- Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi told the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs on 15 July that Japan has conveyed its position to Washington through diplomatic channels on previous occasions as well.
- A White House post of 12 March opened with the name of the US operation against Iran and ran Wii Sports music underneath, and had passed 100 million views by the time it reached the committee on 17 April.
- The Pokemon Company said on 6 March that it was not involved in a White House post using its characters and that no permission was granted.
Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi has told parliament that Tokyo has repeatedly raised with Washington the US government’s use of Japanese game and anime characters in official social media posts, without ever conceding that any law has been broken.
Motegi set out the position in the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs on 15 July. A copyrighted work should be used with the rights holder’s permission, he said, and he considers that to apply equally when a public institution uses one.
Even where the use cannot be called clear infringement, he added, a work used in a way that differs from the holder’s intent can have its image damaged and cause harm to the holder. In the posts in question, he said Japan had conveyed its thinking to the United States through diplomatic channels on previous occasions as well.
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Three Posts on the Record
The complaint reached the committee on 17 April, when Ishikawa member Kazuya Kondo tabled a White House video published on X on 12 March. Its opening frame carried Operation Epic Fury, the name of the US operation against Iran, over music from Wii Sports, a paid Nintendo product.
Kondo said the post had passed 100 million views. He also described a 28 March clip imitating Animal Crossing, and a Department of Homeland Security video from September that set Pokémon imagery over immigration enforcement footage.
Motegi answered then that reproducing a copyrighted work without the holder’s consent is not appropriate, even for a public institution, while declining to comment on the individual case.
Minister of State for Intellectual Property Strategy Kimi Onoda, whose portfolio also covers the government’s Cool Japan content-export programme, told a press conference on 12 June that obtaining permission from rights holders remains the basic principle.
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