David @ Tokyo

Well, I've been a busy busy of late - who isn't in December? But I did have time to snap off some screenshots of an FNN (Fuji News Network) online news article with accompanying video in early December, which came up when Hollywood actress Daryl Hannah spent a couple of days on a Sea Shepherd cruise down the east coast of Australia (A Sankei newspaper journalist subsequently noted on his blog his surprise at the speed at which Hannah departed the crusade).

Unlike Greenpeace, who have been expending great efforts trying to gain sympathy for the arrest of the "Tokyo Two" (more aptly, the "Two Tokyo Thieves") following their committing acts of trespass and theft in pursuit of their anti-whaling propaganda agenda, the Sea Shepherd organization has actually been getting some media coverage here in Japan.

Not that it's been particularly good for them.

The FNN video gave some air time to Hannah's airhead nonsense about whale "assassinations" and so forth. Paul Watson himself gets a few words in at one point when staff member Taro Kimura is shown in a phone conversation with him:

As seen in the subtitle of the video, Kimura is saying to Watson: "You injured Japanese crew members".

Watson's response, shown in the image below is "No we didn't".

Kimura continues: "No, you did".

And that was it for Watson. Perhaps he'd get more airtime if he stopped telling porkies.

Young announcer Koji Oana continues the report with some comment from the Japanese side. Oana was apparently born in Nagano (an inland part of Japan) in 1982, the year the commercial moratorium was agreed to, and being of a young age and coming from a non-coastal part of Japan is unlikely to have had much chance to eat whale meat during his time on earth.

His report covers the negative impact on whale consumers from Sea Shepherd's obstruction - prices have gone up 6% and the Kyodo Senpaku antenna shop, Yushin, is likely to close in 2010 as a result of the obstruction.

A part of the caption in video reads "whale terrorism: the aim...".

Oana heads of to the Hatsumomiji restaurant in Shinjuku to find out more about whale meat:

And so here is a whale dish, says young Oana.

Can we get a closer look at that, please?

It was a couple of weeks ago that I watched the video, but I think this is the "kanako" part of the whale. It's meat from the lower jaw of the whale, and this cut is one of those that fetches a high price.

No doubt Oana was putting this one on FNN's bill. But it's not just for looking at. Oana tries it out:
That's right, dip it in some soy sauce...

As the video cuts away to show more close up shots of the meat, Oana comments that the whale is "delicious".

With respect to both Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd, it's hard to see how their actions are likely or even designed to bring about a change in the sustainable use policy of the government here. On the contrary their actions do often appear to be working against their purported aims.

Labels: Japanese media perspective, Koji Oana, Sea Shepherd, whale gourmet