it’s pity because thinking up those headlines must be awfully difficult..writing the associated near-fiction as Dan describes it - (hey! it’s job)

one of my all-time favourites is

“Alien Bible Discovered!..They Worship Oprah!.”

Now that is Pulitzer deserving stuff or whatever the Japanese equivalent is.

also let me say that Japundit at times has some wonderfully elegant and clever Post Titles..I’ve long thought that a sub-editors job must be a nightmare - you have the article ready, now how do you get somebody to read it and its five minutes before the presses start rolling..

remora

I’m not arguing against the existence of WaiWai, because I know how funny it could be, but the position of goofy tabloid news alongside straight news was, in a word, “inappropriate.” For a country so easily misunderstood, WaiWai was a constant acknowledgment to the uninitiated that Japan really is some kind of perverted wacky-land.

Its an interesting fact isnt it, that newspaper sales in Japan have actually dropped whilst East Asia and India account for 60% overall globally…of course this has nothing to do with Wai-Wai getting axed but I found it bit interesting thats all.

“- In Japan, newspaper sales fell by -0.83 percent in 2006. Over five years,
sales were down -2.42 percent.”

*Maybe with a name like Ryan Connell MDN has finally seen the joke and worked out what Blarney means.*

rem

I’ll miss it.

It’s a big loss, and will be missed. I don’t really agree that the WaiWai stuff was presented as equal to the headlines. If they had been lumped in with the basic headlines, sure, but they had their own section in the corner, with a more-than-adequate disclaimer. Anyone who encountered those stories elsewhere on the net and then made some kind of blanket assumption about the Japanese is a moron, anyway. Besides, on countless occasions you’d get something absurd such as “Footwear fetish thief used boot odor to fantasize about owners” in the national headlines first, only for it to appear a week later in the WaiWai with further details. When the real headlines are no longer more surreal and salacious than the tabloids’, then maybe the critics will have a leg to stand on. In the meantime, I’m sure the Mainichi will renew its commitment to real news by publishing tons of photos the next time an exciting new Triumph bra is released.

I know this post is way late… but c’mon, are some of you people that are bagging on the Wai Wai serious!!??!! First off, of course some of the stories posted were pretty off the wall BUT anyone who has ever spent actual time living in Japan will know that there was a ring of truth to the stories. Second, the decision to close down the site was the result of Censorship, plain and simple. Xenophobic Japanese nationals, who refuse to admit that they ALSO do just as much wrong (and sometimes more) as the “evil gaijin” they hate so much, couldn’t stand being confronted with reports about the misdeeds of Japanese citizens and the fact it was being made publicly available for all the world to see… it was way to UNFAIR for the rest of the world to be able to see bad things about Japan and took too much attention away from all the troublesome foreigners!! “Have you thought of any possible effects of your reporting these articles to the world in English?” - read “How dare you let the truth out you gaijin lovers!!”

FreeInJap you nailed it man.

I couldn’t help but think that there was an anti-America/western world angle underneath this facade. The fact that this petition originated from the cesspool that is 2ch further support this suspicion.