The Far Right of Japan, with Jeffrey Hall | Ep. 038 Lemonade Stand 🍋

31:05It's like mentioning some old YouTuber that kids these days have never heard of. The Communist Party is PewDiePie. Yeah. seen Anders? I haven't heard about that guy. It just sounds old and crusty. Cod reacts, right?

31:23There was a phrase you said like 10 minutes ago that stuck with me and I wanted to ask you about. You talked about, because I've heard this from other people, talked about Japan generally or in the minds of people not changing. Like it's very static in a lot of ways, but from what you're describing, it sounds like at least in recent years or post-COVID, has that been changing is this like an actual period where you feel like the the decades of similarities is changing or is this part of the same is this more of the like is there yeah in your opinion i guess like my assumption would be under like in the wake of covid your currency's declining like they're my i have a feeling that pressures on people economically would push people to become more politically active or involved or ask for change in a way they haven't before.

32:11I think that it has made people unhappy, just in general, unhappy with the government. They don't know what is the problem. But if you're a young person, if you're my age or your age or the age of your viewers in Japan, you look ahead to the future of Japan and you see a dark abyss, which is that the country will be overwhelmingly elderly and you will be one of the few taxpayers who has to pay for this health care system that is very generous to everybody in the country. And you don't want to pay taxes. You don't want to. And you see the defense budget's going to go up. You know that somebody is going to have to pay for that, too.

32:54You see your currency getting weaker. the prices are going up your salary is not going up uh a lot of people in japan i've been here 20 years you know for 20 years people were okay with just having the same salary every year for 20 years because prices never changed right and now they are all changing and it sucks and people want the government to do something about it so i think the reason why the ldp has been losing in recent elections is just because people are fed up and they just want to vote for something that's not the LDP. And the LDP has had scandals. Yes, the Abe assassination and unification church scandal was a big one, but maybe bigger than that was a slush fund scandal where members of the party would have fundraising parties and they wouldn't fully report the income from them.

33:47and then they would use the money that like from that unreported funds for God knows what. But those who got caught doing it, they just blamed their low-level staff and the staff went to prison. That's a beast. This is how almost all political scandals end in Japan is with like some low-level person taking the fall. Or their translator. Their translator was doing it. Like they wrote the laws about political funding in a way so that you have to prove that the person was directly knowledgeable of what they were doing was illegal. So they could just say, I didn't know it was illegal. Like my staff guy said it was OK.

34:24And so I did it. And so seeing this kind of money being used is something that makes voters also unhappy. Look at these politicians. They're paid so much and they're still not even reporting things. If I didn't pay my taxes, the government would come after me. If I stole money from my company at work, I'd be fired immediately. It's wild that you say that, though, but then tell me that Takeichi has 80 % approval with young people and is popular with old people. And she's LDP. And her cabinet has people who are in both scandals. So how did that happen? How does this political miracle happen? I think the political apathy of voters has meant that they just think having an outsider like Takeichi, who's not really an outsider.

35:10I mean, she is an outsider in that she's not from a political family and she's not from a super rich family that she had to work her way through college and all this stuff. She's a woman in a male-dominated party. She's all about work, right? That's her whole thing. Yeah. I think she said the other day she sleeps two hours a night. do you want somebody to be running a country if they sleep two hours a night? I hope she was lying. You're going to fall asleep on the nuke, bud. But the previous prime minister was infamously always exhausted because he had only four or five hours of sleep a night as prime minister.

35:49But she's basically saying, I can do two. I'm like, look at that weakling. I'm so strong. And people are like, wow, she's so hardworking. and she's smiling all the time. The Japanese politicians don't smile. The guys don't smile that much. I see. And maybe she feels pressure as a woman to smile or else people think she's angry, right? There's also that kind of gender bias there. But when she's with Trump smiling so much, a lot of young people are like saying, wow, she seems so much friendlier than the previous prime ministers. And she seems to be pulling off diplomacy so much better. She's hugging people.

36:23She's like, you know, holding hands with people and stuff. And like the previous prime minister seems like the, the kid in high school who sits in the corner, he doesn't talk to anybody. And they have all these memes of him just like at conferences, like looking at his phone, like while other leaders are talking to each other. And that's so funny. Cause we would, you know, like on the American side, you would never hear that about Ishiba. I mean, if you heard about him at all, you would never know that he was a shot. That's just a funny thing that what goes viral in each country. Yeah. I mean, he will be forgotten in like two years, basically in the whole world.

36:54Sadly, I don't think there was anything wrong with him. I think he was actually a very good human being. And maybe if he had been given a chance to reform the party, he could have. But he didn't, he wasn't a boss of a faction. He didn't have the institutional support to actually reform the LDP. so he ended up basically giving the scandal politicians a slap on the wrist like he what what he should have done was kick them out of the party and then run alternative LDP candidates with the backing of the local LDP parties but instead he said you have to run as an independent in the next election but we're not even going to run anybody against you and the local LDP volunteers will help you anyway.

37:39And so that didn't look good to voters, especially when the Communist Party's newspaper reported that party funds were actually being sent to those local party offices to help with activities. So just in name only, they were independent. Yeah. And some of them won, and then they got invited back into the party immediately. They said, oh, the voters decided that they're okay, and we don't need to pursue this scandal anymore. and most voters were not okay with that um and uh right now takahichi is having several of the most dirty of these people in important posts in the government uh and i don't think voters have caught on yet or maybe they just don't care anymore they're just caught up in the good vibes in the media and like uh they talk in the media like they're like wow did you see did you see she had this this pen this pink pen this is the pen that takahichi was using when she on her first day in office it's a jet stream um and it was pink and on tv news they're like this pen is now going viral like people are buying it and like and like look at the handbag she had like uh and like she was asked about her clothing and she said she doesn't buy new clothing this is a jacket from 15 years ago and people are like wow she's so thrifty and she has this cool pen and like uh and and like that's like the level of news reporting that's been going on for a lot of great yeah it's all vibes at the end it's all that's what's so strange to me is that that it's vibes and that you're saying not much is fundamentally changing underneath it you know and again you compare that to what's going on in american politics where a whole lot has changed you know this year it's it's really been you know different from from previous administrations from previous years and uh it's so interesting to hear like how much the population seems to respond to just vibes being different.

39:29Same people underneath, same policies, but we're, yeah, it's fascinating. Yeah. And another thing though, is that the internet right wing is a big thing in Japan. Twitter is a space that for years, even before Elon was dominated by like viral right wing accounts that share sometimes interesting stuff, sometimes racist stuff, sometimes super right wing stuff. And so these accounts have millions of followers and they go viral all the time. and they love Takeichi. And so you see positive posts about Takeichi going viral all the time now on Twitter. So if you're not even a political person, these are going to show up on your timeline.

