People from regions mocked in Japan comedy ‘Tonde Saitama’ don sackcloth for tour

NARITA, Chiba — Dozens of residents from Shiga, Wakayama and Nara recently dressed up in sackcloth outfits on a tour for a comedy movie that lampoons the west Japan prefectures, while pledging friendship and solidarity among them.

The tour was arranged in conjunction with the film “Tonde Saitama: Biwako yori Ai wo Komete” (Tonde Saitama: From Lake Biwa with love), the sequel to the popular comedy film “Fly me to the Saitama.”

The 35 participants from the three prefectures excitedly pledged to “become friends and fight together with Saitama Prefecture residents, who are also made fun of (in the movie).” They boarded a flight from western Japan’s Kansai region via low-cost carrier Jetstar Japan on Nov. 23 to attend a stage greeting on the day of the film’s premiere.

Original stickers commemorating the collaboration with the movie were handed out on the plane, and it was announced that “passengers from Shiga, Wakayama and Nara prefectures participating in the tour are sitting in the rear of the cabin.”

After arriving at Narita Airport, the tour participants dressed in bibs and outfits made from sacks, bearing the names of the prefectures where they live. They were welcomed by actor Mayo Kawasaki, who played the role of the Kyoto mayor in the film, and took a commemorative photo in front of the aircraft. The tour members then boarded a bus and directly headed to a movie theater in Tokyo.

Yu Aoike, a first-year high school student residing in the Shiga Prefecture city of Yasu, participated in the tour with her mother. The 16-year-old said her mother, who is from Shiga Prefecture, and father, who hails from Saitama Prefecture, “get along but occasionally fight as they have different taste preferences.” She added, “I hope (those from) Shiga and Saitama accept each other as ‘friends who are both treated cruelly’ and become closer.”

Mizuho Otsuki, a 25-year-old office worker from the Wakayama Prefecture town of Aridagawa, said, “We are the most oppressed prefecture in Kansai, so we’d like to fight alongside Saitama, which is in a similar situation in the Kanto region (in east Japan). Chiemi Chayama, a nurse from the city of Nara, said she was looking forward to seeing the movie. “I’m just happy that Nara Prefecture was even featured in a film,” the 49-year-old commented.

Kawasaki told the Mainichi Shimbun, “I am glad that the people from Kansai came all the way here. I played the role (of the mayor) with a sense of responsibility on behalf of Kyoto, where I was born. I hope people will laugh until the end of the movie, for its over-the-top comedic belittling (of certain prefectures).”

(Japanese original by Tadakazu Nakamura, Narita Bureau)