Family Mart Magazine Attacks FGs

[AssKissinger]

I wonder what the UN would say about this in light of the rising tide of xenophobia of Japan

If the UN has time to worry about this then the world is a much better place than I thought.

[IkemenTommy]

I wonder what the UN would say about this in light of the rising tide of xenophobia of Japan

Nothing.

UN is too busy bashing everything US does for its foreign policy on North Korea/Iran to the handling of Iraq.

[Mulboyne]

[Greji]

[kurohinge1]

[Captain Japan]

Tiny reasons for a furious storm
Timesonline
Richard Lloyd Parry: Tokyo Notebook

The Japanese combini, or convenience store, is a national institution ― a cross between a corner shop and a miniaturised supermarket, with about as much floor space as the inside of a vending machine, but with something for all the family. Its tightly ranked shelves contain loo paper and sake, rice balls and condoms, cigarettes and dried squid flakes. And now, in their quest for inclusiveness, the convenience stores are catering for a new demographic: hate-filled racists.

Last week, the combini chain Family Mart set off a stir by putting on sale in its outlets a magazine with the title Foreigner Underground Crime File ― 125 pages of profanity, xenophobia and scabrous racial invective to make Jade Goody sound like the Archbishop of Canterbury. Japanese comics and magazines contain plenty of naughty bits, but this is a long way from the kind of thing you expect to find on sale alongside the KitKats.

The magazine (what Japanese call a mook: the bastard offspring of a magazine and a book) expresses a notion that peeps discreetly between the lines of a lot of reporting even in the mainstream Japanese media ― that rising crime rates in what used to be the world’s safest society are simply and straightforwardly the fault of foreigners. Not Caucasians, by and large, but Chinese, South East Asians, Africans, South Americans and people of the Middle East.

“City of violent, degenerate foreigners!” is the title of one article in Foreigner Underground Crime File about the lamentable state of contemporary Tokyo. “Catch the Iranian!” is another. One FUCF columnist debates the question of whether Korean women smell. Most startling of all is a series of photographs, shot at a distance through a telephoto lens, of Japanese women canoodling with foreign boyfriends, captioned with the Japanese equivalent of the F and C-words.

A consumer boycott of Family Mart is gathering momentum on the internet. The combini chain has apparently agreed to take it off the shelves . . . in one week’s time, which doesn’t send the strongest of all possible messages. Japan has its hard-core racists like any country, but it’s rare for them to rise this far above the radar, and racist incidents often have an air about them of incompetence rather than viciousness. There was the beer hall, for instance, originally modelled (before being hastily redecorated after clamorous denunciations) on a Nazi theme. But the extravagant offensiveness of FUCF is troublingly hard to explain.

You wonder about a psychological explanation ― and there it is, in the captions of the photographs of foreign men sporting with Japanese women. “You sluts really think foreign guys are so great, huh!!” runs one. “We know Japanese guys are small, but . . .” And suddenly it all starts to make sense: not a surge of Japanese racism, nor an immigration crisis, but just a tormented male publisher somewhere in Tokyo who, in the words of the pop singer Lily Allen, is “small in the game”.

I disagree with this explanation completely. Very little of the rag deals with the hopelessly tired charisma-man condition. Most of the over 100 pages is about murder, theft, prostitution, etc. I think Mr. Parry should have picked up a copy before writing the story. The reason it got published was to make money by feeding a market that it knew existed. It also further knew that few would be sensitive about it being overly racist - something that is totally true given that I don't know of one Japanese pub that has picked up this story.

The publisher is not tormented. I walked past Eichi's offices on Saturday night. Pasted to their front windows are covers of their pubs (but not the one in this thread). The mags are about business, celebrites, etc. For IJ (perhaps ironically short for Intellectual Japanese) a promo poster from some kind of event was signed by all sorts of people - including Miss Universe Japan 2006.

Nah, these people know exactly what they are doing.

[Greji]

I think Mr. Parry should have picked up a copy before writing the story.