40:09And for example, the other day, one of her ministers was being questioned by the opposition and he started basically stammering. He couldn't name exactly what their policy was. So Takeichi was like, sit down, I'll explain it. And she went up and explained it. And they shared this, like, look at how awesome she is. But I mean, she's the one who appointed this dude to be in charge of that policy. But they spun it into like, whoa, the girl boss takes over from this like idiot. Like she is the greatest prime minister ever. But OK, so I want to ask, is part of this, in your estimation, a honeymoon period?

40:45She's new, right? Most politicians like this get 100 days, 200 days of grace where it's like the vibes are more important. And then if prices keep going, if the things that cause her to ride this wave are still there, you expect - I was just curious what you think will actually happen once we're through the first month. It's hard to predict, but in the past, there always was a sort of honeymoon period that Japanese prime ministers would get, that they would start off with like over 50 % approval rating or when in the 2000s, the LDP lost and the Democratic Party of Japan took over. They had basically Takeuchi level support in their first few months.

41:26And then they just dropped the ball and everything. And they fell into the 20s and got wrecked by Abe in an election a couple years later. But the thing is, she doesn't have the key to solve this problem, right? The prices are not going to go down. There's no magic wand to wave here. Like, it's a very complicated problem. And she is going to pay more for defense, and you can't just print money if you want the yen. I mean, she is - If there's this one thing I know this country loves doing. Yeah. I mean, they can print money. Yes, they can. But then the yen will become even weaker, and the prices will go up for everything also.

42:08So, I mean, Japan imports its energy and imports most of its food. The rice is more expensive now too. So the rice grown in Japan is double the price it used to be. And there are a lot of people who would eat rice every day. So - Can I ask about that? Hold that thought. I heard that's because of the foreigners too. Yeah, I wanted to ask is like, so I heard the rice thing was a big issue in this last election. Everyone was talking about the rice. And I heard there was this viral thing that or some politician said that the reason it's so expensive is the foreigners are coming here and eating all the rice.

42:39And I've seen Doug pound a lot of rice. I do eat a lot of rice. No, there was truth. I was reading that article at this Onigiri shop. Bags and bags. Like in anime? I literally, there's been, okay, embarrassingly there's been multiple stores I've been to where I order, and then they come back and they say, like, this set already has these items. And I'll be like, oh, choto ogui. Which is like, I'm a glutton. basically um they write it in the newspaper right yeah i mean but then i follow up and i was like of all the food i've eaten in japan this is my favorite in japanese and then they're very happy hopefully maybe they're actually go to the kitchen they're like he's foreigners i mean you're giving business to restaurants i mean uh yes tourists are eating rice yeah they're eating rice people are eating rice uh but i think that the core problem of the rice price increase was not tourists eating rice but uh i think a year or two ago the government uh made this big announcement that uh but by the way there's like a slightly increased chance that sometime this year there could be the big one the big earthquake um and uh as a precaution these are the things you should have in your house to keep and then like one of those was like a month's supply of rice and so So on that brief time at the beginning of summer, everybody went out and bought all the rice in the supermarkets.

44:03And then the market has never recovered since. So they drove up the prices with this. And the rice farmers don't want to sell it for cheaper anymore because they like the prices the way they are now. But there's not a shortage of rice anymore, technically. But the thing is, the government for many decades has seen that the population is declining and has planned by letting farmers know, don't grow too much rice because you're going to grow so much it's going to be too cheap. So they have like a whole chart they have laid out. And then in that one year where it suddenly the demand spiked over what it was supposed to be and they haven't recovered from that.

44:47And they're trying to make the rice farmers grow more, but it takes a full year to get your crops out. And people don't want to buy American rice because it sucks. And so, or at least they say it tastes worse, even if it is a Japanese rice. Everyone says that. That's what I've heard. I don't know. I can't figure it out. It all tastes the same to me. I don't want to taste nasty. My dumb American mouth cannot taste the difference in the rice. I've been here for 20 years, and I sadly cannot tell the difference between premium rice and the cheapo rice. People would kill you for this. it's not in my DNA I don't have the Yamato blood can I ask you you brought some props about some parts of Japan you wanted to tell us about and I would really love to hear about these so these are little mascot characters you might wonder what they are mascot characters of this is Erika-chan and this is Eriokun her boyfriend and they are mascot characters of the northern territories the northern territories or the southern Kuro Islands are four islands that the Soviet Union occupied after World War II that were settled by Japanese people and Ainu people.

45:58And the Soviets, they deported all the Japanese and then had white Russian settlers come in and occupy the former houses of Japanese people. And getting back these four islands has been a big goal of all the Japanese governments ever since. at one point there was almost a chance that they might get two of the four back but it's become such an issue that there is like a cabinet post dedicated to territorial disputes where they are in charge of reminding the public about the northern territories so they have these cute um i forget what breed of penguin like thing they are but uh they have mascot characters they have a website with a quiz where you can uh take quizzes about like the kinds of seafood that are there and they have an isekai anime that they made about the northern territories um it's on youtube for free it doesn't have subtitles sadly but it's about a girl who uh i think she gets in an accident and then she wakes up and she's in like 1940s japan on these islands um and uh uh the russians come in and they're like her dog barks at them to to save her from the the russians attacking her and maybe assaulting her or something like that and the russians loot their homes and take their valuables and in the end they get on their boats and they're going away um and they have to leave their dogs behind and the dogs run to the shore and are swimming after their boats swimming after their boats and off into the distance they see their dogs just going away and maybe dying you want to be like fury like the point of the anime is to make you furious At any point in the Issekai, do they go to the...

47:39You said the 1940s, right? Does it go to any other parts of Asia during that time? No, no, no. We never ask what's happening in other parts of Asia. It's really just about those islands. Actually, it may not be an issekai because when she wakes up, it turns out that she was inside of her grandmother's body temporarily and her grandmother had a thing and they immediately knew, oh, that was me and you back then living for that period. So isekai technically means another world. So it's actually the same world. I see. It's like a body swap kind of historical body swap drama. It's a new genre. What do you think the odds are that Russia at some point says they will defend the islands and Taki, she threatens to behead them?

