The whole story was a little weird in the first place. It just got weirder. There actually appears to be some history behind it and the story is a bit more complex then one would think off hand.

It turns out that Tak Kyung-hyun’s Japanese name is Fumihiro Mitsuyama and he’s the subject of a Japanese documentary and two Japanese movies. The people at Japan Probe wrote about him almost a year ago here. He was the main character in the 2001 film titled “Hotaru” (Firefly) and was the basis of another character for the recent Kamikaze movie “Ore wa, kimi no tame ni koso shini ni iku” (For Those We Love) which was, get this, based on a novel written by controversial and ultra-nationalistic Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara. The same site also has a youtube of the documentary.

Truly strange. Excuse me while cognitive dissonance sets it.

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For those of you who don’t know, yes there were in fact Korean Kamikaze pilots during WWII. There were in fact 18 confirmed and probably more.

The actress Fukumi Kuroda is leading the charge (and footing most of the bill) to set-up a monument to Kamikaze pilot Tak Kyung-hyun in his hometown of Sacheon. It’s actually been built, it has been covered in tarp, and is waiting to be unveiled, but other residents have blocked it.

Per the article:

“He was a kamikaze, an aggressor,” said Lee Sun-bok, head of a group opposed to the memorial…

But Hong Jong-pil, a South Korean historian working on the memorial project, said the pilots should be seen as victims of the colonial period. He cited recent studies finding they did not volunteer for their suicide missions but were pressured or forced.

Interestingly, Kuroda (who speaks fluent Korean) said she pushed for the memorial for the following reason:

The project’s driving force is a Japanese actress who has long sought to foster friendship between Korea and her country.

“I’m not beautifying kamikazes. I’m doing this for war victims,” said Kuroda, who flew to Sacheon Thursday to meet city officials and the activists. “I’m confident I can persuade them.”

It’s an AP article, which you can read here or here.

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And for something completely different, we have this piece of culturally insensitive, NSFW fun. Note the expression on the face of the girl to the left.

(HT to reader)

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Today’s Washington Posts asks if the new LMB administration will really put its food aid where its mouth is and choose principle over hunger in the North.

Does President Lee withhold food aid that may prop up the government of the North or will he help avert a possible humanitarian crisis? Choices.. choices…

Whereas some may have reservations of LMB’s policy to neighbors in the north, others are quite upset at his proposed “more mature” relationship with its neighbor to the east (you know, the country who’s name starts with a “J“).

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A reputed Japanese right-wing extremist shot himself in the head in front of the Japanese Diet in Tokyo, reports FOX:

The man, who was not immediately identified by police and appeared to be in his 60s, died at a hospital shortly after the shooting. He bore a protest letter to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda calling for “firm” handling of foreign policy.

Kyodo News agency reported that the letter referred to China, but police said it called for a tougher foreign policy in general and for the government to defend Tokyo’s Yasukuni war shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead. China and others have criticized the shrine.

Media reports said the man was apparently a right-wing activist. Such extremists have committed violent and often suicidal acts near government buildings to publicize nationalist positions.

(HT to reader)

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In Japan Focus, there’s an extract from Arudou Debito and Higuchi Akira newly released book, Handbook for Newcomers, Migrants, and Immigrants to Japan.

Give it a look.

(HT to reader)

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If you ever needed proof that great minds think alike, Joshua at One Free Korea and I both used Monty Python references in pieces published yesterday about the ongoing (and ongoing and….) talks on NK nukes.

Joshua invokes the Dead Parrot Sketch when pointing out part of the problem with the six party talks and the Geneva sideshow in a recent post at One Free Korea:

For some time now, but certainly since Geneva, we’d arrived at the point where our finest diplomatic minds could not defend Agreed Framework 2.0 as a viable and productive process without the customer pointing out where the parrot’s feet were nailed to the perch.

Being more of a literalist, I chose to go with the Argument Sketch in my latest KT piece:

As has happened so many times over the past fifteen years, negotiations with North Korean officials on its nuclear programs have degenerated into a Monty Pythonesque argument of “Yes you did! No, I didn’t!”

My piece deals mainly with a proposal to create a trilateral security arrangement between Korea, Japan and the US to replace the current hub-and-spoke system.  As I said in the KT piece, I am not sure if a proper three-way alliance can be worked out, but closer security coordination between Japan and Korea would be helpful.

BTW, here are videos for the Dead Parrot Sketch and the Argument Sketch, both of which are hella funny.

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Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests:

President Lee Myung-bak on Tuesday called for a pragmatic diplomacy to maximize the national interest, adding, “I don’t agree with such concepts as pro-American or pro-Chinese policy.”

Lee made the remarks to Foreign Ministry officials at a ministry policy briefing. “If their national interests are matched, both nations can become allies. But if there is a clash of national interests, there is no alliance,” he said. “Of course, we should maintain a solid alliance with the U.S. But the U.S. would not want to maintain an alliance with South Korea if the alliance clashes with its own national interest.”

LMB also took time to crush Foreign Ministry morale:

Lee criticized the way ties with the U.S. and Japan have been handled. “If we look back on what our country has done in regional and multilateral cooperation, we can see that we have conducted diplomacy that is incompatible with the trends of the 21st century,” he said. “The Foreign Ministry has played a central role in doing that.” He added that “I am not merely dissatisfied with the ministry’s performance; it is worse than that. Let me make it clear that I have complaints about what the ministry has done so far.”

In addition, Lee called for the resumption of shuttle diplomacy with Japan and, more interestingly, the start of shuttle diplomacy with North Korea.

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Be sure to check out Brendan Eagan (and Co.?)’s photo-documentary on Japan’s Kakure Kirishitan (Hidden Christian) culture. From the website:

The purpose of this site is to provide a visual record of our studies of Kakure Kirishitan (Hidden Christians) in Japan. The site will display the photographs of artifacts, places, and people that put Kakure Kirishitans into a historical context of Christianity in Japan. The bulk of the photographs will be from historical sites in Nagasaki, Shimabara, the Goto Islands, Ikitsuki Island and other places within Kyushu. The rest will be from Yamaguchi, Tsuwano, and Tenri University.

The photos give a visual record of our studies and help supplement the research of the other student fellows. In hopes of sparking more interest in our project, the photographs will provide brief information on the subject’s significance, date, location, and explanation of the unique aspects.

The photos begin here.

(HT to The Western Confucian)

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As a Japanese pin-up model’s court case proves, large breasts are more than just nice to look at.

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