Would he have found someone to read it to him? He must have been counting on translators to come to some of those conclusions and also miss the obvious nuances.

[Captain Japan]

Would he have found someone to read it to him? He must have been counting on translators to come to some of those conclusions and also miss the obvious nuances.

He should have done something because as it is now he is batting for the other team.

[Mulboyne]

Debito discussed the magazine on his lecture tour and came up with a couple of observations:

1) THERE IS NO ADVERTISING IN THE MAGAZINE. Given the fact that this is a very high-quality publication selling for the very reasonable price of 657 yen, it is very clear that these people have some very rich patrons financing them.

2) IT FEELS TO SOME OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS PEOPLE THAT THERE IS SOME OFFICIALDOM INVOLVED BEHIND THIS. They have seen the likes of this before.

3) PHOTO CREDITS FROM KYODO TSUUSHIN AND THE MYSTERIOUS NITCHUU KEIZAI SHINBUN, not to mention AFP and PANA.

His last point about the photo credits is that there were some high quality crime scene shots in the magazine and he is wondering whether the publisher gained co-operation from the police.

[Samurai_Jerk]

His last point about the photo credits is that there were some high quality crime scene shots in the magazine and he is wondering whether the publisher gained co-operation from the police.

Actually, there aren't any high quality shots. Most are blury and take from a distance so you just have to take the publisher's word that they are indeed pics of gaijin.

[FG Lurker]

Not sure about FamilyMart pulling the magazine... I picked one up at a FamilyMart in Osaka today.

[Mulboyne]

I suppose at some point I ought to actually look at the thing myself.

The lack of advertising isn't so rare for a "mook" compared with a regular magazine. The best comparison would be other titles from the publisher. Incidentally, Eichi Shuppan seems to have removed Gaijin Hanzai Ura File from this part of their website - it was next to this must-read publication before:



However it is still on the site here which suggests they are in two minds what to do.

[Captain Japan]

However it is still on the site here which suggests they are in two minds what to do.

Yeah it was up there earlier today. It is not up on their window at their office.

[TFG]

I think KINOKUNIYA is getting off lightly even though they were also selling it.
Wonder if they still are?

[Mulboyne]

I think the only reason Family Mart is at the centre of the gaijin storm is that it was where the guy who first wrote about the magazine on Big Daikon bought it. It has been spotted in am/pm and sunkus by people here and appears to be available in most major book chains. I'm not sure what section it would be in, though.

If the publisher does decide to pull it before anyone gets around to boycotting the other outlets, it will be an odd victory because I'm sure that very few Japanese know anything about this magazine. So far as I know, the local press hasn't covered the story.

[Ketou]

So far as I know, the local press hasn't covered the story.

And how often do they bother to report on the shortfallings of their own society!?:spin:
Storm in a tea cup to be sure.

[IkemenTommy]

Not sure about FamilyMart pulling the magazine... I picked one up at a FamilyMart in Osaka today.

Screw the copyright laws.

Scan and post them on here.

[Greji]

If the publisher does decide to pull it before anyone gets around to boycotting the other outlets, it will be an odd victory because I'm sure that very few Japanese know anything about this magazine. So far as I know, the local press hasn't covered the story.

I hate to see them pull it. At my age, I need all the PR I can get. I was hoping to hang out around the sales outlets to see it any yellow taxi's got frisky after reading it.

[amdg]

We've been linked on the Straight Dope message board.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=407272

[kurohinge1]

I hate to see them pull it. At my age, I need all the PR I can get. . .

Don't worry, G-man, I suspect that they have so much material on you, that they were just creating a stir with that first edition before securing their place in the market by releasing a "Gboothe Special Edition" later in the year, exclusively filled with pages of your exploits (and interviews with the exploited) - all sealed in plastic, of course.

[Captain Japan]

Japan Store Withdraws `Foreigner Crime File' Magazine (Update1)
Bloomberg

Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- FamilyMart Co., Japan's third-largest convenience store chain, yesterday pulled a magazine on crimes committed by foreigners from store shelves, citing the publication's ``inappropriate racial expressions.''

