Japanese Fans Protest Trump's Use of Naruto in Political Content
JAKARTA - More than 23,000 manga and anime fans in Japan have signed a petition urging Donald Trump and the White House to stop using manga and anime images in political posts.
Citing The Independent's report, Saturday, June 13, the protest intensified after Trump shared a Naruto-themed video on Truth Social. In the video, Trump is portrayed as Naruto Uzumaki, the main character of Masashi Kishimoto's popular manga.
The petition titled Protect Japanese Manga has collected 23,524 signatures at the time of writing. The campaign actually started in March, but it became popular again after Trump's latest upload.
The video was created with AI, a technology that can generate images, sounds, or videos automatically. The clip uses the song Thank You, President Trump sung by Anthony Constantino, a candidate for Congress from the Republican Party in New York.
For fans, the problem is not just a funny picture. In the petition, they said Japanese manga and anime have always carried the values of "courage, friendship, and perseverance". Therefore, the use of these works in political or military contexts is considered to deviate from the intentions of the creators and rights holders.
Naruto first appeared in 1999. The story follows the journey of a young ninja who was ostracized by his village for harboring a powerful fox spirit within his body. He struggles to be accepted and wants to be the village leader. The series then became a long anime, with more than 700 episodes in two series in 2002-2017, as well as several feature films.
As reported by The Independent, the petition organizers said they had been asking the Japanese authorities for months. After contacting a number of parliamentarians in March, they received an answer that official action could be taken if the rights holder wanted it.
The petition was also submitted to the Japanese Cabinet Office, then forwarded to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Agency for Cultural Affairs. The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs then conveyed the issue of the White House's use of Yu-Gi-Oh! and Nintendo images to the US Embassy in Japan.
The campaign's initiator, Nana Suzuki, a 34-year-old anime and manga fan from Kanagawa Prefecture, told the BBC quoted by The Independent that the use of Yu-Gi-Oh! works in a military context is very sad. Moreover, the creator, Kazuki Takahashi, died after trying to save someone at sea.
"I am very sad that his noble spirit and the message of his work are used in a military context. He is also no longer there to defend himself," Suzuki said.
The official Yu-Gi-Oh! anime account previously stated that the original creator and anime staff were not involved and did not give permission for the use of the intellectual property. Intellectual property is the legal right to works, images, characters, brands, or other creative creations.
The Pokémon Company International also distanced itself from another White House upload that used Pokémon imagery. The company stated that it was not involved in its creation or dissemination, and its mission was not tied to any political agenda.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Shueisha, the publisher of the Naruto manga, told The Guardian that the copyright of the anime images used in Trump's post belonged to the production committee of the animated work. Shueisha also believes that Kishimoto did not comment on this issue.