Published on July 15, 2019.
Referring to Masayuki Takayama’s essay in Shukan Shincho, this article contrasts the colonialist view of Belgium’s King Leopold II with the mature civilization revealed by Sakata’s rice production, warehouse management, maritime transport, and domestic trade.
It argues that NHK should broadcast programs like Bura Tamori’s Sakata episode to the world, rather than superficial “Cool Japan” content, in order to convey the truth of Japanese civilization.

July 15, 2019.
NHK, it is not “Cool Japan” that matters… broadcast Bura Tamori to the whole world immediately.
Now, this week the stage was Sakata City in Yamagata Prefecture.
In European Travels, when Akitake, the younger brother of Tokugawa Yoshinobu, visited Belgium, it is happily described that King Leopold II “showed him special favor.”
But afterward, that king plotted to make Japan a colony.
He also said, “The undeveloped lands of Asia will surely welcome European civilization.”
In the end, the king made the Congo his colony, cut off the wrists of half the inhabitants, and killed 70 percent of the population.
There is not a single word of criticism toward such a king.
The above is an excerpt from a superb essay by Masayuki Takayama published in this week’s issue of Shukan Shincho, but even now, Belgium and the Netherlands and the like（not to mention the fools at Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung）surely, deep down… knowing nothing whatsoever about world history… hold the same view toward Japan as Leopold II did.
For example, today’s Bura Tamori “Sakata Edition” is precisely the fact that should be shown to them and made known to them.
Long before Leopold II was spouting nonsense such as “The undeveloped lands of Asia will surely welcome European civilization,” Japan, in Sakata alone, had been producing more than 650,000 koku of rice, storing those 650,000 koku in magnificent warehouses in an orderly manner with the tidiness and organization unique to the Japanese, knowing that sea routes could transport large quantities far more efficiently than land routes, and carrying out enormous domestic trade through the northern sea route.
This Sakata episode can show the whole world in every respect that there was no country anywhere in the world like Japan… NHK, it is not “Cool Japan” that matters… broadcast Bura Tamori to the whole world immediately.
If it did so, then at least, for the first time, it would be paying the price for having collected taxes from the Japanese people.