During the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee meeting held on April 17, Japan’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi criticized the White House regarding a recent video posted to their official X account which uses footage from Nintendo’s games (source: Kyodo News). The video features footage from the United States’ recent attack on Iran intertwined with clips of Nintendo Wii’s launch up screen and Wii Sports gameplay.
“Generally, even in the case of public institutions, it is inappropriate to reproduce copyrighted works without the permission of the rightsholder,” minister Motegi commented, though he refrained from making remarks on the contents of the video itself.
On a related note, this isn’t the first time that the Trump administration has used unauthorized copyrighted material of Japanese content for their public relations activities. Last September, the Homeland Security X account and the White House TikTok account used footage and music from the Pokémon anime in their promotional video for ICE deportation raids. Following the publishing of the controversial video, the Pokémon Company issued a statement explaining that the usage of their intellectual property was unauthorized (source: BBC).
Furthermore, the White House X account recently posted an image using Pokémon Pokopia’s box art modified to show the words “make America great again,” prompting the Pokémon Company to once more deny their involvement with the advertisement.
Last month, the official Yu-Gi-Oh! X account also had to make a public statement denying the franchise’s involvement in the White House’s “Justice The American Way” video depicting footage of US troops’ activities in Iran alongside clips of the titular anime.
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