Anime Flags From One Piece and Dragon Ball Spark Heated Debate Over Protests in France

France has seen protests, vandalism, destruction, and plenty of people in cosplay. Among the crowds, people have been spotted carrying flags featuring One Piece, Dragon Ball, Attack on Titan, and other anime series.

The use of anime imagery during these protests has sparked widespread debate online, including among Japanese internet users.

There’s a heated online argument over anime being used in these demonstrations. Unlike similar situations in other countries, where people have displayed anime images during protests, the unrest in France has also involved people breaking into ordinary people’s stores and destroying property.

So, I went looking for comments from Japanese users to find out what they think about anime being used during these protests. Below are a variety of comments originally posted in Japanese. I tried to gather reactions from several different places:

• About 10 years ago, during anti-Japanese protests in China, some people were also participating while wearing Doraemon T-shirts.

• Is this a cosplay event?

• It’s Halloween, man.

• So there wasn’t even a Pikachu, the symbol of the protests?

• How childish.

• If you watch Attack on Titan or The Rose of Versailles, of course you’re going to want to start a revolution. There must be tons of Japanese anime and manga otaku among the French, right?

• This is the kind of thing Hamtaro is responsible for.

• They must have the brains of elementary school kids.

• Hasn’t something like this happened before?

• This has turned into a cosplay competition.

• If you’re going to start a revolution anyway, you should’ve cosplayed as Sasuke.

• It’s a cosplay peasant revolt, damn it.

• So the otaku over there are the ones causing trouble?

• NARUTO really is the king of anime, huh?

• This is guilt by association.

• This is absolutely awful.

• Barbaric behavior.

• Based on the story, shouldn’t Obito be in the wrong here? Is he really on their side?

• What a bunch of embarrassing losers, lol.

• This “protest” is being fueled by people waving Palestinian flags. No wonder violence and looting are happening everywhere.

• Man… this is hard to stomach.

• These criminals are too busy stealing… Black people are wearing hoodies and masks to hide their faces and carrying out group robberies everywhere.

• Speaking of which, Assassin’s Creed takes place in France, doesn’t it?

• I was shocked by how many Arabs there were. No wonder they’re going to destroy the welfare system and wreck the country’s finances.

• So there are all these weird people cosplaying, destroying things, and repeatedly looting stores… France is completely lost.

• The people looting are a different group from the protesters.

• French cultural appropriation.

• Looks fun. Can I join?

• The people setting fire to city halls and schools and looting stores are covering their faces. They’re probably just idiots doing it to attract attention.

• There’s a Piccolo, lol.

• Is the Macron government really that problematic?

• Actually, immigrants are becoming a burden. Do you think children whose parents don’t speak French will speak French? They need to be taught the language from scratch. On top of that, these people supposedly have less intelligence and rationality than native French people, so they’d need to be taught those things too. And there are so many Muslims among them, which makes it a nightmare. Christian religious morality doesn’t mesh with Muslims. Today’s France is the result of accepting mass immigration with the short-sighted attitude of “We want cheap labor!”

• So anime otaku are a left-wing minority, then?

• The Uchiha clan also tried to stage a coup.

• Since this is France, I imagined something like Liberty Leading the People, but it had nothing to do with that.

• I think the motivation behind the protests has taken a back seat. The main attraction seems to be some kind of “limited-time looting service,” like a flash mob, allowing illegal immigrants and gangs to benefit.

• Rioting only hurts ordinary people. We should be proud that we don’t have uprisings like those in the West. And we can’t forgive Naomi Osaka for inciting the riots.

• Why don’t they use their own country’s content? Is it not that popular?

• So anime otaku really are idiots.

• If they were real otaku, they wouldn’t do something like this. There’s absolutely nothing to gain from turning the content industry against you.

• Are they joining the protest to make fun of it, or are they actually participating…?

• This is a badly made edit, right? Please tell me it’s a badly made edit…

• Rather than just a bad edit, there’s probably a fair amount of AI mixed in there.

• The French love revolutions and protests, but they’re bad at creating anything of their own. Since the French value foreign content much more than domestic productions, even Netflix has to follow a rule requiring it to contribute 25% of its revenue earned in France to the country. They keep coming up with more and more ways to profit from foreign content.

• Can’t they just run the tanks over them or something?

• This is why China regulates Attack on Titan: to prevent things like this from happening.

• These people certainly aren’t thinking about social justice. It looks more like they’re treating this as a festival to vent all their everyday frustrations.

• I thought things must have been rough, but this has turned into a party.

• France, the country with the worst academic performance in Europe. Even if far-left forces like the Communist Party and Islamic groups are pulling the strings behind the scenes, this wouldn’t have happened if the people had functioning brains. This is what happens when idiots are coddled.

• If the French themselves are rioting for fun, they can’t complain about immigrants looting.

• I bet they watch anime illegally, lol.

• This is simply guilt by association.

• Don’t mix politics with culture.

• It wouldn’t be surprising if some country tried to regulate manga and anime because they’re being used in riots.

• Looks fun. I’m starting to sympathize with them a little.

• Sorry, but before opposing fascism, shouldn’t they oppose arson and looting? They look like the Nazi SA, which set fire to and looted Jewish stores.

• This makes no sense. Japanese people are peaceful and value their traditional culture. They don’t confuse anime with reality.

• I despise people who commit robberies and set fire to 150-year-old buildings.

• It’s true that protagonists in Japanese entertainment are often positioned against authority. Even Goku, despite being at the bottom of the Saiyan hierarchy, opposes Vegeta, who belongs to the ruling class, for example.

• Have you actually read the series? There’s absolutely no power relationship between Goku and Vegeta as Saiyans. In fact, Vegeta doesn’t have any authority to dominate other Saiyans either.

• Don’t use Japanese anime, you far-left criminal groups.

• I’m against the political use of anime.

• A lot of people want to blame immigrants, but France regularly goes through this kind of thing. Maybe they have some admiration for the French Revolution?

• How many of the people here were actually born in France?

That’s it! What do you think?