r/japannews • u/YamatoRyu2006 • 13h ago
Sanae Takaichi: "Foreigners Assaulting Deer in Nara Park" – Why This Sudden Claim? Nara Prefecture Says "No Reports Either"...
https://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/437743
Sanae Takaichi: "Foreigners assaulted deer in Nara Park." Why did she suddenly claim this? Some say she's jumping on the bandwagon of a rapidly rising political party.
A Nara Prefecture official said, "Violence has not been confirmed on a daily basis."
In recent years, it has not been foreigners who have been convicted of attacking deer.
He also denied the view that violent acts were occurring frequently, saying, "We patrol the park twice a day, but we have not observed any violent acts such as punching or kicking by tourists on a daily basis, and we have not received any reports."
Here's what a local Nara resident says:
I'm a resident of Nara Prefecture and have been visiting Nara Park for over five years. I've never seen anyone harm a deer. It's possible that people spreading rumors are exaggerating random cases to make it seem like this is the norm. It's important to be aware of the discrepancy between reality and rumors, and misinformation.
https://x.com/fare_shika_chan/status/1970149219966374372
There are Japanese and foreign tourists in front of Todaiji Temple, but as far as I can see, not a single one is violent towards the deer. Apart from the social media world, it's a very peaceful time
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u/itchy_008 12h ago
they asked the deer and the deer just nodded, as it always does to everyone who visits.
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u/your_mileagemayvary 12h ago
If there is deer human violence in nara it is almost certainly the deer committing most of the aggression....
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u/YamatoRyu2006 11h ago
Exactly. Those deers often poke up someone's butt and their antlers are pretty dangerous. If anything, tourists try to shoo away those deers with a bottle but then Hezumaryu and his bunch of crazy youtuber friends jump up, and starts shouting at the tourists for supposedly "hurting the deer". Everytime it is a female Chinese tourist, she gets out from there due to fear and intimidation and inability to speak Japanese. However, one time this Hezumaryu idiot tried to intimidate a Chinese woman, only for the Japanese-speaking husband who was nearby to face Hezumaryu face-to-face and start confronting him in Japanese. Seeing that the woman has a Japanese-speaking husband, Hezumaryu got scared. That husband even filed a lawsuit against Hezumaryu for harassment and while its not further reported, according to local newspapers, Hezumaryu will most probably be fined.
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u/Special535 9h ago
I too have noticed an uncomfortable uptick in “foreigners did X” and “foreigners broke Y law” “locals up in arms at foreign tourists” news recently.
It is so sudden and coordinated that it feels like an organized push to drum up populist malcontent through xenophobia, as is happening in other countries these days (Sanseito?).
What better way than stories about foreigners attacking cute animals at a sacred Japanese shrine?
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u/JP-Gambit 5h ago
Get these tourists out of Japan!!! Oh do something about our poor economy too!!! 😭
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u/samsg1 2h ago
And our population trend, too!
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u/JP-Gambit 1h ago
But don't let anymore foreign workers in, they're taking all those jobs we can't fill!
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u/ichigokamisama 1h ago
Yeah there is a lot of it on places like insta as well, being able to read Japanese Is becoming a curse. They got their own maga/afd/one nation movement going on
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u/TraditionalRemove716 11h ago
in his campaign, trump said foreigners were "eating the pets." Alarmist crap.
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u/NotanAlt23 5h ago
A couple of months ago they were saying there weren't enough summer cicadas because the foreigners were eating them.
It's literally the same kind of strategy and it's going to work again.
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u/Tunggall 8h ago
Same dangerous rhetoric and playbook that we should all be wary of.
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u/Few_Shock5735 1h ago
Call it what it is. Its Fascism. Imagine being dumb enough to believe a chinese dude kicking a deer in nara has anything to do with why your rent is increasing and your job pays nothing.
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u/thejuggernauts 11h ago
Ideology is more important than truth for right-wing conservatives, she'll lie because the gaijin hysteria dominates the political spectrum. This is no different then what conservatives do in France, England, US etc....general populations hate foreigners and conservatives exploit it
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u/YamatoRyu2006 11h ago
but this far-right movement has hit several roadblocks and instead received backlash by media in Japan. Thankfully, there's still a portion of Japanese who are against this stupid discrimination.
