Latest 15 of 71 Total Comments Show All

• 

  LFRAgain at 10:32 AM JST - 26th June

  Quite honestly, I'm surprised it took this long. To be fair, I read WaiWai fairly regularly, and I too found it amusing. But it really didn't present Japan in too flattering a light.

  If WaiWai were to be believed, Japan is a nation brimming with unfaithful wives, morally suspect husbands, public porn productions, and perverted cops, lawyers, assemblymen, and educators, topped off with a hefty supply of pedophiles, teenage prostitutes, random slashers, mad-dog killers, and gropers on every train and street corner.

  If WaiWai were to be believed, Japan is a cesspool of the worst decadence one can imagine – a modern day Gomorrah. The sad thing is – and this is why I’m surprised WaiWai wasn’t pulled sooner – that because WaiWai was attached to a supposedly reputable news source like Mainichi Shinbun, and because there are, how shall I put it? Idiots who regard everything they read on the Internet as the gospel truth (perhaps not the best example, come to think of it), there are a lot of people out there who truly believe Japan is a cesspool of the worst decadence imaginable. And it’s not.

  I’m not going to cry over the demise of WaiWai. If I want perversion, I’ll just pick up this week’s Young Jump Magazine.

• 

  ronaldk at 10:58 AM JST - 26th June

  Japan Today, now is your chance to increase readership 10,000% by hiring the genius at Mainichi who used to translate Wai Wai and starting a new column. Best articles I ever read.

• 

  nigelboy at 11:07 AM JST - 26th June

  Waiwai always made it clear that its source material was the lower types of unsubstantiated scandal rags etc., so I don't think too many non-Japanese will have based their whole view of Japan on it.

  frontandcentre:

  Have they? I mean people who are long time residents of Japan are somewhat aware of the fact that publications such as Jitsuwa Knuckles, Shukan Gendai, and Asahi Geino are as you say scandal rags but what about the non residents who have no idea what they are all about? The reverse example would be Washington Post or USA Today having a section where they translate some articles from National Enquirer or Star Magazine in other languages. Though people from U.S. are familiar with the contents of these tabloids and what they are all about, I doubt many from abroad are. And furthermore, I doubt people from U.S. will say that such tabloid articles are "telling life as it really is"

• 

  GJDailleult at 11:28 AM JST - 26th June

  Having had to endure a few days without WaiWai and it's "stimulating and erotic" articles, I decided to open up my wallet and headed over to my SkyPerfect Tv porn channels. After flicking through the 20 odd (or is it 30 odd?)available channels, I settled on the movie that looked like it was most likely to contain sexual acts that would get the movie banned in my more prudish home country, and hit the pay button. And you know what - there wasn't a single comedy English translation to be heard on any of the movies I checked. Wouldn't want the foreign viewer to get any wrong impressions about Japan I guess. Oh, I just realized something - maybe I am not supposed to know about these channels. Maybe SkyPerfect Tv shouldn't be selling dishes to foreign residents, those foreigners might tell their friends all about Japanese porn when they go home. So hey 2channelers, stop sitting around. It's time to get back to work!!!!!

• 

  Bungleer at 12:57 PM JST - 26th June

  The whole act itself shows Japan in a negative light. Epic fail.

• 

  Zen_Builder at 01:01 PM JST - 26th June

  The whole act itself shows Japan in a negative light. Epic fail.

  Hmmm, do the management decisions of one privately owned newspaper reflect badly on the country?

• 

  GJDailleult at 05:51 PM JST - 26th June

  One last post from me, only this time a serious one.

  Point one is that there are two separate issues here which shouldn't get mixed together. The first is the question of the translation and distribution of content which is freely available and legal in Japan, and whether this should be stopped on the grounds that it "could be misunderstood", and "lead to a spread of misinformation" and thus damage the country's image. A previous poster said something along the lines of that that argument would be laughed at in any other country, I would go further and say that in most countries it wouldn't even occur to anybody to make it. Like I said, it is legal material, and not legal material for Japanese only. Assuming the translations are of reasonable accuracy, and the quality and truthfulness, or lack of, the source material is made clear to the reader, the protesters don't have a leg to stand on. The second issue is whether or not the Mainichi website was an appropriate place for these translations to appear, in that they are seen as a legitimate news organization. This is much more debatable point, but one that any competent management should have been able to deal with much more , uh, competently, without appearing to cave in to pressure and blaming their own employees.

