Not just only Japan, but most Asian countries believe in the same idea.
I almost hate to say this but...
Does Japan and Korea hate each other that much? Most I know are friends with each other but after seeing some stuff on this thread... :ohdear:
Are you not aware of the recent "Korea cyberattacking Japan's 2ch" incident?
I'm not a Vipper so I don't know the specific details. I have some Korean acquaintances myself, and have never had anything against Koreans as a race.
However, as I've seen from various articles, including niclopedia, on the subject of Hankan/Hannichi (Japan vs Korea), it seems quite ghastly. Nicovideo seems to have an excessive amount of videos in various genres from sports to tv that ridicule and criticize Korea. In fact, I rarely ever see these types of videos against other countries (except maybe China's environmental problems). Videos on the FIFA International Soccer (don't know sports well) and the recent 2ch stood out. My parents tell me such ridiculous grudges originate from biased (but true, like enslavement etc.) education on historical events, but there seems to be no effort towards cleaning things up.
From what I know of the most recent incident, about 50,000 Koreans gathered to cyberattack one of 2ch's board which seemed to be ridiculing one of the Korean ice-skaters in the Winter Olympics. They spammed F5 on the Japanese 2ch server, causing it to crash. 2ch was inaccessible for a few days, and remained quite heavy for a while. There's a lot more on this in detail in several nicovideos explaining the incident from the Japanese point of view, but I don't really want to spend my time translating the whole incident, primarily because I really have no interest in this subject. (Note however that 2ch is not as closed-off and subcultural as it used to be. Many Japanese people from the ordinary social branch use it like regular customers. Hence many people were enraged.)
I don't know anything about the 2ch incident or anti-Japanese in general from the Korean side, because I've only received information on this subject from Japanese sources.
American Koreans and American Japanese people seem to have nothing to do with this conflict at all, or want to have anything to do with it, which is a good thing.
Ah, afraid of guns? I always looked to that particular aspect as one of our brighter sides. No need to worry about getting invaded, right? The citizenry will gun you down on its own if the military fails. (Though yes, lack of gun control does lead to several violent/sad conflicts that should never happen, it's a double edged sword.)
Most nations in the world don't mind that every household in Switzerland owns a gun. Many nations mind that Americans hold guns. We're not afraid of guns, we're more afraid of the Americans that shoot with them.
I really do consider whether I should post this in this thread or not, though it may seem I'm the main reason for derailing this thread...