48:26Well, I mean... Chain going. Right. I mean, it does sound somewhat similar of, you know, islands that were part of the nation at one point and now they're both claiming ownership. Well, with territorial disputes, what really matters is who controls the islands, right? So Russia always talks about how they will defend the islands to the death. And this is sacred Russian territory. We will never give it up to the evil Japanese and so on. They never technically signed the treaty ending World War II. The Russians walked out of the San Francisco Treaty. so the islands are kind of part of the reason why they have never resolved fully like a full treaty although they have resumed diplomatic relations and so on they didn't have a war-ending treaty in the way that the other allies did with Japan so if I go there right now I'm going to be good I'm going to hang out with a bunch of like Russian guys well if you get on a boat and you head that way you're going to get shot okay the Russians shoot at boats that enter the war What is the name of the island?

49:32Can I see what they look like? Japan Northern Territories will give you a website. There's a great Russian cartoon about this where they raise some dogs.

49:43Oh, that's a... It's beautiful. On the map, it's showing they have a museum. But yeah, the Northern Territories website will have... And I'm sorry, because there's two mascots. Does Japan only want two of the islands back? Or do they want all of them? They have four, technically. They have one bird for each island, and I don't have the full set, unfortunately. I only think they made these two because these are the main ones, but they have bird buddies that represent the smaller islands. But they're named Eri because I think it's Eri Futo is one of the islands. But, yeah, they want all four back.

50:18The islands are, because they were not really developed in the other way Japan is, they have some of the most pristine nature compared to other parts of Japan. And they do have a limited number of Russian settlers. But yeah, it's just an issue that the Japanese politicians talk about, but they're never going to resolve it. Because Putin will never give up the territory. But Takechi will never say she'll cut off Putin's head either. Never say never. We're in a strange time. He's been known to hold his ground, I suppose. is Takahichi are these islands like in more of the discussion right now in the same way that immigration is even though probably nothing will change no the islands are rarely in the discussion but there is a day in February every year where they have a national uh remembrance day where the government might buy tv commercials to remind people or hold a speech contest for junior high school students to give speeches about like how we should get back the islands and recently they've been adding in, you know, it's just like Ukraine, like Russia stole Ukraine's homeland.

51:25And that makes it more sympathetic. I think there's a lot more anti-Russian feeling in Japan now because of Ukraine. In my own anecdotal experience in classes, students seem much more interested in histories of war and stuff like that because of the ongoing war in Ukraine, because war would seem so distant to them. And it is distant, But Russia is also Japan's neighbor, too. So, yeah, Russia, scary, bad. China, scary, bad. North Korea, scary, bad. These are all big issues for Japan. North Korea is shooting missiles into the ocean near Japan once a week. I think they did it last week. But luckily we have a defense minister who can protect Japan.

52:07And that is Koizumi Shinjiro, who is the son of a former prime minister. Until he became defense minister, he was widely considered just a handsome guy. He's handsome. He's married to a TV personality. and they were like a celebrity couple. But on the Japanese internet, he's basically considered a huge idiot because he says things that are just redundant. Like he has this like very serious, like handsome face and then he just says something that just sounds like he's repeating the same thing twice. And so he had this huge reputation of just being like an airheaded, like son of a respected prime minister who only got his elected because he...

53:00I thought you were going to say air-headed son of a bitch. No. You really don't like him. I was like, goddamn. I must admit this. He's the son of a former prime minister? Yeah. Okay, yeah. And in the recent leadership election, basically almost every candidate running against Takeuchi was the son of a politician or the son of a government bureaucrat. So in Japan... That's why she looks... I mean, she looks like not the Nepo baby of all the... She's a rare non-Nepo baby politician to become a leader of Japan. And not only that, she's a woman. And that's an enormous achievement. But the Nepo baby here, he has fans.

53:37And he has this signature jacket. It's a jacket from his hometown of Yokosuka. There's a photo of him and Pete Hegseth wearing matching jackets. He gave one to the American War Secretary when he visited Japan. Yeah, there's the photo. So it looks pretty cool. Hegseth even shared it on his Twitter. So he clearly liked it. And Koizumi, despite a reputation for being an airhead, he went to Columbia University for graduate school, probably from his connections, but he can speak fluent English. He worked at CSIS. So he's got the connections with the defense people in Washington, because CSIS is where all the big defense people go.

54:21So in reality, he actually is maybe a good choice to be defense minister. I was going to say, this feels like the perfect fit for the current American administration. Yeah. Good looking. You know, you talk a lot on TV. You present a cool jacket. The jacket's huge. You know, it seems like Trump loves Takeuchi. Like, for better or for worse, it certainly seems like they know how to make the American government happy. They've had a game plan since Prime Minister Abe was in office and handled Trump. And that is, you know, never publicly disagree with Trump. When you meet him, bring lots of good news to tell him about Japan investing in America.

54:58They'll tell him all these numbers. You know, the Japanese prime minister doesn't decide when car companies build factories in America, but they will announce it to Trump. Like, we're helping you in America. We're investing in your country. Like, we created thousands of jobs here, here, and here. And Trump will be like, awesome, cool. And it's all on one page with little pictures and stuff. So, um, so he, and, uh, and, and then gifts, cause he's a big gifts guy. Shinzo Abe's golf club was a big thing. Gold golf club too. Oh, damn. Yeah. So the Shinzo Abe golf thing was another part of this, uh, diplomacy.

55:28Like be super nice to Trump, constantly flatter him, say how awesome he is. Um, I, can I, I hate how other countries talk about our country right now because it's so, it's usually so true, but it makes me so sad. Like, it's like, I'm listening to you explain the Japanese government treating our president like a child. Like, here's the coloring book he has to fill out. Here's the pictures we show him. Here's the investment. Here's the numbers we make up that we can't actually commit to. Number of gold golf clubs received. Trump won Biden zero. Yeah, that shows Biden wasn't respected around the world.

56:07I met my friend's four-year-old daughter, and he was like, just, I mean, no pressure, but if you bring a gift. like she opens up a lot easier. Or you go to a friend's house, you're like, hey, here's this treat my cat loves. Give her this churru tube and then she's gonna really open up. It sounds like a cat. Right, yeah, I have a story related to this. One time, a very, very famous professor at a major Western university, one of the most renowned experts on Japan-US relations, I met him because he liked my Twitter posts and he wanted to meet me when he came to Tokyo. And he's like, Jeff, have you watched south park and i'm like what uh yeah it's it's pretty good show sometimes and he's like well you know that pokemon episode um i don't know if you guys have seen it 20 years ago yeah it's long time ago old old school uh south park um and he said abe is just like the japanese guy to randy marsh you know oh you have such a huge penis so big your american penis and like and and and like i'm i'm shocked hearing this from like a guy who's like 30 years older than me and like one of the most famous professors.

