Takehiko Ishii

The day might be near when I’ll have to put on the black hoodie again, grab the megaphone, and take to the streets.
I’m feeling a bit heavy about it.

And sooner or later, Takaichi will probably try to resurrect something like Japan’s wartime Tokko.
Not on my watch, though.

They’ll ape Trump, just like monkeys.

(Tokkō(特高) — Japan’s wartime secret police that spied on citizens and crushed political dissent.

America’s sliding into a state like Chile under Pinochet.
Here’s hoping it doesn’t leave scars deeper than any civil war.

The reason? They were whipped up by a baseless rumor—a false claim that “Koreans are poisoning wells.”
As a result, not only Koreans but also people from other regions whose accents sounded unfamiliar were misidentified and murdered.

Recalling this true story, I shuddered.

The Japanese did something very similar about a hundred years ago, during the Great Kanto Earthquake. They made Korean residents speak certain Japanese words, and if there was an accent, they were killed.

The leader, a total bastard, asks each of the protagonists where they’re from.
Two Asian characters who stumble over their English are immediately shot.

What caught my attention was the scene with the rural white supremacists—likely a group that hunted Black and Latino people, committing horrific massacres.

I finally got around to watching last year’s 🎬Civil War.
Sure, there are a few questions about the story, but it felt very much like an A24 film, so I won’t dwell on that here.

Both films were made by women. Bigelow burns; Amachoukeli breathes. Their sense of “bitterness” cuts deep, like something men once tried to claim, though women must have known it all along—just waited, until the noise cleared.

Either way, there aren’t many works these days that dare to trade in this kind of bitterness.

Then I watched 🎬Ama Gloria. That last shot—Cléo turning back for barely a second—wasn’t heat, but something quieter. A moment where reality settles in, too heavy to fight, too tender to flee.

I watched 🎬House of Dynamite. Same old Kathryn Bigelow—her trademark pulse still running hot since The Hurt Locker (though Blue Steel doesn’t count). Her films make you feel like your heartbeat’s about to break through your ribs. It’s suffocating, but that’s the thrill.

Just once, I wish I could cast my vote not for the lesser evil,
but for someone I truly believe in.

Politics, as it should be, exists to shelter the weak.
America is only divided; it has not yet rotted.
When I look back at Japan, I can only exhale.
It feels infantile — soft, formless, dissolving like baby food.

zohrankmamdani on Instagram: "This morning, our city still plunged into darkness, I set off to walk the Brooklyn Bridge toward City Hall in Manhattan. Just like …" This morning, our city still plunged into darkness, I set off to walk the Brooklyn Bridge toward City Hall in Manhattan. Just like this campaign, when we launched in October over a year ago, I began with only a few people by my side. But the banner we carried told a story that we have always known to be true, even when we were polling at 1%: Our Time Is Now.And as the first signs of light began to emerge over the horizon, more and more people joined us — canvassers, labor leaders, working people and elected officials — until we were a movement, marching toward City Hall. New York deserves a Mayor up late and up early, who works as hard as the people of this city. It deserves a City Hall that’s not only be a beacon of light once the sun has risen and illuminated it from the exterior, but which makes government a light of its own, that people across this city feel at all hours of this day.I cannot do this alone. Election Day looms. More than 735,000 New Yorkers have already voted, and countless more will decide tomorrow what kind of leadership they want to define the next four years.Every voter will consider something different, but ultimately the question before us all is very simple: morning versus night.Do we want it to be morning in New York again, where we feel the warmth of the sun on our skin and the possibility inherent to every new day?Or do we want to shiver in the night cast by a politics of fear and self-enrichment?Our time has come, New York. Our time is now. Polls are open 6am to 9pm on Tuesday, November 4.

Even now, at this very moment, I find myself envying America.
There still exists a sense of justice as a moral compass — an honest candidate who embodies it, and decent people who stand with him.
www.instagram.com/p/DQmakPFDr4...

I wish I could share a photograph for Halloween,
but such customs have never taken root in me.
So instead, from among the old portraits of the residents of my tiny greenhouse,
I’ve chosen three that seem to breathe a faint hint of Halloween.
www.instagram.com/p/DQeibFJAcH...

There’s something universally badass about her — a kind of cool that never goes out of style, transcending age, gender, and every label we try to put on people.

Billie Eilish Calls on Billionaires to Support People in Need: 'No Hate, But Give Your Money Away' Billie Eilish donates $11.5 million from 'Hit Me Hard and Soft' tour to charity and calls on billionaires to support people in need during hard times.

Billie Eilish Calls on Billionaires to Support People in Need: ‘No Hate, But Give Your Money Away’
www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...

Will the Japanese, long admired for their polite and quiet nature both at home and abroad, ever change? Will the day come when we can recognize real threats—beyond xenophobia, racism, or conspiracy theories?

Now, the season of politics approaches again. One can hear the creeping approach of something vast and ominous. Some elders say it feels eerily like over eighty years ago. It is increasingly called a “new prewar era.”

Protests in Japan are a struggle against barriers: iron fences and walls of police. For better or worse, we quietly stayed within them, all the while sensing these were not fences, but cages. Only once—without clear reason—a fence fell, and people stepped onto the wide street.

Protests were mostly held at night—a wryly laughable fact, since it was almost unthinkable for ordinary citizens to join during daytime weekdays.

From around 2015 to 2018, protest actions against the Abe administration happened repeatedly. Japan has almost no public squares for citizens to gather. Even in front of the National Diet Building, a six-lane road cuts through the center, leaving only narrow sidewalks along its edges.

www.instagram.com/p/DQcAHFJAYl...

【Example Sentence】
“Takaichi, sekai ni mukete nani hazi wo sarasiterunnda. Nagekawashi…😩”
means,
“Takaichi, what are you even doing, embarrassing yourself in front of the whole world watching? So lamentable.”

OK class, the key word here is “HASHITANAI” — はしたない.
The post also brings up a similar one, “MIGURUSHII” — 見苦しい 😅 Can’t even… totally cringe.
So yeah, we’re just here, shaking our heads, thinking how “NAGAKAWASHII” — 嘆かわしい this all is.

#JapaneseLesson

To all the brave and thoughtful people in the U.S. already taking a stand — we’re with you against fascism.

Seriously. I mean it.

😭 Honestly, it’s beyond embarrassing — it’s straight-up shameful. But just so you know, plenty of us in Japan have been worried about Takaichi’s fascist tendencies for a while now.
www.instagram.com/reel/DQYIaCw...

Japan PM Takaichi plans to recommend Trump for Nobel Peace Prize, White House says reut.rs/4qwQhSm Ugh, my head’s spinning. When even her(PM Takaichi) so-called diplomatic courtesies lay bare such a warped sense of ethics, it’s hard not to feel despair. So damn pathetic — and the worst part is, we don’t even feel embarrassed anymore. What we’re witnessing isn’t just the rise of populism; words like decay, degeneration, or childishness come far closer. How did we end up such a pitiful, degraded nation? PM Takaichi probably has no idea about the daily abuses by ICE in the U.S. and the brave struggles of citizens standing up against them. Impossible? No — it’s entirely possible in today’s Japan.

Damn

PM Takaichi probably has no idea about the daily abuses by ICE in the U.S. and the brave struggles of citizens standing up against them.
Impossible? No — it’s entirely possible in today’s Japan.

What we’re witnessing isn’t just the rise of populism; words like decay, degeneration, or childishness come far closer.
How did we end up such a pitiful, degraded nation?

DAAAAAAAAMN