Thread: Uyoku dantai
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komitsuki (Offline)
Busier Than Shinjuku Station
 
Posts: 997
Join Date: Feb 2009
07-29-2009, 07:25 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyororin View Post
I agree it could be a terrifying experience if you don`t know much about what is going on. They trucks are big and look scary, but in reality are harmless. Just loud and irritating. They do the only thing they legally can - play recorded messages during set hours of the day.
Uyoku dantai is an interesting thing. I am a bit afraid of asking a specific question about their impression to my Japanese friend, so I asked this question to a foreigner living in Japan in this forum.

There is a historical event related to a uyoku dantai. Some certain uyoku dantai called Genyosha was one of the central reasons why Japan-Russia relationship collapsed before the Russo-Japanese War. Apparently several Genyosha members assassinated the consort of the king of Korea in 1895 secretly. Here's an interesting thing: Kawanu Tatsumi (河野龍巳), the grandson of a certain Genyosha member who was involved in her assassination, came to South Korea and paid a homage of apology in Seoul in 2005.



Here is his picture.

Having been to a huge Japanese-Korean language website several year ago, there has been concerns between some Koreans and Japanese about this. Some of the Japanese uyoku dantai are diversifying their interest in the Internet space by hiring Japanese youths to participate in a multi-language video site like YouTube or Japanese-Korean translation bulletin boards by spreading anti-Korean comments or uber-patriotic comments.

I'm not saying this with an anti-Japanese sentiment. Some of the stuffs posted by the ones hired by the uyoku dantai are very wacky even the average Japanese take extreme offense. And this is a kind of websites that average Japanese don't get access to (cellphone-oriented web culture).


JapanForum's semi-resident amateur linguist.
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