Japan: Gentleman crashes truck into gates of Fukushima nuclear plant

In Japan today, a gentleman driving a loudspeaker truck crashed his vehicle right into the gates of one of the nuclear plants in northern Japan operated by TEPCO (Fukushima Daini, not the leaky one, but very close to the leaky one). Those mobile boombox trucks are popular with political groups there, used to broadcast propaganda while driving around the 'hood. After crashing this one into Fukushima #2, the gentleman was promptly arrested by the po-po. Related: Has anyone seen Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly over the past 24 hours? I didn't think so. (AFP)

Update: Another gentleman was just drawn to the same plant for the purpose of mischief:

An unemployed man from Tokyo was arrested Friday after allegedly intruding by car into the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant premises, near the radiation-leaking Fukushima Daiichi plant in Fukushima Prefecture, police said. Hikaru Watanabe, 25, from Shinjuku Ward, allegedly broke through the western gate of the Daini plant around 1:10 p.m. Thursday, before driving inside its premises for about 10 minutes, the plants' operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said, adding that no one was injured in the incident.

• [teapot]

  I sincerely doubt it was one of those black vans. They are too self-interested to do something like that.

  When I lived in Japan I would just stand there, watching them. I could rarely understand a word they were saying between the ear-splitting 11 setting they put on those loud-speakers and the north-Korean-style militaristic annunciation of their Japanese, but I know that me, standing there watching them, would have pissed them off no end.

  I’m not a particularly big guy, but I’m big by Japan size standards :)

  One of the sadder stories I have heard resulting from the Fukushima Daiichi crisis is that people who were told to evacuate were not told of the potential duration of the evacuation, meaning that many people left with their pets tied up or locked inside. Can’t the psycho who did this go and rescue the animals instead?

• [MAS]

  Ahem…
  A true Gentleman would never crash into a nuclear power plant.
  He should be required to surrender his ascot .

  • [BB]

    Would it be any more palatable if you found that he was enjoying a dry martini cocktail whilst listening to Mozart on the boom box and muttering “fwa fwa fwa”?

• [eli]

  What’s wrong about that? He just wanted to get into The Zone to meet the machine that fulfills your desires. Haven’t you seen the film “Stalker” by Tarkovsky. Bunch of iknorants.

• [bat21]

  Your attention, please
  Now turn off the light
  Your infection, please
  I haven’t got all night

  Understand, do you understand?
  Understand, I’m a gentleman

• [Anonymous]

  That cat has a nuclear pile, hence the expression

• [Zadaz]

  I’d bet a stack of yen that it was a black van with a Japanese flag on it. Those things are the most obnoxious fountains of throwback hate speech I’ve ever seen–and I’ve been in the American South. These are guys who want to reinstate the Emperor, throw out all the foreigners, close the borders, and take back any land that any Japanese has ever stood on for the Empire, and give WWII another go. Whatever the Japanese term for Manifest Destiny is, that’s what these guys are. The vans park outside train stations and blast their garbage at ear-bleeding dBs, and occasionally have marches. During their marches is the only time I’ve seen significant armed and armored police presence in Japan making sure these crazies don’t start any shit. I while walking past one of these vans to get to the station I was physically attacked by an elderly woman an told in significantly impolite tones to get the hell out of her country.

  Here’s a pretty good summary of them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyoku_dantai

  But fortunately virtually everyone else in Japan thinks they’re batshit crazy. I don’t want to see anyone hurt, but I hope they ruined the van.

• [Anonymous]

  I’ve seen “mobile boombox trucks” driving around DC over the past few years, trying to warn the public about Obamacare and death panels and creeping socialism. Some of them even put a little moustache on a picture of the President.

  I haven’t seen any lately, I would be glad not to see that become a trend, even though none of them even tried to bust through a fence (to my knowledge).

