The coral reef incident was not merely a case of photographic fabrication. Drawing on Masami Kataoka’s analysis, this article exposes the far more insidious criminality embedded in the written text itself—an ideological crime that condemned the Japanese people as a whole through biased moral judgment.

The article on the coral reef incident was not merely an article consisting of a photograph alone. In addition to the caption, there was a body of text. With regard to this text, Masami Kataoka pointed out in The Day the Asahi Shimbun Disappears from Japan (January 1991, Kakubunsha) that when the coral reef incident is discussed, this aspect is hardly taken up outside.

The fabrication of the photograph is an extremely simple and easy matter to understand.

However, the enormous criminality inherent in this text cannot be understood unless one observes it with careful attention.

It is precisely there, I believe, that one can find the essence of the criminal nature of the Asahi Shimbun’s reporting as revealed by the coral reef incident.

Accordingly, it is necessary to point out the problems contained in the text itself.

For that purpose, I will now quote the full text below.

What in the world was this supposed to mean?

When our colleague went to photograph a gigantic eight-meter-diameter Azami coral at Sakiyama Bay, on the western tip of Iriomote Island in Okinawa’s Yaeyama archipelago, he was momentarily left speechless upon discovering the initials “K.Y.” carved into it.

The discovery of the giant coral was made seven years earlier.

It lay on a gentle slope at a depth of fifteen meters, shaped like an overturned bowl.

It stood four meters high and measured as much as twenty meters in circumference. The Guinness Book of World Records recognized it as the largest in the world, and the following year the Environment Agency designated the surrounding area as Japan’s first marine “Natural Environment Conservation Area” and “Special Marine District,” where human intervention was prohibited.

The fact that it instantly became famous led to the coral’s cruel fate. The number of divers visiting the island swelled to as many as three thousand annually, and on closer inspection the coral was already covered with countless wounds—knife cuts made underwater and marks left by air tanks striking it.

And these were not wounds that would easily disappear.

When it comes to graffiti, the Japanese may now be the world’s foremost people.

But when future generations look at this, it will surely stand as a monument to the Japanese of the 1980s.

The spiritual poverty, the desolate hearts, that feel no shame in instantly damaging what has been nurtured over centuries…

But even so, just who in the world is this “K.Y.”?