57:24And I'm like, whoa, like, so that's what they're thinking about Abe in like other like academic institutions where they see him, you know, talking to Trump. There's also a famous viral moment where they were playing golf and Abe fell backwards into a sand trap and Trump just kept on walking and didn't even notice. And Abe scrambles out of the sand to like get back. Sir, sir. Oh, yes, your golfing is so great, you know. But in Japan, though, there's this perception that Abe was like a diplomatic genius and he saved Japan from the wrath of Trump. And so they want to repeat Abe's playbook. That's her whole thing, right?

58:02Not, not just with Trump, with everything. She's like an Abe. Yeah. We're going to run that back. And they want, they, they want to see Abe as a great prime minister who never did anything wrong. But I don't understand. I did my under, like Abe wasn't well liked, right? In the, in the wake of his of that scandal in the wake of his lack of success or the economic position of the country now people don't like abe but she's trying to replicate it maybe this is just asking the same question from earlier but i really don't understand why that's such an attractive model to chase i think younger see your pen or did you see your pen or not hold on hold on i did forget about the pen yeah i did forget about the pen this is a pen that's the first uh sentence in every english textbook in Japan.

58:51But the thing about Abe is, you're right, he wasn't loved. He had like, you know, under 50 % approval rating for sometimes over 50 % approval rating. But there were people who absolutely loved him. And then there were people on the left who thought he was like Hitler 2.0, you know, and trying to turn Japan to fascism, like just exaggerating every bad thing he did. And he did some bad things. There were scandals and stuff. But he was a competent prime minister and he didn't do anything terrible. And he shared the historical views of Japan's right wing people who think that the war wasn't so bad.

59:31But he didn't officially reverse the apologies. And same with Takeichi. She hasn't reversed the apologies, but they still are like, yeah, but, you know, she knows the truth just like us. She just has to say it first. Can I get a bit of the right-wing logic behind that? Like, they want to revoke the apologies for World War II, for actions taken during World War II? They think that the apologies were overblown. Like, you know, Japan fought that war in self-defense. Even the invasion of China was like, you know, Classic self-defense move. That's classic self-defense. There's a guy, the former chief of staff of Japan's Air Force, He wrote an essay arguing that secret Chinese communist spies orchestrated the incident that caused Japanese and Chinese to exchange fire and result in the full-scale invasion of China.

1:00:26And he won a prize from the owner of somebody whose family that owns the Appa Hotels chain. Appa Hotels is a chain that many of your viewers will stay at. if you stay there, it's a very affordable, small hotel room, and you get free right-wing literature in English that will tell you why Japan was not bad in World War II and why it was actually - It's like Ludwig's house when you stay there. It is like Ludwig's house. Oh, he has a mind count and stuff. There's a little brochure in the guest room at Ludwig's house, and it's a crazy read. Yeah, I mean, they think a lot of the atrocities are just fabrications, Chinese people lying.

1:01:09They think that the Americans forced Japan into Pearl Harbor by cutting off Japan's oil and arming China. So they think the war crimes trials after the war were just unfair victors justice. So that shrine, the Asukuni Shrine in Tokyo, it is like a place where the spirits of all the war dead, including the 14 war leaders who were executed in the war crimes trials is like a political flashpoint for diplomatic things so if takaichi uh she's visited it all the time in the past when she wasn't prime minister but right now she's kind of holding her cards uh and uh it's not clear if she'll visit or not but if she doesn't her supporters will still be like yeah but she visited all those times in the past and she still believes these things um so she still respects these but the emperor and the emperor's family has never gone to that shrine ever since they enshrined the war criminals in the 1970s.

1:02:06They just stopped going completely. And so the position of a more moderate conservative in Japan is that I will visit Yasukuni when it is made to be like a shrine that the emperor can visit. And that sounds cooler than I think the wartime leaders are the worst bad guys ever, and that's why I'm not visiting. And there's a lot of problems with those war crimes trials if you read about them. I mean, they were very problematic. I'm not saying that they were not guilty, but it was very arbitrary about who got blamed for what. We dropped two atomic bombs. There's not like a clean bill of health on one side.

1:02:45Right. I'm reminded, and every time Japan is playing in an international sports game against America, I'm reminded on Twitter of those bombs by people leaving responses. Oh, yeah. People do whip that one out. People do drop it. A little too liberally, I would say. A little too. Yeah. I think one of the big shocks to Japanese students when I teach them about the politics of war memory is that in America, there are a lot of people who are like, hell yeah, the bombs were good. And we, you know, we should have dropped them. And like, why would America ever apologize for that? And Japanese actually, they didn't, a lot of them don't know that there's Americans who have this like gung-ho view.

1:03:25Yeah. I show them videos about it and they're like, wow, I can't believe. Like there's a video of an A-bomb scientist who meets, a Japanese TV channel takes him to meet elderly bomb survivors who ask him for an apology. And he's like, why don't you apologize for Pearl Harbor? And they start crying. Like these like 80 year olds start crying. And he's just like, he's like, remember Pearl Harbor. I had a friend who died at Pearl Harbor. Like those bombs like are the best thing. Like, and they asked him like, there's an internal flame in Hiroshima. like that will go that like it's they say they'll turn it off when uh a bombs are removed like nuclear weapons are gone from this world and they ask him like do you think this will ever be turned off and he's like i think the world will run out of gas first like so you guys are real big well he was a nuclear scientist so it was his job yeah but um i didn't know we'd go in this direction but now i'm curious i have to ask so obviously the the bombs is a very contentious topic and the argument for it beyond just some guy going gung-ho Pearl Harbor I think the the the let's say more sophisticated argument would be Japan was not willing to surrender in this war they were basically saying we would have to do a land invasion this would have taken you know tens of millions of lives on both sides and the bomb was the way to escalate it to the point that Japan was forced to give up and that was the better of two horrific outcomes that is the argument on the American side.

1:04:52Is that taught to Japanese people? Is that considered? Like how is... I don't think that it's taught in that level of detail to Japanese. I mean, in America, we learn it in that way. And that's the way they teach it when you take a tour of the Smithsonian, the one in Virginia that has the atomic bomb airplane at it. They'll tell you, you know, this saved millions of lives by dropping these bombs. But there is a whole... I mean, what ifs in history are impossible. You can't prove a counterfactual. But they're all kind of arguments to be made that you know japan was at the point of giving up or they were willing to accept the potsdam declaration which is the unconditional surrender terms that we gave them uh on the condition that the emperor be not abolished like you know that the monarchy would still exist and there were back channel communications that eventually led the Japanese to believe that the emperor would be kept.

