Hase Michiko l Japan Focus  11 October, 2011

“We want genpatsu [nuclear power plant] in Tokyo!”

“Japanese nuclear power plants are so safe that we could even build one in Tokyo Bay.”

“Radiation can’t get to you if you’re smiling. It only gets to people who are worried.”

“Fukushima has become famous without doing anything. It beat Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

“It’s safe to drink plutonium."

“We couldn’t build a nuclear power plant if we thought about possible accidents. So, we just suck it up.”

“Even if radiation sterilizes your semen, new semen will be produced. The gene god is watching over your semen."

“The lethal dose of salt is 200 grams, and that of plutonium is 32 grams.  Plutonium poisoning is no big deal."

“Radiation is good for your health."

“Citizens shouldn’t be allowed to measure radiation levels.”

            These are some of the quotes on the signs carried by some 110 demonstrators in Tokyo on September 25, 2011. [1]  The colorfully clad marchers chanted them cheerfully,  insisting that “genpatsu are absolutely necessary for Japan’s economic growth” and that building one in Tokyo, the largest consumer of electricity, would be most efficient.

            The organizers called this unusual protest “a thoroughly new style of anti-nuclear demonstration using sarcasm.” [2] Shoppers on the fashionable streets of Ginza looked puzzled at first, but some grinned knowingly as they figured out the demonstration’s true message.

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