This week in Hate Mongering In Japan: Fuji TV wins for Korean mistranslation ‘sans malice’

“Damn those wily hateful Koreans for actually understanding their own language—and why are they watching our TV?!!”–

One would imagine those were the thoughts going through the minds of Fuji Television executives after getting caught ‘mishandling’ the subtitles in interviews done with Korean citizens that made it appear as if the individuals hated Japan.

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On June 29th, Fuji Television officially apologised for their June 5th broadcast of 「池上影 緊急スペシャル!」(Akira Ikegami Emergency Special). Akira Ikegami is a well respected journalist who worked for NHK from 1973 to 2005, during that period when it was a public broadcaster and not a corrupt mouthpiece for the Abe administration. He served as the host of the network’s news program for children. He now works freelance. In his Emergency Special, ordinary Korean citizens were interviewed as to their views on Japan. The subtitles shown on television were radically different from what the people were actually saying on screen.

A Korean woman was presented by Fuji as saying about Japan, “I hate (Japan). Didn’t they make Korea suffer?”

Her actual words were about why she likes Korea, “There is much culture here. This seems why many foreigners visit.”

Another scene had a Korean man reportedly saying the equivalent of the US racist cliche, “Some of my best friends are black.” In the scene shown, the man is subtitled as saying, “There are some good Japanese people but I hate the country.”

He actually says onscreen, “Japan doesn’t reflect solemnly on past history. That part of Japan, well…..”. According to Fuji Television, in unaired other parts of the interviews, the people said exactly what was shown in the subtitles.

Sure. Of course.

Fuji Television didn’t apologise for the content of the program itself but did apologise for the editing mistakes. Click here for the full apology, brimming over with sincerity.  Fuji-Sankei group is one of Japan’s most conservative and right wing television/newspaper consortiums.  On February 11, a well-known author and former education advisor to Japan’s prime minister published a column in their Sankei Shimbun praising the racial segregation in South Africa—apartheid—as a model for Japanese immigration policy.

The hits keep on coming.

Note: We at Japan Subculture Research Center apologise in advance for any possible mistranslation of the Fuji apology over their mistranslations/editing mistakes. Our contributors include Koreans, Jews, Japanese, Half-Japanese, A Quarter Chinese, and Women. All the types of people that would normally be segregated in the ideal apartheid world tacitly sanctioned by the Fuji-Sankei group. With few ethnically pure Japanese on staff, we regret if our attempts to translate the apology into English fail to meet the high professional standards of Fuji Television. お詫びします。