The Crazy Japan Times--Pithy Epigraph Goes Here--Dam, Dam, Dam | Food Glorious | Sports Special | Fear Factor | World Cup Awards | Worst Coverage | Page OneVery long term sufferers of this venerable institution will remember the trials and travails of Governor Tanaka of Nagano-ken, the outsider/writer who beat a hand-picked successor to become governor, had his business card mutilated by a rival, and then proceeded to kill a series of 20+ year old dam projects. Well, Tanaka was back in the news recently when the Nagano Assembly passed a no-confidence motion against him. This happened when a Project Review Commission Tanaka created last year published a report that said that none of the current dam projects should continue. Tanaka quickly acted to kill the remaining projects, but when he went to announce his decision, and his reasoning to the Nagano Assembly, they voted to stop his speech. When he kept going, they voted a recess and walked out while he was talking. When he still didn’t stop, the Speaker finally interceded and convinced him to stop. This heinous act was enough to warrant a vote of no confidence, which passed 45-5,
with 4 abstentions (or something like that). Tanaka then had ten days to resign
once and for all forever, dissolve the Assembly and force everyone, himself
included, to run again for their seats, or serve out the ten days, be fired and
force a gubernatorial election in which he could run. He chose the latter and
his term ended at midnight this past
Monday. The opposition has made a big deal about his accepting the assembly’s
decision, but it’s clear they were hoping he would simply go away as 1) he has
a 70% approval rating from the people of Nagano-ken and 2) no seems to want to
run against him. The election is September 15th. Put your money on
Tanaka. (For a follow up see Tanaka In.) Mislabeling scandals continue to plague the entire Japanese food industry and within the last few months entire chains have been busted for mixing foreign and domestic beef and calling it what ever is most popular at the time. It is clear that this has been going on since long before the BSE outbreak and involves almost every form of food. Most recently, Universal Studios Japan was busted for repackaging outdated food at its restaurants and stores and even Nescafe was caught reusing old instant coffee. 
Sports-wise it has been a crazy several months. Japan stunk up the Winter Olympics, Ryoko Tamura lost her first Judo match in over five years and her first Japan Championship in nine years, no Japanese were killed, raped or otherwise humiliated by foreigners during the World Cup (the tournament phase loss to Turkey not withstanding.) A few highlights: Inexplicably, the Japanese press did its best to fuel an absolute fear of foreigners (translation: the English) in the months leading up to the World Cup. We were treated to endless replays of violent highlights from Euro 2000 (usually the same video) and a few violent highlights from France 1998 (again, usually the same scenes.) One politician in Tochigi issued a stern warning about the problems his prefecture would have, even going so far as to suggest that they would have to prepare to deal with the babies born from women raped by foreign hooligans. As a result two things happened: 1) in several places, especially in Saitama and Hokkaido, many shops closed down on the days of matches, missing out on the whole point of hosting the World Cup: money; and 2) the police did their best to but a damper on any fun whatsoever. For the Argentina-England match, 7,000 extra police were sent to the venue causing locals to complain about police presence. Even modest celebrations in Roppongi attracted police attention. After Senegal trounced the hated French, a large band of three Senegalese started dancing through the streets in Roppongi. They were, of course, followed by a band of nearly 20 police and, when they finally managed to gather a group of a dozen or so fellow revelers, the police suddenly announced that people were not allowed to have fun in the entertainment district and the party was broken up. The irony is, of course, that the biggest problems came from Japanese fans. There was the fan who pushed a ticket official through a window in the midst of the ongoing ticket crisis; there were the fans dancing on top of police boxes and phone booths in Shibuya who refused to disperse when ordered; and there were the over 100 fans arrested for jumping off bridges into the river in Osaka. (Not to mention the people who must have gotten sick from actually touching the rancid water in the river.) The good news was that there were no serious incidents at all, unless you’re the Englishman being held for scalping a pair of tickets. Organizers learned a lot from Niigata’s delays during the Confederations Cup and the crushing deaths near Kobe one year ago today. Fans from rival teams were herded out separate exits at the stations and the stadiums. Niigata reserved lanes for buses to and from the new Stadium and your humble editor heard no complaints of long delays. In fact, the biggest complaints were about the ticket crisis and about the fact that Japan ’s solution was to assign one phone number for each stadium. The result: 2,000,000 calls between 12:00 and 12:20 on the day the extra Russia-Japan tickets went on sale and a near collapse of the entire NTT system. As one foreigner said—-from behind a face mosaic—-scalpers