1:05:48And that really contributed to their decision to surrender. And the Soviet invasion of Manchuria was also as big, maybe even bigger than the atomic bombs to the Japanese side. From their perspective, their whole game plan was Russia is still neutral. They have a treaty that promises not to attack us that we signed with them in, I think, 1940. So this non-aggression pact allows us to use Russia, who are friends with those other countries, to negotiate an end to the war. But then Russia broke this treaty. The treacherous Russians broke the treaty. And that's another part of, like, the anti-Russia.

1:06:26So they got the islands, right? Yeah. So, like, they had a treaty. They promised not to, like, for at least one or two more years, there was a non-aggression pact. And the Russians, the Japanese, respected that pact when Hitler invaded Russia. They ultimately had a debate about whether they were going to attack Russia. And they said, no, we have this treaty. And also the southward advance is more important. I'm getting off topic. But anyway, yeah, but like the A-bombs, there's all kinds of arguments to be made. And I think a lot of Japanese believe that maybe the war could have ended without the bombs.

1:06:59And they certainly think that the bombs are something that you shouldn't celebrate. You should think about the suffering. One of the biggest groups of people who died were junior high school students, because they were working in factories in the middle of the city. And so it's like a very tragic thing. Every Japanese school child tends to either watch movies that are graphic about Hiroshima and Nagasaki or visit the places as a school trip and see just the horror of it. And so they can't imagine the idea of people joking about the atomic bombs or wearing atomic bomb T-shirts and stuff like that.

1:07:37That really offends them. like greatly. Um, or, or like if somebody says like, like on the internet, as they often do, like two weren't enough or something like that, you know, like that makes them very angry. And, uh, I remember I was interviewed by the media back when there was the Barbenheimer thing going on in America. And then like, uh, uh, Japanese people, some of them got offended by Barbenheimer because, uh, the official Warner brothers, Japan account, like, uh, liked or retweeted some, some comment about it. Um, and then they're like, what the hell? Like, we're not, we're going to boycott the Barbie movie now because you're saying that like the A-bomb thing is funny.

1:08:13Um, because it was like a meme with like Barbie and an A-bomb or something like that. And, and so, uh, that Warner Brothers Japan had to apologize. Um, actually, I think it was the U.S. account, Warner Brothers U.S. account liked something. So Warner Brothers Japan had to say, sorry, that wasn't us. Like we are respectful of the bombs and like, it's a tragedy and stuff. And so it's not a thing you joke about here. It's gotta be incredibly weird to have America combining Barbie and Op and the bombs into this fun meme marketing and you're sitting here on this other side of the world. I'm trying to figure out what happened.

1:08:49One had like a 9-11 movie mixed with an anime. It'd be incredibly strange. It'd be an insane strange thing. That would unfortunately be really funny. It does say that the box office of Oppenheimer in Japan was pretty big. Like they went to see it. There was this thing on the internet, people claiming that it's never going to be released in Japan, but there are cinema fans here. Okay. Lots of people who like films by famous directors and they're not going to miss out on, I think it's Nolan directed it, right? Yeah. So like they are going to want to see the next Christopher Nolan movie and they don't care if it's about the atomic bomb or not.

1:09:24And I was interviewed by some Japanese media at the time. I had luckily seen the film in America while visiting my parents so I actually knew that the film is not at all celebrating the bombs in the slightest like he's he's torn morally over having created this thing and so there is one scene where he is like he's sort of going crazy while people around him are cheering after the the bomb went off but like I think some Japanese person who saw the movie abroad misread that and said like there's a scene of people cheering and then like people on the internet were like, what? Shearing the atomic bomb?

1:09:59That's gross. But when it came out, it did fine. It did fine. People went to see it. They saw, even some atomic bomb survivors went to see it. And they said, you know, this is a pretty good anti-nuclear movie, I think. But maybe they should have shown a little bit of Japan, you know? Right. Is there, because in the last, you know, let's say 10 to 20 years in America, right? I think you grow up in the U.S. using the example of the atomic bombs with that narrative of justification, which, you know, you can argue about the merits of. And I think we have a lot of things like that in American history where there are ways you're taught about how things unfolded in the past.

1:10:39And there has been a large, you know, educational or social movement that pushes against that and has people question the way we were taught American history. americans america's place in the world is there any sort of movement like that within japan within academia in japan because at the same time i'm hearing that which i can fully understand people being upset at the idea of jokes about atomic bombs or justification for atomic bombs uh you Japan is, in their own way, a terrible perpetuator of war crimes within World War II, as an example, right? And the constant thing you hear as an American is Japan's denial of the gravity of those crimes or even the recognition of those crimes.

1:11:29So in the same way that the U.S. is going through kind of a period of time where people are reconciling the things that our country has done in the past, is there anything like that here? Yes, actually, basically the genesis for the Shinzo Abe Takeichi kind of conservative nationalist movement took place in the 1990s as a backlash against the apologies that the Japanese government made at the time. and the japanese government officially recognizes a whole list of these things happening it's their official position but there were politicians within the ldp who said we shouldn't have made this apology like the comfort women were not sex slaves you know the nanking massacre is wildly exaggerated or didn't happen at all and so these politicians they looked at the uh the education system, the post-war education system in Japan, it teaches that the war was a war of aggression, and it was bad, and it caused suffering, and some of the textbooks mention atrocities, but it's a history textbook for entrance exams, so it's very boring.

1:12:37It's like memorized dates and names so you can fill out on multiple choices, and so they don't really go into that much detail, but the right wing in Japan was like, why are they teaching woke history in our school? They didn't call it woke they call it masochistic history so like you masochistic you you're you're you're inflicting pain on yourself so that you won't love your country uh so i mean if now now they've started using the word woke in katakana woke um like um i think somebody called me that on social media once, but, um, yeah, but like, uh, like it, it's, it's, it's the American woke history thing started in Japan in the 1990s and it created a whole conservative movement to try to change history to be more patriotic, which means mention the good stuff.

1:13:31Don't mention the bad stuff or downplay the bad stuff, or even justify the bad stuff as understandable on based on what was happening at the time and say that, you know, China and Korea are lying about history and so on. And China and Korea, to be fair, are lying about history a lot. Everyone is, right? Yeah, but I mean, they do exaggerate things. But many of these atrocities are very, very real, and they happened. It's just that, you know, on the Korean side and the Chinese side, sometimes they give very high estimates that are higher than what most historians internationally would say is the actual number of certain things.

