The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo criticized Japan's public broadcaster NHK on Tuesday for airing an "offensive and insensitive" anime video that attempted to explain the Black Lives Matter movement and the ongoing protests against police brutality that have swept the United States.
The short animation, which first aired during one of NHK's regular current affairs shows, featured a muscular black man in a tank top holding a woman's purse, "explaining" that the Black Lives Matter protests were motivated by economic disparity between black and white people, and because the coronavirus pandemic has affected black communities disproportionately.