Making A Stand

I was reading this story about an Oricon survey and it made me very upset. The survey asked 600 men which female celebrities have the most beautiful lips, and top of the list was Inoue Waka. Can you spot the problem with that last sentence? It was a survey of female celebrities involving beauty, and the person who won was Inoue Waka. What is wrong with the world? Why wasn't Ueto Aya top of the list? She ended up in second place, transforming what we all thought was a simple celebrity news story into a horrific, scandalous violation of our sensibilities.

And yesterday Tokyograph reported on the most recent TV Tarento Image Ranking results, which measures the popularity and recognisability of celebrities. Guess what? Ninth place! Ueto Aya came ninth, and to add appalling insult to disgraceful injury, it was joint ninth place! The horror! The horror!

There's been a spate of this kind of thing recently, and I don't like it. If it's not news stories where we're affronted by Aya not being in the headlines, then it's news stories where she doesn't even feature, if you can imagine such a thing. Look at this piece of journalistic hackery: Japan Should Use Globally Standardized Ball. Nippon Professional Baseball Commissioner Kato Ryozo thinks Japan should use the same type of ball that everyone else uses. That's all well and good, Breitbart.com, but are we just supposed to intuit what Ueto Aya thinks of it? And this: Newly Homeless Flout Rules Of The Street. Oh I'm sure they do, Yomiuri. But what does this tell us about Ueto Aya?! It's just lazy journalism. Do your research, dammit!

A photo of Aso meeting Yulia Tymoshenko, the Prime Minister of Ukraine. It doesn't show Ueto Aya and is therefore USELESS.
I've done the maths, and it's clear that over 99% of the stories in national Japanese newspapers this year have featured a distinct lack of Aya. I can't say I'm not disappointed. Obviously, because I've already made it very clear that I'm outraged. I want to see some changes. This is me calling you out, Japan. Tell me what Ueto Aya is doing (pictures too please) and then I'll listen to what you have to say about the possibility of a global financial stimulus package. But not until then.