1:14:11And so this is what Japanese right-wing people lock onto and say, you know, we have to correct the wrong history that's overseas. And just mentioning comfort women as sex slaves is already like something that would get them to like go after a publishing company or any kind of, like they went after, I think, one of the major American textbook company for doing this. They had the embassy complain to them because they used the word sex slave for comfort women. This was under Abe as prime minister. And I think Takeuchi wants to continue this. They want countries to take down statues that are commemorating the comfort women and say that they were sex slaves on it.

1:14:54Because the Japanese side is that the military wasn't directly involved. It was private brokers. There are a variety of circumstances. Slavery, not technically slavery but i mean they never want to be doing air quotes for slavery like slave labor during the war it's not slave labor it's conscription it's it's conscription okay they were conscripted um not slavery i think that's their their their view on people who had to you know koreans and chinese who had to work in coal mines and stuff like that they they do not like the word slave for that they want to use conscription conscripted laborers which i mean What is the sex slaves were bad?

1:15:32And then Japan being like, they were slaves. Yeah. And they also point to like, there's receipts that show that some of them did get paid a lot of money. And I guess that there were some who were not slaves technically, and they, some of them maybe did volunteer. But I mean, a lot of them were tricked into it or they were, you know, circumstances of poverty. I can't imagine it was all above board. I mean, Japan had a legalized system of prostitution back then where parents could basically loan their children to brothels, their daughters to brothels, if they were of a certain age. And then they would work to pay off a debt that their family had.

1:16:16So if their family goes into debt, you know, okay, we got to sell our daughter. And the system was policed in a way that the licensing system, they would make sure that it was mostly just poor people who were kind of forced into it by economic means rather than like women from good families volunteering to become prostitutes. So like, uh, there's a lot of literature written about this. It's like a complicated system, but Japanese people who argue against the, the comfort women, you know, narrative is that, you know, it was within this legal system and, you know, it was, it was above board according to them.

1:16:54So, um, uh, so yeah, um, it's, it's a whole can of worms though. Can I bring it back to modern day? There's a question I wanted to ask. I think something that's always shocked me historically on a grand scale is like how quickly we went from America drops two bombs on Japan to if you flash forward 50, 60, like in the 90s, America and Japan are probably two of the closest allies in the world. They're two deeply intertwined cultural and government-nated. It's like a crazy thing that this could have changed that way so quickly. Like a generation is apart. And I wanted to hear about, because you mentioned this recent thing with Takeuchi and Trump getting closer, and there's a good sentiment there.

1:17:37But what was the stance in Japan around, especially during the Ishiba times, the surprise Trump tariffs? You know, there's a sense on the American side that we are alienating some allies, that we are pushing people away. What was that like on the Japan side? Well, I mean, I'm sure it's different opinions all over. On the Japan side, it's always, you know, Trump is sort of like a national emergency, and we need to respond by trying to get him to like us as much as possible. So the tariffs, obviously nobody likes the tariffs, but they need to get a deal that is good enough that Japan is getting the lowest tariffs of anybody.

1:18:20but like Trump is just seen as like a basically like a natural disaster that needs to be that needs to be addressed and if the prime minister screws up on their first meeting with Trump then that is like seen as like oh no. It's like their fault more than his though. It's like SimCity and then it's like an earthquake is entering your city. It's like a Trump has entered again. The drop down menu you pick like volcano. Right yeah like when right before Ishiba was, uh, when, when he became prime minister, the last guy, he hadn't met Trump yet for a few months. And everybody's like, why hasn't he met Trump?

1:18:52Is it because Trump doesn't like him? Does Trump know that like Ishiba and Abe were like rivals who didn't like each other? I bet that's why he's going to, when he sees Trump, he's going to choke, he's going to choke. Like, and then, and then Ishiba meets Trump and, and as like game plan, he has the same interpreter that Abe used, the same guy that Trump knows. He calls him, I think the little prime minister or something like that. Um, uh, the same Japanese interpreter. Um, and, uh, and he just glazes Trump, you know, he just like, you know, Oh, you're great. You're amazing. Like, yeah, I see you're making America great again.

1:19:26And I want to help you by like having jobs. And like, I am from a rural area that was struggling just like, uh, vice president Vance. And like, they're on like, it's like, they just don't want a repeat of the Zelensky sofa incident. Right. So, uh, cause like that terrified, I think Japanese diplomats like, oh man, like what if we have a situation where Trump just goes off the rails and just is like, why aren't you saying thank you to us? Like, you're not dressed well enough. And like, oh, of course the Japanese wear neckties, but I mean, still like the Zelensky thing, I think was a big sign that Trump 2.0 is not the same as Trump 1.0.

1:20:04So you really have to praise him even more and present him with gifts. And yeah, I guess I want to understand why someone like takeuchi or this general attitude of like um let's not get on america's bad side doesn't apply to an equally or near equally big economic giant like china where she seems more willing to be able to kind of piss off china with this taiwan comment and then yet like what is the because i assume the trade between u.s and japan and china and japan are similar i can't yeah it's a major trading partner for Japan. Japan gets, you know, stuff like rare earth metals from China. And it needs the Chinese market.

1:20:48It needs Chinese tourists. So, but nationalistic Japanese, I was just like looking at some Twitter posts on the way over here. You know, people are like, next step, we should just break off all diplomatic relations with China. Hell yeah. Like China, we hate China. like china's bad like like they're the evil empire and like so i mean 70 80 percent of japanese have a negative view of china because china is you know an aggressive undemocratic country uh that is doing bad things and is saying bad things about japan uh while also telling japan uh to apologize again for things japan did 80 plus years ago right and telling young people in japan who have nothing to do with what happened 80 years ago to feel responsibility for that.

1:21:36And I think anybody in any country, no matter what their age, should know their country's history and know that their country has done bad things and good things in the past. But I just think that them seeing it coming from China, it feels like, why is this authoritarian state telling us that we're the bad ones for something that happened way before my grandparents were born for a lot of these students. So I'm curious, like, it sounds that the average Japanese person has a much more positive view of America and the current global climate than China. And that's surprising given that, again, we've talked about this natural disaster of a leader that we have.

1:22:18And I've often wondered at how crappy it must feel in another part of the world to have America just swing wildly every four years with total unpredictability and that this is happening again. And so is there more going on there besides that sort of history? Do you feel like that might change anytime soon? I guess I'm confused at how, even with Trump's attitude towards the rest of the world, that still we're seeing that much more positively. Well, I think if you polled Japanese people about Trump himself, they would probably have a negative view. I think 70 % wanted Harris to win the election.