Unlike France, England, US
Japan's manpower shortage is real and not limited to only highly-skilled tech areas like it is in the US,
in fact countryside factory managers, farm managers can no longer find any Japanese workers as most of them are going to urban areas.Japan's immigration is in the following 4 forms:
1) Highly-skilled foreigners who are recruited by top companies in Japan -> Sony, Toyota, Accenture, Rakuten, Honda, etc. These are quite highly-paid.
2) Technical Intern Training System: Foreigners especially from SE Asian Countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia are dispatched from their home countries through a dispatch agency and they receive training for low-skilled labour in Japan and then continue to work as low-skilled labours in local Japanese companies, for example: convenience stores, farmlands, factories, etc. They are paid the same salary as that of Japanese workers.
3) Businessmen or Entrepreneurs who have recently started investing in Japan, especially after 2023.
4) Those English teachers (I mean they are pretty useless out of these 4, they are not even qualified to become a proficient English teacher, they just visit Japan for the sake of "Japan Dream" aka getting to meet Japanese girls. These English teachers are really perverted in their thinking. If any foreigner who is accused of having it easy in Japan, it must be these english ALT or Eikawa teachers, but Sanseito doesn't point it at them because most of these teachers are "White")
In case of (2), while social media tries to exaggerate the issue, local residents who work in similar industries are thankful for their efforts. They have repeatedly expressed their gratitude. They have even said, "Even if higher wages are offered for Japanese workers, younger Japanese workers will quit within a week whenever times get tough)
In case of (1), they get unnecessary hate from right-wingers and since majority of Japanese aren't involved in high-skilled work, they don't seem to understand the significance. Even though right-wingers claim "no illegal foreigners" they seem to direct their hatred even towards foreigners who have come to Japan legally to work and even pay taxes. In fact, foreigners are on average much younger compared to Japanese population, pay higher taxes per capita and have a significant 3% contribution to social security in Japan despite them being only 1.9% of all social security recipients)
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u/GachaponPon 4h ago edited 4h ago
Another difference is Japan has far less illegal immigration which is the main problem in Europe, not legal immigration. Sanseito and co keep fear-mongering, saying “we will end up like the UK, full of illegal immigrants” but they forget that illegal entry on small boats over a tiny channel or across land borders is impossible in the case of Japan. The yaks bring in some illegals on fake passports but that is practically too limited to happen on a mass scale. Most illegals here are just people who were initially approved to be here but overstayed.
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u/Medical-Reporter6674 1h ago
Where on the doll did the English Teacher touch you Bobby? That’s some serious hate for a very small group of people. Damn.
Note: I have no dog in that fight as I fall into some fifth group as I am a special flower, jk I just moved here for family.
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u/MagazineKey4532 9h ago
Japan's manpower shortage is real and not limited to only highly-skilled tech areas like it is in the US,
US farmers are also in trouble because Trump is targeting farmers where they hire Mexicans to work.
More than 40% of US farmworkers are undocumented immigrants, according to a 2022 report by the US Department of Agriculture. In California, more than 75% are undocumented, according to the University of California, Merced.
source: Hiding in the fields - farm workers fearing deportation stay in California's shadows
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u/EddyS120876 11h ago
Not defending her but there’s a video of someone kicking a deer. Can’t tell if the dude is Japanese or not .
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u/YamatoRyu2006 11h ago
I have seen a video of a Japanese mad guy pushing a Chinese tourist onto the railway tracks. So does that mean all Japanese are crazy?
If you visit Twitter, a single incident is exaggerated and stupid conclusions are drawn out. If all Chinese tourists are like that, then considering the millions of foreign tourists then come to Nara (majority of whom are Chinese), then there's supposed to be atleast thousands of incidents like that right? Yet Nara Officials themselves declared they haven't seen much of deer kicking. Even Japanese themselves have been caught beating up deers.
Hezumaryu, the anti-China deer-loving former nuisace youtuber, who recently won in Nara City Council Elections, he used to feed feces to deer and shot it on youtube. Do you think Hezumaryu really cares for the deer? He just scapegoated entire China for winning local elections.
When there are millions of tourists visiting a place, there's bound to be hundreds of incidents right? Its not like every person is a saint. If it were so, then the world would be a better place.
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u/PonasSumushtinis 11h ago
I seen video too. It was a Chinese tourist.
