A scathing critique of the Kita-Yard redevelopment scandal in Osaka, exposing the incompetence and vanity of Hiramatsu, Shimotsuma, and Onitake, and the immaturity of Japanese television media. Through comparisons with Western broadcasting standards, this essay reveals how political vanity, media commercialism, and fiscal irresponsibility threaten one of postwar Japan’s greatest urban planning projects, while inflicting irreversible damage on Osaka’s finances.

Kita-Yard, Hiramatsu, Shimotsuma, and Onitake
2010-07-17

What becomes visible through Hiramatsu is the very state of this country’s mass media.
One could immediately construct an entire critique of the media—especially television—on that alone.
It is a world sustained solely by event-loving frivolity, truly at the mental age of thirteen.
The very essence of America’s strength lies in the fact that every single individual is the protagonist, a king, the Emperor, the President, the head of state—and that America holds deep respect for the astounding intellect of each individual.
Yet without learning from that America, Japanese television has too often fallen into commercialism.
That is the tragedy.

Even when said so as not to be disrespectful to that country, in Europe and America it is only natural that sports broadcasts assign commentators who have mastered the field and retired from the front lines.
Only in Japan do they appoint irrelevant minor celebrities or people from unrelated sports.

As for the Kita-Yard project, even those who have not, like myself, chosen Kansai and made Osaka their business stage for forty years can easily understand, simply by reading the history on Wikipedia, how many people, across the national government, Osaka City, and Suita City, solved countless problems and gathered the wisdom of Kansai to finally bring about one of the finest postwar urban development projects in both its first and second phases.

As I have already written, this land is one for which we citizens are still bearing a burden of 30 trillion yen in tax money.
It is land that could be sold at a high price comparable to Shiodome in Tokyo, thereby most effectively easing our financial burden.
Yet this man has not only reduced the recovery to zero instead of nearly one trillion yen in relief, but is also asking the nation to shoulder nearly 100 billion yen in construction costs.
If the Democratic Party’s so-called “project screening” leaves this matter untouched, then it is truly the work of fools.

He is permanently turning into nothing a piece of land that could have generated enormous and lasting property tax revenues for a city on the brink of fiscal collapse, and is about to inflict irreversible, catastrophic losses on Osaka.

I believe this man’s head is truly empty.
I have never encountered such a fool.
Even the vulgarity of thinking that simply naming something an “eco-stadium” will gain public sympathy is entirely befitting of a former TV announcer.
While casually attempting to inflict tax damage not in the order of one trillion yen but far beyond that, these same TV stations frolic alongside him and yet rage that Ichiro Ozawa’s purchase of roughly 200 tsubo of land in Setagaya for 400 million yen is an unforgivable fortune.
What sort of structure do their minds actually have?
They pay billions of yen in annual salaries to casters who do nothing more than perform momentary tricks of commentary, and yet declare that 400 million yen is “a huge sum.”

On the internet, someone born in Osaka but now living in the provinces viciously mocked how foolish his face looks.
But now, I no longer think that is excessive at all.

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Shimotsuma

The problem is this man.
Originally, he is my senior.
The media relentlessly attacks Ichiro Ozawa by calling his face that of an evil magistrate, yet I believe this man’s face looks even more like that of a corrupt feudal lord.

Indeed, the very reason I resolved to put my words out into the world in the form of a blog was precisely because of the contrast between him—a famous chairman of Kansai’s economic federation—and myself, an unknown man.
I once gave my company employee a written opinion and sent him to Kansai Keizai Doyukai to deliver it to this man, but I knew it would never be read, nor would any reply be returned—and in fact, nothing ever came of it.
I realized then that asking this country’s media to publish it would yield exactly the same result.

I do not believe for even a moment that I would lose to this man in intellectual power—indeed, I know I would absolutely not lose.
Only God, from the primitive stage of family memory onward, imposed trials upon me and forced me onto a path directly opposite that of insiders who advance along elite tracks and ultimately enter the ranks of notables in honorary positions like him.
The reason for that will be understood when I someday retire and begin writing my life in earnest.

What this affair paradoxically teaches society is that being famous or being a notable does not mean one speaks the truth, nor that one lives a life in pursuit of truth.

It was also this man who, suddenly, two years ago in January, proposed that the second-phase land should be turned into a park.
(Refer to the explanation of the Kita-Yard project in the middle section.)
To speak plainly, just who on earth does he think he is?
Moreover, he does not even represent Kansai’s business community.

When I learned the full details on television at the end of June and was left speechless, I made a final call—half in disbelief—to the Doyukai.
Two years earlier, their female secretary-general and others had aligned themselves with his sudden proposal.
But this time they told me, “No, we oppose it.”
From the bottom of my heart, I felt saved.
Osaka was not dead.
It was not to be discarded.
It was still all right.

Later, my employee also informed me that comments opposing this absurd plan by the majority of presidents and chairmen of major Kansai corporations had been published on the internet.

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Onitake

As for this man, whose head seems to be made of muscle, there is hardly any need to waste paper on him.
If I must describe him, I would say that, as a representative of soccer, whose constant running and physical training must be extraordinarily intense, he is, in effect, suddenly attempting to rape the citizens of Osaka.
That is how unforgivable I feel his actions are.
Yet he himself probably does not understand that at all.
In that sense, one can only describe his head as being made of muscle as well.

(274) John Lennon – Help Me to Help Myself – YouTube