https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/w...ithdrawal.html
#boycottjapan has already become an active meme on Twitter.
I think this is a horrid decision by the Japanese. Whether I stop watching anime as a result is a more difficult question. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that a majority of the people in the anime industry object to this decision as well.
What makes this decision especially unpalatable is its purely nationalist rationale. The commercial Japanese market for whale meat has plummeted.
Quote:
Whale meat was once popular in Japan but is far less so now. Japanese people ate more than 233,000 tons of whale meat per year in 1962, but just 3,000 tons in 2016, according to government data. As of 2013, the industry employed fewer than 1,000 people, and in recent years it has been dependent on government subsidies.
Still, defending the industry carries a nationalist appeal, with international criticism of whaling sometimes seen as an imposition of Western values.
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Between 1962 and 2016, the Japanese population
increased from 95 million to 128 million.
Wonder if this will have any effect on the 2020 Olympics.