Be careful when releasing potato chips, or this could happen to you too.
We’ve long chronicled the misadventures of Japanese comedian Egashira 2:50. For those unfamiliar, his main schtick is appearing as a shirtless middle-aged man who makes lewd comments and does rather sexually borderline-explicit stunts like sticking his arm down his tights to simulate his own stimulation. But what really makes him an interesting figure in Japanese pop culture is that, by most accounts, he’s an extremely mild-mannered and generous person off camera, having participated extensively in charitable programs around the country.
A few years ago, Egashira made the jump from television and brought nearly five million subscribers to his own YouTube channel, where he frequently posts a mix of gross-out stunts, personal reflections, and typical YouTube-style eating and travel experiences. A lot of the time, he still wears his standard costume of black tights and no shirt, but due to YouTube’s policy on exposed nipples for people like him, he must wear tape over them.
However, when he goes on location shoots, you’ll likely see him wearing regular street clothes. Such is the case when he visited Türkiye recently to perform. It was a bit of a personal trip for Egashira as well, since this was the first time returning to Türkiye since he was arrested for public nudity after his fundoshi loincloth fell off and nearly triggered a riot among offended spectators in 1997.
▼ Eigashira’s return to Türkiye
Luckily, this time his performance did not result in an arrest, but he unfortunately once again ended up offending the people there inadvertently.
While in Türkiye, Egashira decided to offer people there some of his limited-edition kebab-flavored potato chips (which are sold exclusively through Family Mart convenience stores and can be seen at the top of this article) since in Japan kebabs are often associated with Turkish food. However, Eigashira and the people in this predominantly Muslim country were all unaware that the chips contained pork extract, which is in violation of the religion’s dietary restrictions.
The video has since been pulled, and later, Eigashira posted an apology video about the incident. The spoken content of the video was very somber and sincere, with the team of a stern-faced Egashira and his sidekicks, the Briefs Gang, explaining that they failed to notice the ingredients of the chips both when filming and editing the segment.
They make it clear that this is no excuse for what they did and they have already set up a compliance department to ensure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again. They also read a statement of apology from Family Mart which states they will add explanations in Japanese, English, Arabic, Turkish, Indonesian, and Malay to product displays, warning potential buyers of the ingredients.
▼ The apology video
But what struck a lot of people about it as odd was that everyone was in their typical performance garb, Egashira with taped nipples and black tights, and his sidekicks wearing wrestling masks, underwear outside their pants, and T-shirts with “bu” written on them, both as the first Japanese character in “burifu” (briefs) and a common onomatopoeia for a fart.
I can only assume they discussed this beforehand and came to the conclusion that appearing in suits might come across as uncharacteristic of them and ironically seen more as a goof than if they wore their regular outfits. If so, I’m not sure it was the best choice, but there is a kind of logic to it at least. Comments on YouTube and elsewhere on the Internet were also conflicted about this wardrobe choice while making a serious apology for offending people’s religion.
“Egashira is seriously insane.”
“Who are they apologizing to? Surely it isn’t the people of Türkiye like this.”
“I’m a Turkish Muslim living in Japan. I rushed to buy your chips when they came out, but saw they had pork, so I gave them to a co-worker. It’s great that you apologized, as I would expect from a Japanese person. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“It would seem more like a joke if they wore suits.”
“I asked a Muslim friend, and they said it’s OK as long as it wasn’t intentional. Still, you need to be more careful.”
“You should dress properly to apologize. People who don’t know you think you’re trying to provoke them.”
“It’s up to the Turkish people to forgive him. Hopefully the message reaches them.”
“That’s not how you apologize!”
“I’m Muslim and think it wasn’t done on purpose. Eating pork is natural in Japanese culture, so it’s only natural they overlooked it. I appreciate that they realized their mistake and apologized.”
“Where are these angry Turkish people? I never see them.”
Curious about that myself, I went in search of any Turkish language coverage of this incident and found next to none, aside from one Facebook post with a comment to the effect of, “It’s fine. I forgive him.” This would seem to suggest that no one in Turkey really seems to have noticed or cared about what Eigashira did, and that he probably wasn’t under much pressure to make a six-minute video to apologize for it either.
One could argue that his appearance was half-assed because of that, but it really doesn’t come through in his words and non-wardrobe-related actions. Eigashira has always been about separating the character from the man, and this might just be another example of that.
Source: YouTube/エガちゃんねる EGA-CHANNEL, Real Live, Itai News, Facebook/Japonya Postası
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