Obama city residents delighted over presidential victory

Wednesday 05th November, 04:04 PM JST

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DirtyOldJoe at 06:08 PM JST - 5th November

Maybe some of the non-Japanese street hawkers in Roppongi can move to Obama City, I'm sure they will be welcomed with open arms.
himasan at 09:47 PM JST - 5th November

pathetic attempt to get some attention, do they even know anything about the guy or just his name!
jeancolmar at 09:47 PM JST - 5th November

Maybe Obama has relatives in Japan he does not know about. Kenyan influence on Japan? Or Japanese influence on Kenya?

Anyway, congratulations to Obama city.
rjd_jr at 10:21 PM JST - 5th November

I feel their joy! They were supporting Obama way back from the beginning. Proof that Obama is a global phenomenon!
Sarge at 10:22 PM JST - 5th November

Meanwhile, residents of Fukui City, home of Masunaga Optical, maker of Sarah Palin's glasses, are not quite as delighted with Obama's victory.
Badsey at 10:35 PM JST - 5th November

What are you waiting for? -Get those ovens warm. We have tourists to feed.

Obama-Change is more difficult than it looks.
CaptDingleheimer at 11:21 PM JST - 5th November

I grew up in a small town in rural New England, and I lived for a number of years in a similarly-sized town in rural Tohoku. Not only using these two towns as barometers, but also other small towns I've been to across America and Japan alike, I've noticed a notable difference in small-town mentalities between the two countries. Small town Americans are generally happy to have their town be off the beaten trail, and appreciate it as a refuge from the noise and activity of metropolitan areas. Told that one has never heard of his small town, the small-town American is likely to say something like "we like to keep it that way." Small-town Japanese seem to have an inferiority complex vis-a-vis their big-city brethren, and put significant effort to talk their town up bigger than it actually is. "Naninani-machi town is very famous for pickled eggplants- VERY FAMOUS!" It seems nearly every little backwater town in Japan has some sort of full color promotional brochure, a glance at which would mislead an outsider to believe that the town has 200,000 more inhabitants than it actually does. This Obama Fukui phenomenon seems case in point, to me. Sure, some of the furor can probably be attributed to people who want to make a quick yen selling bean-filled 'Obama' cakes, but most of it seems to be generated by ordinary citizens who know nothing of the president-elect other than that his name might somehow put their otherwise insignificant town on the map. I guess the general observation is that rural Japanese try to shoulder their town up with much larger cities and get it noticed, while rural Americans recognize that their town is decidedly not a big city and are happy to have it go unnoticed. Not as much a 'right or wrong' judgment as it is a general observation.
medievaltimes at 12:48 AM JST - 6th November

Dumb.
teaabe at 03:39 AM JST - 6th November

does anyone in the U.S. care about Japanese elections? not.
let me know if they really do.
norinrad21 at 05:08 AM JST - 6th November

strange those Japanese people :p
mushroomcloud at 05:23 AM JST - 6th November

This is pretty pathetic.
sim at 01:09 PM JST - 7th November

If you want to know if any one in america cares about Japanese elections..just wait when the first Black African Japanese President make a debut..anythin is now possible as you can see in Obama's case.. watch out the global change..
Ninjazilla at 03:56 PM JST - 7th November

I dont blame them...but it will be interesting how popular the city is once he starts making some unpopular decisions.
excusemesir at 10:25 AM JST - 8th November

sad to see a bunch of idiot comments posted........you would think people would be smarter than that.....this is part of Japanese culture, if you know anything about it........but obviously you dont....so do not bother commenting

do you see anything wrong with a town trying to boost its economy by celebrating the Obama name? if you do......you are retarded
Sammi33 at 03:14 PM JST - 8th November

First of all, outside of Japan and Japan-related news websites, I'm pretty sure that no one in the US is aware of some boondock Japanese town called Obama. Second of all, I don't recall Obama giving them the OK to profit off of his name. Not only is this asanine, it's a dirty way to some quick money. Especially because you just KNOW most of the people don't know jack about Obama, but they're just going with the rest of the herd, like the sheep they are.