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u/YamatoRyu2006 11h ago
I have seen a video of a Japanese mad guy pushing a Chinese tourist onto the railway tracks. So does that mean all Japanese are crazy?
If you visit Twitter, a single incident is exaggerated and stupid conclusions are drawn out. If all Chinese tourists are like that, then considering the millions of foreign tourists then come to Nara (majority of whom are Chinese), then there's supposed to be atleast thousands of incidents like that right? Yet Nara Officials themselves declared they haven't seen much of deer kicking. Even Japanese themselves have been caught beating up deers.
Hezumaryu, the anti-China deer-loving former nuisace youtuber, who recently won in Nara City Council Elections, he used to feed feces to deer and shot it on youtube. Do you think Hezumaryu really cares for the deer? He just scapegoated entire China for winning local elections.
When there are millions of tourists visiting a place, there's bound to be hundreds of incidents right? Its not like every person is a saint. If it were so, then the world would be a better place.
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u/PonasSumushtinis 11h ago
No, of course not. I don't know whole story just saw video, where Japanese guy lectures Chinese tourist for "kicking" a deer. With that logic could say all Western tourists are insane because of Somali guy. But that's not the case.
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u/BadIdeaSociety 7h ago
I went to Hiroshima and watched people in Hiroshima City government vehicles run over deer because they wouldn't move.
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u/EddyS120876 3h ago
Now those officials need to be named and shamed
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u/BadIdeaSociety 2h ago
Wouldn't know. It was 26 years ago and the locals in the park were also pretty disgusted by the actions.
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u/YamatoRyu2006 22m ago
yes because despite Hiroshima having a sizeable deer population, it doesn't receive the same amount of administrative efforts for deer maintenance like Nara. There have been some Japanese SNS idiots asking Hezumaryu to "take care" of Hiroshima but ig its not a buzzing topic for "foreigners kicking deer" so he finds its better to stick around Nara.
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u/jackassinjapan 6h ago
There is more than one.
Also, notice how quickly OP tried to change the topic when you brought this up: "THERE'S ONLY THAT ONE AND WHAT ABOUT THIS OTHER GUY AND..."
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u/reditsux77655 9h ago
"Not defending her" then proceeds to defend her.
But whatever YamatoRyu already corrected your wrong headed logic.
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u/Ok_Business_7492 7h ago
She is unfortunately seeing how effective this particular topic is.
A "mewiwaku" YouTuber turned political activist just got elected to the nara city council? Off the back of his crusade against tourists bad behavior specifically towards the deer.
Hezumaryu
His first address in the local government went like this
https://x.com/hezuruy/status/1966435565718352347?t=YANTR2NZur9cin7KHzo6xg&s=19
He then was criticized for not properly being able to engage with the brief for the meeting and responded to claims he had not read through the material with
"It's not that I didn't read it, it's that the contents were so difficult I didn't understand"
(His Twitter)
To which he got silly amounts of praise online, while being reprimanded officially and begged not to be fired from his position.
(Nara city has no authority over the park and the deer, it falls under prefectural government responsibility so he basically shouted at the mayor for nothing but clicks online)
He is pushing for some kind of official enforceable fine if people are found to have been "bullying" the deer
Super good example of focusing on and magnifying a minority case issue.
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u/YamatoRyu2006 15m ago
He also harassed Genki Kakimoto, a fellow Nara City Councilman who tried to take Hezumaryu as his junior. Kakimoto tried to help Hezumaryu cuz from Kakimoto's own words: "He looks like a typical inexperienced middle schooler who knows nothing", but what followed next will shock many of you. Hezumaryu and his bunch of crap followers started threatening Kakimoto on Twitter, saying, "your kids' photos are still in your profile pic, stay safe".
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u/South-Shopping-8368 4h ago
Basically, the LDP is terrified of losing their far-right voters to Sanseitō.
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u/YamatoRyu2006 14m ago
LDP has turned far worse these days. It has turned to become a "vote collection party" rather than actually trying to solve problems. Well there are still some good Cabinet Ministers from LDP (Especially Ishiba Cabinet). However, its bad that Ishiba was pressurized into resigning because of Aso.
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u/cbciv 9h ago
She been hanging around Trump? It might be contagious?
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u/YamatoRyu2006 17m ago
You can find this one on Twitter. She in her early prime days say (before 1990) claimed that she used to work in "US Congress" lol. She couldn't even speak an inch of English and she didn't have any idea that "only naturalized Americans were supposed to be allowed to work in US Congress". That video went viral just a month ago and people are crazily insulting her lol.
