I have to agree that Shintaro Ishihara is a idiot. Here are some of my favorite Ishihara quotes:
“If Japanese hadn’t fought the white people, we would still be slaves of the white people. It would be colonization. We changed that.”
In response to China’s first successful launch of a man in space: “The Chinese are ignorant, so they are overjoyed. That spacecraft was an outdated one. If Japan wanted to do it, we could do it in one year.”
“I hate Mickey Mouse. He has nothing like the unique sensibility that Japan has. The Japanese are inherently skilled at visual expression and detailed work.”
“I have to say that it should be no surprise that French is disqualified as an international language because French is a language which cannot count numbers.”
“With Sangokujin(third-country nationals) and foreigners repeating serious crimes, we should prepare ourselves for possible riots that may be instigated by them at the outbreak of an earthquake. As police is not always fit for handling all contingencies, the Self-Defense forces should be ready to respond to threats to public security besides natural disasters.”
“There is a marked increase in the number of cases in which some foreignerswho enter Japan on working and other visas remain in the country illegally to commit heinous crimes.”
“In due course, the perpetrators were captured, and, just as had been suspected, the crime was one of revenge among Chinese criminals. There is fear-and not without cause-that it will not be long before the entire nature of Japanese society itself will be altered by the spread of this type of crime that is indicative of the ethnic DNA [of the Chinese].”
Post Script: At some point after Nakata’s retirement announcement last night, Japanese netizens started posting links on Japanese blogs and forums to my ‘Nakata Hidetoshi gets his ass kicked‘ update. My site has since been flooded with thousands of hits from Japan, many of them who are probably enraged to see Koreans kicking around Nakata’s uniform.
I hope they realize that I don’t have anything against Nakata, and that the few of them who can read English become regular readers of this blog. Peace out.