• [kjulig]

  Those mobile boombox trucks are popular with right-wing ultra-nationalist groups there

  And, very notably (for their size in Japan), communists. And political groups with liberal and social welfare agendas (e.g. 幸福実現党). And just independent local candidates. And people who collect old appliances (“recycle” shops) preferably on Sundays when I’m still sleeping. I mean, really, come on.

  • [benher]

    I know what you mean.

    “resembled” and “appeared to be” … so we don’t KNOW if it’s a nationalist truck or not, but hey, that unfounded assumption will spice up our article title and our predominantly western audience will believe it.

    Trucks with speakers are as common as tissue packets over here.

    it’s always good for a chuckle/sigh to see the absurd conclusions drawn about Japan in related BB comment threads based on ‘articles’ like this one.

    (Your translation was way cleaner than mine! おまえ、全然ジェントルマンちゃうわ！)

  • [Kieran O’Neill]

    I was in Ceará, Brazil a few years ago for a conference. The state-level election was coming up, and it seemed like every candidate had boom box cars/trucks/motorbikes driving the streets blasting out their campaign message.

    It’s weird that you don’t see them more in English-speaking countries.

    • [kjulig]

      It’s weird that you don’t see them more in English-speaking countries.

      Not sure about English-speaking countries but in the (European) country I’m from this wouldn’t be exactly legal, especially on a Sunday morning.

      Also, I somehow admire the commitment of the folks who stand in front of busy train stations for hours on end, using their megaphones to explain what their mini party is all about, all while competing with traffic noise.

• [jxc]

  Haha, “gentleman”.

• [Anonymous]

  “Has anyone seen Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly over the past 24 hours? I didn’t think so.”

  Don’t know if you’re implying that one or the other of these two clowns would do something like this (since I try not to pay attention to both). But I sincerely doubt they would have the nerve to come anywhere near places like this; they’ll just goad some other ignoramus into doing the dirty work.

• [sam1148]

  I stopped reading after “Po-Po”

  • [travtastic]

    You missed out on half an article!

• [el_gallo]

  These articles have swung my opinion around, not just in favor nuclear power, but in favor of large scale nuclear accidents. How many reactors have to melt down before they start attracting guys with over-sized sub-woofers too?

  • [magneticwheels]

    AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!

• [BB]

  So what was blasting on the boombox?

  thoughts?

  • [Ugly Canuck]

    Maybe the Japanese version of this tune:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNUzfcNGKHo

    PS Contrary to the assertion in the lyrics, as Krypton is a noble gas, its radioactive form would rather have nothing at all to do with you; it floats away harmless. Still a fine piece of music, though, despite the errors of fact, or its unsubstantiated assertions.

• [BB]

  Anything sung by Gwenyth Paltrow would certainly weaken opponents.

• [bklynchris]

  ‘hood? po-po? boombox? where Xeni ‘Yat?

• [friendpuppy]

  boilin’ oil, machine guns, fuckin’ hand grenades

• [Anonymous]

  The boys in black trucks and rising-sun flags are usually right-wing political group closely allied with extortionists and gangster organizations. It was only a matter of time before these folks show up and begin demanding payoffs to keep quiet or, at least, keep away. The TEPCO shareholder meeting in June will likely be a hoot with sokaiya extortionists doing their best to disrupt the meeting and engaging in punch-ups with TEPCOs own sokaiya mercenaries. However, if the meeting is quiet, you’ll know payoffs (and fairly sizable ones) were made to keep things shizuka. Gotta love the consistency.

• [Avram / Moderator]

  What’s Japanese for “You, sir, are no gentleman”?

  • [travtastic]

    There’s nothing gentle about boombox trucks!

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    From my cultural explorations, I believe that it’s, “Inuyasha!!!!”

  • [kjulig]

    If it’s supposed to sound polite:
    あなたは紳士ではありません。 (Anata wa shinshi de wa arimasen.)

• [jtegnell]

  Are you sure these two articles aren’t talking about the same guy?

• [ill lich]

  “no one was injured in the incident.”

  Does that include radiation poisoning?