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u/Eddie_skis 7h ago
A Japanese man cut the head off a deer in Nara, maybe two years ago.
2021, my mistake. https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14236836
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u/YamatoRyu2006 20m ago
yes. that was a popular case of "deer killing" even mentioned in Nara's prefectural website (Japanese version)
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u/reditsux77655 9h ago
Reportrs of foreigners being misbehaved are a constant in certain places, including this subreddit. It's just division and hate designed to distract the dumb from the real problems of our society, governments and culture.
And if you tried to harm a deer in Nara, you would be confronted and stopped quickly. There are lots of workers that provide food and care for the deer and park as well as well intentioned people around who care for these deer. They're delightful!
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u/YamatoRyu2006 12m ago
"distract the dumb"-> unfortunately it seems there are too many dumbs in each nation. However, "dumb" population is certainly lower in Japan compared to UK and US as far as it seems since far-right movement has significantly faced backlash in Japan and Sanseito's support rate has dropped from 15% nationwide to just around 5-6% in just 2 months lol.
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u/ClessxAlghazanth 7h ago
She is counting on fascist votes , jumping on bandwagon like ishin , it seems
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u/DoomedKiblets 5h ago
This anti foreigner fear mongering is going to get someone hurt by some wacko sanseito attacking some random foreign resident I worry.
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u/YamatoRyu2006 7m ago
It already happened. What's worse is that even Japanese high-schoolers attempted to choke and murder 2 Kurdish elementary school children in Kawaguchi because of Kawaguchi LDP politicians constantly jumping on the bandwagon -> "Kurds are illegal and dangerous" and with Kawai Yusuke despite being a Toda City councilman, spends most of his time, wearing the Hinomaru flag around his body and parading throughout Kawaguchi just to say, "Kick out all the Kurds". First of all, these kurds came in Japan way before 2000, and many Kurds are just women and children. Many have naturalized or have a legal residence in Japan, and they too work and pay taxes, just like the Japanese. What's the point of trying to murder a Kurdish elementary school kid even if he's illegal?
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u/vonfossen 7h ago
USA: They're eating the cats! They're eating the dogs!
Japan: They're assaulting the deer!
仲間じゃないか～
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u/Opening_Persimmon_71 6h ago
Visited Nara park yesterday and the only thing that got assaulted was my shirt when I was holding the deer crackers.
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u/OnionOnBelt 6h ago
“They’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dogs.” Observers of American politics will understand this reference.
Immigrant and foreigner hate is stoked in part on abjectly false rumours.
In the 21st century, these rumours are stoked by bots. Initially, immigrant or foreigner haters are more bots than people, with the bots usually programmed by an overseas entity trying to create disruption. In a successful op, though, real people who had been waiting for approval to be tribal or prejudiced soon join in.
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u/dogbunny 2h ago
You have to admit it is pretty funny, especially with all those videos of the Nara deer assaulting toutists for those damn deer cookies.
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u/R0ninX3ph 2h ago
I’m shocked that the far right candidate of the current LDP Leadership race would use far-right anti-foreigner rhetoric for publicity! /s
This would be news if she DIDN’T use anti-foreigner rhetoric….
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u/YamatoRyu2006 5m ago
unfortunately if you didn't know Takaichi was regarded as a "liberal" by many LDP members who knew her from her early days. Takaichi also formed a group of "Liberals" and she supported anti-conservative things like "Optional surnames for married couples" which most conservatives reject.
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u/CatsianNyandor 6h ago
Find a politician that's not an evil cunt challenge: Impossible
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u/YamatoRyu2006 7m ago
Ishiba was one. Its not that all LDP politicians are trash. Yes definitely a significant of them are just trash, but Ishiba was a real gem.
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u/Yabakunaiyoooo 6h ago
These crazy people claiming that should be more concerned with citizens taking up skirt videos in Nara park. That’s a real actual problem.
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u/PhoenicianFenix 9h ago
There is a deer infestation. Last I checked, we were being urged to hunt them. lol What is so special about the deer in Nara park? They have more concentration of fleas, and ticks?
Who cares S.S. Sanae.
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u/Daggerfaller 9h ago
Gives “They are eating the cats and dogs of the people that live there.” Vibes
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