The Japanese government has expressed concern through official diplomatic channels regarding U.S. President Donald Trump posting videos on social media that unauthorizedly use Japanese animation characters.
The Trump administration has been creating and uploading videos featuring popular characters from Japanese animations such as "Pokémon," "Yu-Gi-Oh!," and "Naruto" on social media to promote its policies.
In September of last year, "Ash," the protagonist of "Pokémon," was unauthorizedly used to promote illegal immigrant crackdowns by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). At the time, HSI posted a video on X (formerly Twitter) featuring an image of Ash throwing a Monster Ball to catch a Pokémon in the animation, along with the popular catchphrase, "Gotta catch them all."
In March of this year, following the outbreak of war between the United States and Iran, the White House uploaded a video on X that used "Yu-Gi-Oh!" images without permission from the production company.
Titled "JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY," the video featured "Yugi," the protagonist of "Yu-Gi-Oh!," alongside other movie characters like "Iron Man" and "Top Gun," interspersed with scenes of U.S. attacks on Iran.
In response, the production company of "Yu-Gi-Oh!" announced on X that "video footage from the 'Yu-Gi-Oh!' animation series was used by the official U.S. White House X account without permission from the rights holder."
As the unauthorized use repeated, the Japanese government reportedly conveyed concerns to the U.S. in April, stating that "even public institutions need permission from the production company when using intellectual property," raising concerns over copyright infringement and potential damage to the works' images.
However, despite this, President Trump remained unfazed, posting a video on his social media platform Truth Social in June that photoshopped him onto "Naruto" protagonist Uzumaki Naruto. Although the Japanese government once again expressed concern to the U.S. side, the video has still not been deleted from the social media account.
(Reported by Kim Taewon | Video by Lee Euiseon | Graphics by Yook Dohyun | Produced by SBS Digital News | Screen courtesy of X @DHSgov @WhiteHouse, TruthSocial @realDonaldTrump)
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