Recently I've been writing a piece to put up later on addressing what I perceive as a lack of social or political satire in Japanese comedy. As if to read my mind someone has taken a animated video that the Liberal (in name only) Democratic Party made to explain their position on the need to make it easier to send Japanese troops abroad and remade it to reflect the concerns of Japanese citizens in a very clever way. The altered video really hits the LDP on all the holes in their argument for the controversial change and raises more questions that need to be answered by Prime Minister Abe and his party. Parody, social and political humor can be very effective weapons against those in power and I believe they are a necessary part of a healthy democracy. Examples of political satire hitting on a mainstream level in Japan are too rare these days. Currently the parody version has almost 600,000 views while the original has around 366,000. Clearly they have hit on something here. The passage of the law was met with protesters in the thousands and has dragged Prime Minister Abe approval rating down to 37%. Although the news video is in Japanese please take a look before it gets taken down. I have also added the actual parody video link below it so you can watch it in all its glory.
「どっかの与党が訳分かんない法案を強行採決しようとしてるわけよ、知ってた？」 「そりゃー大変だ！」 「ズバリ言うけど、今回の安保法制、憲法違反だよね」 「そりゃー大変だ！」 「超大変だよ。この時代に立憲主義の否定なんて、どこの独裁国家って感じ。 あり得ない。恥ずかし過ぎて国際社会に顔向けできないんだけど」 「大事な問題だよね。政治を預かる私たちも真剣に考えているんだ」 ...
Here is the actual parody video in full:
Uploaded by Akari chan on 2015-07-09.
