Japan Officially Warns U.S. Government Over Pokémon, Naruto Memes

Pokémon, Naruto, and Super Mario should not be used as memes, at least by the U.S. government, according to a warning issued by Japanese officials. It’s been a while since this has been a problem, as the current administration has been constantly using Japanese-made franchises as memes for official communication. Last year, Pokémon issued a statement on a controversial video made and posted by Homeland Security. The video used the English Pokémon anime theme song, "Gotta Catch 'Em All," to highlight Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducting raids and arrests.

It seems, however, that prior warnings have not led to anything and, once again, Japanese officials are making statements directed to the U.S. government in an attempt to stop these franchises from being used. According to a report by IGN, several members of the Japanese government have been criticizing the U.S. government’s usage of memes involving popular Japanese characters. As seen in the report, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had requested that these uploads stop happening. “It’s inappropriate even for public institutions to reproduce copyrighted materials without the rightsholders’ consent.” However, a new development has taken place.

According to IGN, the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun has reported that the Japanese Ministry called out the Trump administration at least twice this June, requesting that the upload of these memes stop. As seen in the report, the request was made via the U.S. Embassy in Japan. The argument used by the Japanese officials is that the usage of these memes for a political agenda without the permission of rights holders could cause damage to the IPs, including Pokémon, Naruto, and Mario.

The report does not state whether or not the Japanese Ministry received any sort of response to their most recent request. However, considering how long this has been going on for, and how many callouts have been ignored, there is a chance that this won’t end anytime soon. One of the most recent incidents did, in fact, happen in June, and it may be one of the reasons the warning was issued by Japanese officials during that month.

In June, as was reported by the BBC, President Trump shared an AI-generated video that depicts him becoming Naruto Uzumaki, the protagonist of the Naruto manga and anime series. This led to an enormous backlash, and Japanese residents and fans of the series around the world signed a petition demanding that Trump stop using these characters and IPs for his own political reasons.

Of course, this was not the only incident. As is backed by the reports, Trump has used images of several Japanese characters from various popular IPs for quite some time now. The Pokémon Company, specifically, has already stated that it has not been involved in any way with the usage of its imagery. Even though there is backlash and even official warnings from Japanese officials, the Trump administration has shown no signs of stopping, so it’s quite likely we’ll continue seeing memes of Pokémon, Naruto, and Mario used by the U.S. government.