1:22:56But Japan needs America. It needs it more than anything, really. If you are to continue the foreign policy track, which is not being absorbed as a satellite of China or becoming a pro-China country, if it wants to be a part of the liberal democratic West and resist the rise of China, it can't do it without america's help it need it it cannot defeat china militarily it needs the americans it needs their bases and so uh it is a huge crisis to have a president who talks about you know uh they're not spending enough i don't think we should protect them you know uh like or like abandoning ukraine and stuff like that that that's like japanese wonder well you know what if America has a president who just thinks like, who cares if some islands, small islands in Japan get invaded by China?

1:23:52Like, I'm not going to send our army and start World War III over that shit. I mean, so like, like Japanese have this anxiety about requiring American protection from China. And it makes, but they still like America as a country. It's just the anxiety from a president who might not protect Japan is very real. That makes sense. Yeah. I mean, they love LA. They love Otani. I know they love LA. We know they love Otani. Otani Mural is like 10 feet from my building. You go to Dodgers, I swear, if you go to a Dodgers game right now, like one in four people there is Japanese. It's crazy. I went to a game in Baltimore a couple months ago to watch Otani, and, like, I mean, there were so many Japanese people there in Baltimore.

1:24:39Like, they must have flown in because there are not that many Japanese people in Maryland. but I mean yeah like they were all sitting around my wife and all I can hear lots of people speaking Japanese and so like I mean a couple years ago I saw Otani in Philadelphia and tons of Japanese people came to that game they're traveling across the country to see their national hero I mean everybody loves Otani I was walking here and there was a stationary store that had a sign up that said special sale that because otani won the mvp award that's awesome i was wondering with what we're talking about right now what uh beyond little things like people there seems to be some anti-immigrant or like racism within japan in regards to chinese tourists or chinese people that have moved here, but what is the dislike of China like grounded in?

1:25:37Like, I know that a lot of countries around China, for instance, have territorial disputes, like a lot of Southeast Asian countries having difficulties in the South China Sea. So what is Japan's kind of geopolitical issue or fear with China? Is it that you're literally going to be attacked one day? Is it a security concern? Is it the actions that they've taken against the country? Like, yes, I mean, they are afraid they will be attacked one day. And there is a set of islands or rocks, basically, the Senkaku Islands that are controlled by Japan. They're uninhabited. And they're right near, sort of close to some outer lying islands of Japan that are populated.

1:26:20And also some... Oh, they're tiny, tiny. Yeah, they're tiny, tiny, tiny little things. They're kind of close to Taiwan, uh okinawa and mainland china and so uh japan has controlled these since the 1890s i believe um and uh china has been aggressively sending patrol boats to patrol its own territory and the japanese send their patrol boats to respond to the chinese boats and they just kind of go around each other saying like this is our territory get out of here now this is our territory get out bullhorns right yeah the ones where they like kind of nudge each other and have The water cannons, or is that?

1:26:56Thank God, not yet. That's what happened. The Philippines has reached that level of escalation, and Japan is actually helping the Philippines. They're building boats for the Philippine Coast Guard to use. So it's called not ODA, but it's OSA, Official Security Assistance. So they're helping with those disputes as well. But these boats go back and forth, and this happens almost every day of the year. It's wild. and Japanese fishing boats that go to that area will provoke even more Chinese boats to come out. And so the Japanese government tries to discourage fishermen from going there, even though it's Japanese territory.

1:27:36That also angers nationalists, like, what the hell? Let them fish. I mean, there were these guys connected to the YouTubers I wrote about where they caught fish there, and then they made a point of serving it as sushi to various LDP lawmakers in the National Diet Building. And they also had a restaurant in Tokyo that collabed with them where you can go and have a special menu and have Senkaku Island Sushi. I didn't go because I think it was the pandemic at the time. And I was in a different area of Tokyo and it was pretty expensive, to be honest. But I would have wanted to, though. But, yeah, I mean, like, so these islands are a potential flashpoint for World War III because if China does try to get them, uh america is treaty bound to defend japanese territory or territory administered by japan the security treaty says that uh and japan will expect america to back it up there um and trump i think the trump administration has confirmed that they will but you never know i mean the trump administration changes its mind quite often um and also taiwan the the taiwan issue if taiwan is invaded and America responds, where do you think those American troops are going to be coming from?

1:28:52They're coming from Okinawa. They're coming from Yokosuka, and they're coming from Atsugi and other bases in Japan. And so when the Chinese respond with missiles, they're going to be hitting Japan, hitting Okinawa to take out those Americans. Japanese people will die in such an exchange. It is very true that Japan would be probably dragged into a war over Taiwan if it happened. And this is the nightmare scenario that nobody wants, that Takechi, you know, brought up. Brought into it. Said it aloud. Yeah, said the quiet part aloud. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, she's not wrong for saying that. Everybody knew that's what's going to happen, but it creates this issue where China needs to save face by doing something in response.

1:29:42That has to be incredibly anxiety-inducing. I just really hadn't thought about this. Of course not. But man, if you're Japanese, it really must feel like this is an existential worry and threat. Especially as China gets more and more powerful and goes around their weight more often. And there's also the fear that China is rising, but it's also facing a demographic crisis of its own. Yeah. So it might feel like it needs to strike before it starts getting weaker. There are people who have written books and articles about this, you know, that the growing China thing, it's going to peak. and when it sees that it's stopped peaking, they're going to want to, you know, roll the dice on Taiwan or they'll never have a chance ever again.

1:30:28Sure. And that's a scary possibility. Hopefully, it'll never happen. If it does, then I'm pretty sure this studio and myself will be obliterated by nuclear weapons or something. Okay. You're going to eliminate Stan first. I wanted to... We have a bit of a curse. We shouldn't joke about it. These figures will be melted by the fire. This is dark. This is dark. I don't like this. I did want to come back to maybe potentially something fun to wind this episode down. Is that because you had brought up the topic of right wing YouTubers and specifically conspiracy theories. Because we had a lot of fun with our conspiracy theory episode.

1:31:17I watched that one. We walked through a lot of English-speaking, primarily American conspiracy theories, and I wanted to know if you could drop some Japanese internet crazy conspiracy theories. What goes around? Sure. Well, with the right-wing Sanse-To party, one of their conspiracy theories is that you must eat organic rice. and it's because bread is a globalist scheme to cause cancer. I've been saying this. I've been saying this. Ever since the American occupation, the Americans have been importing grain and trying to make Japanese people eat bread. I didn't think you guys picked up on that.

