The creation of a unified “Japan Brand” has been called for recently as a way to promote exports, boost tourism, and take control of how Japan as a nation is perceived abroad. To that end, the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency has recently announced a new logo for its campaign to help promote local products for export that to this blogger seems to lack a certain subtlety:

(Click the picture for the full size picture. It makes a great desktop wallpaper!)

Bluntness aside, it’s a simple and attractive logo. It seems intended as a sort of umbrella logo to bring disparate marketing strategies pursued by the various regions of Japan in under a unified concept that will “create new traditions” by very efficiently letting anyone who comes into contact with a product bearing such a logo that it DEFINITELY comes from Japan, which should let a potential buyer know that, like Japan, the product stands for “quality,” “beauty,” and “pride.”

And at least this logo should make sense to outsiders. “Yokoso Japan,” the tourism version of “Japan Brand” logos, was SLAMMED last year by American Japan theorist Alex Kerr, who told a government discussion panel that it would sound like “blah blah blah Japan” to those unfamiliar with the Japanese term for “welcome.”

UPDATE: I should note the similarity between this logo and the typeface at YH Chang Heavy Industries, a flash animation website known for its hit “Cunnilingus in North Korea:”

Takafumi Horie, the ex-president of Livedoor recently convicted of securities fraud, continues his role as spotlight-hog even in disgrace. He’s been the subject of numerous interviews and press stories throughout his trial. So as a man for whom winning the image war between himself and prosecutors may be even more important than whether his appeals ultimately succeed, it seems only natural that Horie would take the opportunity to SLAM the court’s decision:

Convicted Horie stays defiant, slams court
The Associated Press

Disgraced dot-com tycoon Takafumi Horie slammed his conviction and harsh sentence for securities fraud Sunday, insisting he committed no crimes and that he had more than paid for any mistakes by losing his company.

On Friday, Horie was found guilty of masterminding a network of decoy investment funds to illegally manipulate earnings at his Internet startup, and was sentenced to 2 1/2-half years in prison in the biggest white-collar-crime trial Japan has witnessed in years.

“I did not intentionally attempt to pad earnings, and there was no false accounting,” an intent-looking Horie, former president of Livedoor Co., said on a TV Asahi talk show Sunday. “I do not accept the court’s verdict.”

Horie is on bail while he appeals the verdict.

I wanted to go back to ignoring the recent flap over a House resolution to condemn Japan’s supposed failure to adequately deal with the “comfort women” issue. But how can I sit quietly when the Prime Minister himself is getting SLAMMED?

Growing Chorus Slams War-Brothel Remarks Japanese P.M. Under Fire For Comfort Women Remarks
AP

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – March 3, 2007 – South Korea again criticized Japan’s prime minister Saturday for disavowing his country’s responsibility for using Asian women as sex slaves for Japanese troops in World War II.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday there was no proof that so-called “comfort women” were forced into sexual slavery during the war.

The remark triggered outrage throughout Asia.

Abe’s statement is “aimed at glossing over the historical truth and our government expresses strong regret,” said a statement from South Korea’s Foreign Ministry.