TOKYO (Agencies): Cosplay and merchandise sales of popular Japanese anime series Detective Conan have been banned at some events in China, following backlash over recent collaboration with manga series My Hero Academia that had previously been criticised for evoking Japan’s wartime atrocities, according to local reports.
Such bans were introduced for recent events in Beijing, Chongqing and Lanzhou after many criticised the collaboration campaign between the two Japanese works as “insulting to Chinese people”, according to Japanese news outlet Kyodo.
In 2020, My Hero Academia was removed from video platforms in China due to the name of its villain, Maruta Shiga, referencing the Imperial Japanese Army’s notorious black-ops unit Unit 731, which conducted human experiments for wartime biological and chemical warfare research in north-eastern China.
Maruta, meaning logs, was a code name for victims of human experiments, while the name of a renowned Japanese bacteriologist who discovered disease-causing bacteria in 1897 was Kiyoshi Shiga.
The partnership commemorates the 30th and 10th anniversaries of Detective Conan and My Hero Academia respectively. The manga authors have released illustrations of each other’s lead characters as part of the project.
Organisers of the event in Lanzhou, capital of north-western Gansu province, said on Feb 5 that those wearing the kimono, wooden clogs and outfits associated with militarism would be denied entry, claiming My Hero Academia involves “historical issues that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people”.
Hosts of the Beijing fair, held over the weekend of Feb 7 and 8, explained that the prohibitions of cosplay and goods sales were intended to create “a good atmosphere”.
Meanwhile, the Chongqing anime expo also banned cosplay and merchandise sales of popular Japanese game Pokemon in addition to Detective Conan, in response to the anger of Chinese people about a plan to hold a card game event featuring Pokemon characters at the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.
The card game event, originally scheduled for Jan 31, was later cancelled. The Shinto shrine honours Japanese leaders who were convicted as war criminals by an international tribunal after World War II, as well as millions of war dead.