  Point two, it appears that the people behind the protest were using translations of the translations to drum up support. I was told earlier today by a Japanese woman that she had read a news report on the internet and was "shocked by the horrible things that were being written about Japanese women." This combined with reading in Japanese on the protesters' site that the WaiWai articles were "stimulating and erotic" makes me wonder just how accurately the articles were being translated. Humor is of course famously difficult to translate, both in terms of language and culturally, and I don't recall ever being either shocked or stimulated by WaiWai. I wonder how often a play on words in English became something graphic in Japanese, how often nudge-nudge innuendo became something explicit. I don't know, and my Japanese ability is not up to finding out, but that may be the underlying explanation for this whole business.

• 

  mareo2 at 09:25 PM JST - 26th June

  I reade it WaiWai and I dont think that is that terrible image about J. I read it stuff like that in other countries and I think that is more or less the same. I mean, is like comfirm that we are all the same in esence. In place of just hide the garvage under the carpet, if they REALLY care what image people get about J, why they dont try to write articles that are enough meaningful for read in place of just censorship translations for foreigners?

• 

  jeancolmar at 11:20 PM JST - 26th June

  Well, Wai Wai really was trash. But it was interesting trash. What gets me is that the Mainichi is severely punishing those responsible for Wai Wai. As if those in control did not bother to read their own website.

  It is a pity to see Wai Wai go because it told you a lot about what normal Japanese were reading and what was on their minds. Maybe Japan Today will pick up the slack.

• 

  Beelzebub at 09:50 AM JST - 27th June

  I've always kind of wondered what went through the mind of a salaryman strap-hanger when he was shoved up against a 17-year-old schoolgirl in a miniskirt, loose socks and glitter adhesive on her eyelids, reeking of eau du cologne. Thanks to WaiWai, it became possible to obtain insights of these things in English. And I must say I'm utterly SHOCKED to discover that Japanese entertain lurid, masturbatory fantasies, just like the rest of us.

  Blame it on the dangerously pheromone density in major cities atmosphere, which is suppose must be something like a dangerously high 250 parts per million. That's enough to create a sex industry with annual revenues bigger than those of Toyota and Sony combined. Even bigger than the GNP of Dubai, I read somewhere.

  WaiWai stories may have been flaky, but there was an honesty and openness to them, and I think attacking it is counterproductive and unfair to those who read them, nodded their head, and concluded, "Gosh, behind those inscrutably bland expressions are people not so different from you and me." Perhaps instead of "bw js," the writers could have used more polite euphemisms, like "sexual stimulation by oral means." Only I'm pretty sure that's not how it was described in the Japanese originals.

• 

  GJDailleult at 11:02 AM JST - 27th June

  A selection of headlines from today's Mainichi:

  Police officers overpower knife-wielding man in Akihabara

  Woman arrested over Osaka Station attacks admits slashing 2 victims with razor

  Ex-figure skating club coach indicted for raping junior high school girl

  3 more students come under fire for drawing graffiti on historical Italian church

  Pharmacist hit with fresh charges for stealing from woman after lacing her beer

  1 billion yen unaccounted for at NOVA

  Elderly man under arrest for killing 4 family members may face psychiatric evaluation

  Clerk at prosecutors' office evades charges for stealing bicycle after apologizing

  Each article of course is high quality, non-sensationalized, hard hitting journalism (especially the bicycle story) on topics that in no way might be "misunderstood". Good thing they got rid of WaiWai then.

• 

  Nordon at 05:09 AM JST - 28th June

  I agree it's interesting trash, and loved/hate every bit of the weird it protrayed. The wrong thing here in my opinion is the unnecessary disciplinary actions. That's just pure BS.

• 

  DeepAir65 at 08:03 AM JST - 28th June

  Never even heard of it until today so no loss

• 

  Starviking at 10:35 AM JST - 30th June

  Mainichi have just removed all reader comments from their site. Looks like reader dissent will not be tolerated by their feudal bosses...

• 

  Starviking at 09:44 AM JST - 5th July

  Now Mainichi has closed its Reader's Forum indefinitely 'for renewal' - looks like they couldn't take the heat!

Register or login to add a comment!