet it seems like every few months I see someone bring it up as an example of how "messed up" Japanese people are. It apparently originated from a Waiwai article that was taken at face value despite a complete lack of sourcing (and plausibility), but because it fit in with this idea of Japan being a bizarre place, it was accepted without question.

Responding to this comment, doinkies and two_heads_talking wrote,

by doinkies on Wed 05.02.2007 1:30 am
I find it preposterous that there are actually doinks out there who think everything in WaiWai is real... :@ But since Mainichi never says that the WaiWai articles really come from tabloids, I suppose people think they are real news articles. -_-

Another thing WaiWai often does is post articles about some odd, weird or gross item or business and say that said item or business is "wildly popular" in Japan, but never actually give the numerical data to prove this claim. I suppose it's because if they did, then people would instantly see that their stories are nothing but exaggerations.

and

by two_heads_talking on Wed 05.02.2007 9:40 am
(...)
I had never heard that as Japanese, but I had heard it from nearly every other asian country.. mainly china, thailand and vietnam. I never much believed it, but figured it was one of the "urban legends" that just gets a face life depending on which race is used to fuel it..

One doink who thought that what was written in the WaiWai article was true was an Australian writer, Ben Hills. In his book, “Princess Masako: Prisoner of the Chrysthanthemum Throne”, he mentioned the oral sex thing as a fact that was reported in the Mainichi Shimbun. Also there are tons of articles in Wikipedia that cite WaiWai articles.

The MDN issued an apology to readers for publishing "vulgar" articles, but it did not clarify the nature of the magazines that they used when they wrote the WaiWai articles, even though the latter was what had been requested by people.

Also made Japanese people upset was that, although the Mainichi announced punitive measures for people who had been responsible for the publication of the WaiWai articles, the Digital Media Division President was promoted the head of the Mainichi Shimbun Corporation on June 25, despite the fact that he had been the most responsible person for the WaiWai issue.

The most angry people against the Mainichi are Japanese women . They are trying to spread the information on how Mainichi had been making fun of Japanese women on the Mainichi's English-language Website. Also, they are making phone calls to the sponsors of the Mainichi, requesting to cease to provide on-line ad on the Mainichi's Website. Their effort seems to be successful right now. In the ad spaces on the Mainichi's site, I can find only internal links to Mainichi's own pages since last night. Also, even Japanese tabloids that WaiWai had been referring have started to make fun of Mainichi.

The Mainichi Shimbun is known among Japanese netizens to be the most active newspaper company in promoting the legislation of Internet censorship. Result of this "battle" may affect the fate of the Internet culture in Japan.

Update: It seems some doinks are actually doing that. Even this may become wildly popular among them in the near future.