FamilyMart withdrew copies of ``Gaijin Hanzai Ura Fairu,'' or ``Secret Foreigner Crime Files,'' after receiving at least 10 complaints from customers since Feb. 3, Takehiko Kigure, a spokesman for Tokyo-based FamilyMart Co., said in a telephone interview yesterday. About 1000 copies of the magazine, which costs 690 yen ($5.74), were sold.

``We decided to remove it from our shelves because inappropriate racial expressions were found in the magazine,'' Kigure said. The company removed the book from 7,500 stores in Japan yesterday.

Crimes committed by foreigners in Japan are often cited by right-wing groups and politicians to justify demands for tighter immigration policies. Others like Hidenori Sakanaka, the former head of the Tokyo immigration bureau, say Japan needs to encourage more immigrants to compensate for a decline in the population if it wants to maintain its economic power...more...

[sublight]

We've been linked on the Straight Dope message board.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=407272

That was me. Picked up a copy at FM in Minami Senju and brought it into work to share yesterday. Since others there post their rants about perceived injustices, I figured I'd toss my two yen in.

Still, I just can't get myself all that worked up over this. The writing comes across as far more pathetic and cringing than menacing. They act brave when they're captioning photos and drawing manga, but their photos are all taken from long distance or with tiny keitai-cameras, like they're terrified of being seen.

[dimwit]

They act brave when they're captioning photos and drawing manga, but their photos are all taken from long distance or with tiny keitai-cameras, like they're terrified of being seen.

More likely because taking shots without permission is illegal, and somehow I can't imagine they would ever get it.

[Tsuru]

More likely because taking shots without permission is illegal, and somehow I can't imagine they would ever get it.

Still, I would have loved to have seen them ask

[Captain Japan]

This issue still hasn't been covered in the Japanese press. It seems that it would be worth at least a token story of some kind. Marvin, any insights?

[Catoneinutica]

Got my copy at the Kita-Marunouchi Maruzen. Yeah, it's pretty infantile - it really seems to embarrass the Japanese who see it - but, as Debito notes in his blog, the amateurish writing of the thing is belied by the lack of advertising and its rather upscale (by J-mag standards) slickness. A bargain indeed at 690 yen.

Plus, it has a pic of Anita - the woman who singlehandedly deballed Aomori-ken - doing her best Steve Tyler impersonation.

-catone, mookophile
-damn, one of those gaijin owes me money!

[Catoneinutica]

A fitting - albeit vastly more tasteful - riposte to "Gaijin Hanzai":

[yt]uRynCzOIqys[/yt]

-catone
-Bugs' hand-grenade-ice-cream truck plays an aria from Mozart's Magic Flute

-Wenn alle Maechen waeren mein...

-"Not unknowing honorable general"

[Mulboyne]

[Marvin Feltcher]

This issue still hasn't been covered in the Japanese press. It seems that it would be worth at least a token story of some kind. Marvin, any insights?

I'd guess the main reason the Japanese language media has no interest in the story is that the magazine is clearly over-sensationalized tripe and should not be dignified by coverage. The Japanese media is treating this thing with the disdain that it deserves.

I wasn't too happy with some of the language used in the magazine, but it's not illegal. I'd say that all the outrage over the magazine amongst Japan's English-speaking community has fueled sales beyond the publisher's wildest dreams.

I must admit I'm amazed when I see otherwise intelligent people falling for the publisher's trap and getting outraged, discarding their own dignity and giving dignity to something that doesn't warrant it. Too much time on their hands, perhaps?

[TFG]

That ex cop that is involved in that Mag has been on TV making such comments about a murder as "it was done by foreigners because of the viscous nature of the murder"! Later it turned out that a Japanese had been arrested for the crime.
I called the TV station asking why they can allow this guy to make such ridiculous assumptions based on his own racist views and not evidence and demanded a retraction. Needless to say, although they agreed with my complaints, no retraction was made.