281_Anti Nuke: Guerrilla Sticker Artist in Tokyo receives Death Threats

Does this little sticker really warrant a death threat?

There’s a nice profile of an “average Japanese male” who was radicalized by the Fukushima disaster to wage an ongoing unsanctioned public art campaign against TEPCO and the Japanese government’s failure to respond, posted at Japan Subculture Research Center.

A documentary is soon to be released on his mini-crusade. He’s left his mark all over Tokyo: large anti-government, anti-nuclear stickers which have been stuck mostly on public property. His work is even good enough to be highlighted at a Tokyo art space called The Pink Cow. But with all this fame come danger: Japan’s online right wing community have made him their next target. Sending him constant death threats, they are determined to unmask him and have him arrested in order to silence him.

“Post Fukushima, a young father and artist assumes a mask and the name ‘281_Anti nuke’ and takes to the streets of Tokyo angering right wing users of the Internet.”

It speaks to the effectiveness of 281’s work (and his London-based management?)—and the intolerance of the Japanese right—that there’s even a right wing nationalist rant in the comments to the profile at JSRC.  The angry commenter questions just how Japanese the artist really is, xenophobically suggesting that 281’s deviant behavior must be the result of foreign influence.

Many people and businesses got angered on the net because of illegal actions by anti-nuclear graffiti mask man. He used various copyrighted pictures such as the hello kitty picture without permission from sanrio co., LTD.

[…] his colonial English language proficiency and foreign influence in his graffiti..My suggestion is that he attended Australian college and his antinuke militant behavior evolved from there

Read the full story:  “Meet 281: Japan’s Anti-Nuke Lone Ranger turning protest into art” by Angela Erika Kubo