Fukushima locals criticize government for tone-deaf tritium mascot

"The gap between the gravity of the problems we face and the levity of the character is huge," he said.

Its the gap between the ears of those who make these decisions is the problem we face and that gap is HUGE !

Artist.

Montgomery Burns.

It's not cute, funny, it's insulting. What on earth are these people thinking? After 10 years, being used as propaganda for the Olympics. Treated as almost an embarrassment I'm angry and I don't live in a emergency house ment to last 2 years. Nor am I trying to rebuild my life and Buisness. It' just shows how in touch with the population the government are.

@Yukijin I have to admit, it did make me think of Blinky, the 3-eyed fish from The Simpsons!!

No, it’s really cute. I know, you would surely have chosen a skull or a monster, just to amplify the fear spreading instead. Both doesn’t really help , so the cute one is better, ok? But of course, even I have to admit that it shouldn’t be such unfitting green...lol

Please don't ever change, Japan!

This mascot is hilarious

It looks like the olive in the martini China wants Aso to drink.

sadly, it likely would have worked as planned,

The mascot isnt the problem, but the thinking behind the plan.

"If (the government) thinks it can get the general public to understand just by creating a cute character, it is making a mockery of risk communication."

I don't think people are understanding radioactivity.

Tritium is safe, in fact there are tritium keychains being sold as a functional item.

Just Google and read a little more before trying to sensationalize everything.

Nuclear power plants are highly specialized and difficult to understand. We want many people to take an interest in them," said an agency official, adding the mascot would be redesigned in line with the views of the public.

A bit more cash heading Dentsu’s way?

How this idea wasn’t laughed at and got the go ahead from however many meeting makes the mind boggle. On what planet do these people like on??

Cute, loveable & totally safe...death.

Something wrong with that fish is that tritium growing off its head? Maybe they can use it in Pokémon and they can have the boy visit Fukushima the place where fish became Pokémon due to the large quantities of nuclear waste dumped into the water.

how much time and money spent designing the mascot ?

how much time and money spent designing the mascot ?

which also looks like a 3rd grader could have designed...

The locals should design their own mascot (Kuritsaizu kun??) to

Once again they skipped the editing/practical concerns department and went straight from CEO to in-pocket government official to print. This is even more unbelievable than usual.

Sweet mother. Why does everything here have to be made into a cartoon or mascot? How old is everyone? No wonder lots of people never get to grow up. What next, Cancer-kun and Chemo-chan?

I should have known Dentsu was involved. They're like the kiss of death.

Good grief! Yet another childish cartoon mascot. Puke!

Gold Jerry, gold! The ‘I have my period badge’ was better though.

They already have a suitable mascot - Fukuppy.

-Nuclear power plants are highly specialized and difficult to understand.

I wonder if the LDP assume that the Japanese public are stupid because they keep voting for them.

This is not the case. Japanese people are not stupid. So just be honest with them.

It is untenable to keep storing this water on land until a quake finally releases it all. The only option is an ocean dump.

Given how much waste, litter and toxic filth gets dumped in our oceans each year, this release is relatively minor. It's far from ideal, but it is the inevitable price you pay if you are daft enough to build nuclear power stations in quake zones.

SK and China are using this as a political tool. China has a particularly lousy record on emissions from the widespread domestic use of coal.

The TCO for nuclear power is so much higher in both financial and environmental terms than any other form of power generation. It is worse even than fossil fuel, where you can filter emissions. With nuclear, you create a multigenerational environmental hazard, forcing the next ten generations to pay for your power, hoping that they can and will protect nuclear waste from causing further problems for hundreds of years. Chernobyl and Fukushima are unlikely to be the last nuclear accidents. How long before nuclear reactors become a favourite target for sabotage? We have already seen the start of this in Iran with Stuxnet and the recent attack.

How many reasons do we need, staring us in the face, before we walk away from nuclear power? It is too environmentally toxic, too expensive and too dangerous.

Kag, it's you, who doesn't understand radioactivity. Tritium is a beta radiator with comparatively low energy. The radiation can be shielded easily. It can't get through the even the uppermost dermal layers, so as long as it stays out of our body, it is harmless. But when you drink or inhale tritium, there is no shielding any more. Especially when it is incorporated into the DNS, it can provoke serious long-term damage. Tritium keyholders are indeed safe - but only as long as they are not broken.

how much time and money spent designing the mascot ?

Dentsu PR has an open checkbook. Regarding time, it’s rumored they work staff to death.

"tone deaf tritium mascot"? No, it is the government officials who are tone deaf.

Are we SURE this indent an Onion article? It’s hard to believe anyone could be this tone-deaf.

This is how Japan try to gain hearts and minds. If politician cannot pursue the citizens than just make it cute.

I wonder why the government is not utilizing cuteness for international relationships? I guess other countries are to serious.....

If it was not for the previous shows of incompetence from those in charge I would think this was made with malice for sure.

KEPCO have U-chan and Pu-chan - mascots for Uranium and Plutonium.

Designed to make radiation appear cute and safe.

Very strange. I dont think peoples minds will be changed to think radiation is cute. Mine wasn't.

It seems to me government bureaucrats never understand something about Fukushima contaminated water makes a big issue to the world.

Obviously those who make the dumb big decisions in this country have spent way too much time playing pokie monsters or some other equally mind numbing stupid video games.

A bit like those idiots in the govt , think its some sort of video game .

Did they name it Leukemia-kun?

Gonemad is absolutely right in his post above in discussing the potential harm that ingestion of tritium could cause by initiating mutations in human DNA. Long term use of drinking water or consumption of fish in areas where higher tritium levels exist is a concern.

Which is why many nations have established standards regarding how much tritium is allowed in their drinking water. The US standard is 750 Bq/litre. Russia’s is 7,000/litre. Japan’s tritium tolerance is far higher at 60,000/litre. Which is more of a concern as the biological half-life of tritium has been estimated be at least twice as long in cooler regions of the world, from one recent study.

Explodie the walking disaster, and three-eyed Jim the fish were runners up

Oddly there is no brown envelope mascot?

Regardless of the actual danger of Tritium (and I acknowledge that the risk is quite low), this is just negligently tone deaf.

It’s like using the words “sunk cost fallacy” when describing war deaths. Just because the premise is true doesn’t make it any less callous to those affected.

Ghibli fans will see some Ponyo copyright ‘infringement’... er,.. influences.

Tone deaf perhaps, but while we are all criticizing such insensitivity, the expression 'tone-deaf' itself is nowadays considered 'ableist' by some, i.e. to be insensitive, apparently.

So thats the future look of fish in the area after they release the water ?

This is so off-the wall that it’s kinda cute!

‘Only in Japan’ rings true.

This

Is

Not

Funny.

This is an explanatory document to make it as interesting to all ages as possible. There's nothing wrong with that.

It may look silly cutting out just the characters, but if you look at it as a whole, it's well done.

＜Overall view＞

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ey5FDUiVcAMhGbk.jpg