1:32:04I had to find out. How did you guys find out about that? We kept this shit so secret. Did you know that there was no cancer in Japan until after World War II? Did you know this, guys? Yes. I saw it online. And they don't think it was the nuclear radiation that was the bread. it's so funny to be like fear like fear mongering right-wing guy and it's search and cancer maybe i don't know if that's actually real i mean like it might be because people are living longer and the medical systems are now dealing with cancer more but or actually no it's the globalist globalist bread and globalist bread uh you know they want us to eat this awful bread and food with additives in it and you know you have to have an organic farm uh buy our special rice that's been blessed by a shinto priest um it's twice as expensive as the more expensive rice but you're gonna you can get it through us and please buy our merch and you know japanese alex jones like selling selling special rice like the athletic greens of rice uh to be clear it's not a conspiracy in that americans do want everyone eat more additives.

1:33:09That's what he does. Yeah, yeah. RFK is right. No, Tylenol is bad. No, but like it's like the bread thing is a thing. And also like it used to be like Japanese would claim that, you know, when they go to America, they can't eat the food because the Japanese body can't digest, you know, meat the way Americans do. I don't think there's much proof of that. I don't know if there's science behind that. But there's also like... kind of spiritual beliefs about the uniqueness of Japanese-ness, like, you know, being closer to nature just because you're a Japanese person, or like there was a, like a, a quack scientist guy who did experiments and he, he, he figured out that Japanese can sense nature better than, uh, Westerners do.

1:33:57Um, and they can, they can appreciate the sound of flowing water and other stuff more. Um, like, and that's why Japanese language has so many onomatopoeia in it for like, sounds and stuff. But like, let's see, other conspiracy theories are, I think we kind of mentioned the secret Korean thing a little bit. But like, yeah, they think that there are secret Koreans among us all over the place. Because, you know, they, if they just dress the same and speak native Japanese, then we don't know if somebody has Korean blood. And, and maybe sometimes if, if you go far enough to the scale of crazy, they'll have like a list of prime ministers, and they'll be like, this one was Korean, this one's Korean, this one's Korean, this one's Korean.

1:34:39That one, not Korean. This one, Korean. This one, Korean. This one, Korean. And some of them even think Abe was Korean, which is pretty crazy. Crazy to think that 14 of the last 15 Japanese prime ministers were just Koreans. That's why the government has been so bad in apologizing. It's because Koreans are in control. And the reason why we have to pay our taxes is because the Ministry of Finance is controlled by secret Koreans who became Japanese citizens. It's almost kind of comforting to know that people are crazy everywhere. It is. It is. I've been feeling this lately. I've been feeling this.

1:35:13This is like, it's just all the same shit, but with different packaging. Little flavors, yeah. It has different flavor to it, but it's the same shit, and it's in a way, it's kind of awesome. It's kind of awesome? It's kind of awesome. I don't know about awesome. No, because it's like proof that it's all dumb, for one. like it's proof that we just make up dumb shit to divide each other all the time and and that's you know in a weird way that's comforting it's like confirmation that it's all made up you know because we don't in in the u.s it's not secret koreans right it's somebody it's some other ethnic group it's some other you know type of people and it it and it's just whoever you don't like everywhere becomes this thing and it's proof that it doesn't have to be that way that's that's the good thing i take away from it is like how it's proof that it is so inherently ridiculous that we all make up shit in the same stupid way yeah like uh a few months back i i was invited to brief some chiefs of staff of u.s congress people who are visiting japan and uh somehow we got to the topic of the bread conspiracy theory uh but i basically told them think of every conspiracy theory in america about jews and just replace it with koreans and you're almost like almost the same yeah yeah i i think like it's it's it's the underlying or not the underlying thing the surface level issue is is always bad like this is uh you know not something that is good that it proliferates but i think it's just this idea that everybody has kind of the same problems everywhere and is and we have to figure that we have to step up and figure them out together somehow and and escape all this escape all the bullshit and i mean while shows like this are good at like you know talking about how these are bad things the internet is really causing conspiracy theories to just blow up to a level they could never have done before i mean it used to be just like fringe magazines and you know like occasional tv show but now like we live in a world where we're going to have to have more family members every year who are believing in conspiracy theories and people who are voting based on conspiracy theories and presidents who believe in conspiracy theories.

1:37:32Going back to Thanksgiving, and I'm talking to my Canadian-American dad, and he's like, it's actually the secret Koreans. He's been on the LDB Facebook. One more thing to kind of close this out is, naturally, when we look at other countries, We have this often these misunderstandings of like what's actually going on in these places. Is there one last like this is common misunderstanding that you hear from Westerners about Japan that you'd like to speak on or correct or is different from the way that Japanese people say it here? Well, I think I would like to circle back to the idea of Japan denying history and stuff like that, to say that in academia, in universities, in academic books, real history books, television documentaries, they show the real history, the ugly parts of history.

1:38:28They have documentaries, like NHK made a documentary about Unit 731, the biological weapons unit thing. You know, there are lots of books in Japanese by historians that go into the details of this stuff. And so not every person in Japan is like a history denier. Lots of people think the war was terrible and that it should never have happened. And there should never, ever again be another war like this. And that's the very mainstream view in Japan. And the denialist view, the one that, you know, of course, it's the thing I study. so I like to talk about it a lot. That is sort of a minority view in Japan.

1:39:02And not everybody is going to agree with what Takeichi says about the war, although they might think that, you know, it's been, we've apologized as a country officially so many times, there's no need for more apologies. But that's different from saying, like, actually, Japan was not the bad country in the war. And so I think that you have to understand, there's a lot of people in Japan who do lots of hard work writing excellent books, books that don't get translated into English often, unfortunately, where they have so much more detail than our English books have about the bad things that Japan and its government did and the military did during World War II.

1:39:40And those people are most of academia in Japan. It's only like fringe people who are denialists. This is absolutely fascinating. This is an incredible conversation. This is exactly one of the types of conversations I was hoping we could have on this podcast. I'm getting to really hear about this very interesting perspective. So thank you very much. I'm very happy to be on a format that doesn't shrink me into four minutes and force me to just say a soundbite. No, that was a really cool conversation. I learned a lot. Thank you so, so much. Thanks so much, Jeffrey. Oh, wait, anywhere people should follow you?

1:40:14Oh, so on Twitter, at Mr. Jeff, and then the letter U, that's Mr. Jeffu, you could say. that's me on Twitter. On YouTube, I have a very small channel called Japan Matters that I haven't updated in like six months, but maybe I'll make a video about politics soon on it, but it's only got like a thousand subs, but yo, like and subscribe, everybody. Yeah. Thank you. See you guys later. Thanks, everybody.