serve a purpose. They get the tickets into the hands of the people who want
them. Best Acting Award
Nominees:
--Apollo Ohno for his marvelous performance during the Short Track Speed Skating. --Rivaldo for his “I’ve just been shot in the face” reaction after getting hit in the leg. Winner: PUSH. Biggest Whiners Award
--The Korean who lost his gold medal to Ohno. --The Canadian Figure Skating Pair who suddenly cared that their sport was corrupt. --The Entire Nation of Korean for still holding a grudge about Ohno. --The Entire Nation of Italy Winner: PUSH: The Entire Nation of Korea, for bringing up Ohno during the World Cup and the Entire Nation of Italy for pretty much its entire over-reaction to losing to Korea . Award for Special Achievement
The Canadian Figure Skating Pair for the most effective use of whining your humble editor has ever seen, and for finally pointing a flashlight at one of the most corrupt sports still bearing the title of sport. (Even pro-wrestling admits it’s fixed nowadays.) Best Coach—World Cup
--Bruce Arena, USA. --Philip Troussier, Japan --Hiddink, Korea. Winner: Troussier, for taking an average team to the edge of greatness and for proving he could out coach even his own team when he changed his lineup against Turkey. (In his defense, the general feeling in Japan was that everyone, including the players, were so satisfied with reaching the round of 16, that they simply stopped playing.) Some also question his leaving Shunsuke Nakamura—-now of Genk or Gackt or some other place in Belgium-—off the team as he’s the best set play maker Japan has. Troussier’s explanation had something to do with the number of strikers already on the team, but he sounded like he was thinking too much. Most Improved Team
--USA --Japan Winner: USA, should never have made it to the round of 16 last time. This time they proved that all they lack is 1) a striker who can consistently close runs for them and 2) a set-play defense that involves more than running back toward the goal to get a better look at the shot. (re: game against Germany ) Most Overrated Team
--France --Argentina --Korea Winner: Korea. Sure, they befuddled a few teams early on with their aggressive midfield play, but Spain had them beat—-although they couldn’t convince any of the referees—-and Germany shut them down completely. On the other hand: I’d Rather Be Lucky Than Good Award
--Korea --The Australian skater who was the last man standing in one of the Short Track events in the Olympics and gave Australia its first winter Olympic gold medal Winner: PUSH Poetic Justice Award
--USA, for getting away with a flagrant handball against Mexico and than losing to Germany because of one. --Italy , for Totti getting carded for a dive the only time he didn’t actually take one. Winner: USA Zen Koan Award for Most Inexplicable Explanation
Referee Hugh Dallas for his explanation of the non-call in the USA-Germany game: "If it’s a case of hand to ball it’s a penalty. But if it’s a case of ball to hand it’s okay." This one has dumbfounded Buddhist priests all over Japan . What Is The Sound Of One Ball Handing? Best Prediction
Philip Troussier for predicting that Japan ’s
next coach would be the same nationality as the team that won the World Cup. Japan
just chose Zico, of Brazil ,
as its new coach. NHK Television and it’s non-coverage of the Opening Ceremonies in Korea. Did it happen? Was it worth the "F" your humble editor usually gives such ceremonies? Hard to tell as we barely saw it here in Japan. Was this the opening ceremony of the first World Cup in Asia or a J-League game in Akita? NHK acted as if the dancing going on behind its panel of talking heads was an annoying distraction. The panel included, inexplicably, Kimura “SMAP Boy” Takuya who kept turning around and trying to watch the ceremony while others commented how it was hard to watch the ceremony with your back to it. When NHK did bother to show the ceremony, they didn’t seem to have any plan. The camera jumped around herky-jerky, giving us a second here, a few seconds there. It felt as if two producers with opposite agendas were fighting for control of the cameras. At one point, we even got an interview with some random French reporter in the media section who spent the whole interview watching his monitor. Only when a combined Japanese/Korean singing group came on did the camera stay put for more than a minute. However, that camera seemed to be located somewhere out past the moon given all the shaking going on. Apparently, NHK received over a thousand complaints during the ceremony, prompting them to run it, unannounced the next evening. In NHK’s defense, they did share the joy of the British announcers with us via an English sub-channel, but your humble editor was denied the joy of trashing the opening ceremony for you, except to trash not being able to trash it. The next time the NHK guy comes to collect your humble editor’s chasing him off with a baseball bat. That’s all I know. Sorry about the length of this one, but it’s been a long time. I simply hope it hasn’t bored you. More as I know it. Yours, DL Ps—Kimura “SMAP Boy” Takuya and his wife are now, apparently, expecting their second child. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
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