Japanese politician Mio Sugita has made international news due to her anti-LGBTQ comments on a television show. The program is co-hosted by Koichi Sugiyama, who composes music for the Dragon Quest games.
This was pointed out by Twitter user Shaun Musgrave (via Duckroll at ResetEra):
You may have seen this video of an awful politician spewing horrendous bile as the interviewers chuckle along with her. What you may not know is that one of the co-hosts of this show, one of the people laughing, is Dragon Quest series composer Koichi Sugiyama. https://t.co/OMrLMlBpUC
— Shaun Musgrave (@ShaunMusgrave) July 24, 2018
The network is very right-wing. The show isn’t mainstream, nor is it widely seen. Sugiyama’s work, however, is. This chyron lists him as Dragon Quest’s music composer as well as his political advocacy.
Below are some of Sugita’s comments. The clip has been subtitled and edited (you can see the full episode here). The voice you hear laughing along is Sugiyama’s.
Japanese parliamentarians talked about LGBT education on television. This is the current situation.#MeToo #takepride #LGBT #transgender #Japan pic.twitter.com/pSt4M1BgQ0
— KAEDE,Sari Hatashima (@kaedehatashima) July 22, 2018
This isn’t in the above clip, but when saying that tax dollars shouldn’t go to gay couples, Sugita added, “This isn’t discrimination. This is differentiation.” (“Sabestsu jyanai desuyo ne. Kubetsu nan desu.”)
Sugiyama chimed in, “[It’s] differentiation.” (“Kubetsu.”)
Sugita has been heavily criticised for her remarks. The Asahi Shimbun, one of the country’s largest papers, ran an editorial titled, “Sugita’s idiocy on LGBT rejected by society but not the LDP.” Sugita is a member of the LDP, or Liberal Democratic Party, which isn’t liberal, but rather, the country’s conservative ruling party.
This isn’t the only time Sugita has been the center of controversy. Earlier this month, Sugita blamed the alleged rape of journalist Shiori Ito on “clear errors on her part as a woman — drinking that much in front of a man and losing her memory.”
If you are wondering about what kind of politician Sugita is, Temple University professor Michael Thomas Cucek has this explainer:
3) After 18 years as a local bureaucrat, she entered politics. In with the hyper-intolerant right clowns (Yamada Hiroshi, Hironuma Takeo, the Nakaharas) orbiting around Ishihara Shintaro, she snuck into office on the coattails of Hashimoto Toru’s brief alliance with Ishihara
— Michael Thomas Cucek (@MichaelTCucek) July 24, 2018
8) Backtracking even further, she had only scrapped into a seat in 2012 as the dead last (that is to say least popular) of the lowest-ranked (Rank#12) candidates winning seats off the Ishin no kai’s party list in its Kinki region home territory pic.twitter.com/gOhhu5dFKm
— Michael Thomas Cucek (@MichaelTCucek) July 24, 2018
10) So calling Sugita Mio a member of Japan’s House of Representative is kind of like calling a nail piercing your tire a part of your car. #JapanPolitics
— Michael Thomas Cucek (@MichaelTCucek) July 24, 2018
This also isn’t the first time Sugiyama has been the center of controversy. The famed composer has been labelled a Japanese war crime denier.
That might explain why he appears on a network that previously came under fire for a documentary claiming the Nanking Massacre did not happen.
Wonder what Square Enix thinks about all this.
Comments
8 responses to “Politician Made Anti-LGBTQ Comments On Dragon Quest Composer’s TV Show”
Funny, I don’t think politicians should get as much of those tax dollars myself.
Bastards don’t like to give em, sure do love spending them though.
Sooooo… its your standard extreme political right wing views where the proper response really should be to ignore it and stop giving stupid views more oxygen and air time so they whither and die?
Seriously these articles are doing exactly what they want you to do… give their extreme views more airtime giving it an air of legitimacy to folks with like minded ideas. Just ignore the obvious saber rattling and starve them of oxygen
Yeah but this one guy on twitter is outraged and some of his followers are now also outraged. So lets give them a louder voice, maybe start a lynch mob and see if we can do some damage to Square Enix.
Is this sarcasm?
Yes
“In with the hyper-intolerant right clowns…”
If there’s anything that stains politics or any internet argument is the constant and consistent debasing of your opponent.
“…which isn’t liberal, but rather, the country’s conservative ruling party.”
This is a toxic sentence, because it taps into this label and naming sensation we’ve been suffering from for decades. We hear a word and it’s attributed all these excessive and intricate qualities that you can’t smear them all with the same brush but we do and we’re okay with it. ‘They’re liberals in name but conservatives blah blah blah’, just more of this us versus them, us versus them, us versus them. Red, blue, red, blue, all whilst they’ve got their hands in our heads and our pockets.
Also, the unnecessary “this person did this thing you should know” addition and commenting just feels like bait to get groups outside of your audience to pay attention to you.
You’re wrong, but that’s ok 🙂
Everyone wants to be equal but everyone wants to be a unique individual. In reality it doesn’t work.
It does, because we already are unique individuals. Trying to suppress that is what doesn’t work in reality. That’s why history shows repressive regimes always fall. Always.