Tokyo Governor, Shintaro Ishihara best known by the entire anime community as the man responsible for the famed Youth Ordinance Bill said to the press last Monday about the March 11 earthquake that devasted Japan.
The identity of the Japanese people is selfishness. The Japanese people must take advantage of this tsunami as means of washing away their selfish greed. I really do think this is divine punishment.
Ishihara was contrasting the "selfishness and greed" that he perceived in Japan with the identity of the United States with "liberty" and the identity of France with "liberty, philanthropy, and equality [sic]."
Because of what he said, people such as Yutaka Yamamoto (also known as Yamakan), a director of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Lucky Star, Kannagi, and Fractale, posted the following response to his Twitter account hours later:
To apply "divine punishment" indiscriminately to innocent people is absolutely ridiculous. Ishihara, you who can't speak Japanese properly, have no right to place that identity on others.
Source: Asahi via Dan Kanemitsu, Yaraon! via ANN
To be honest, it felt like Ishihara doesn't think about what he is saying. I mean, a lot of people have died and all he can say is that this is a divine punishment? He should has just said some words of encouragement! Seriously, does he want to be the most hated man in Japan?!