How anime almost ruined Japan with the help of raccoons (6 photos)

Did you know that there were no raccoons in Japan before? And then they just showed up and ruined everything. No, there used to be tanuki in Japan - this is a kind of raccoon dog, and it fit perfectly into the ecological balance of the country.





The raccoon is plotting something against Japan

But those raccoons, like in Guardians of the Galaxy, appeared in the country only in the late 1970s. And they took root so quickly in 44 of 47 Japanese prefectures that within ten years they became a real disaster for the country.

Why did Japan even need these raccoons?

It all started very innocently. In 1963, American writer Sterling North published the book Rascal: Memoirs of a Better Age. Where he told stories about his travels as a child with his friend a raccoon named Rascal (Shelmets). Everyone loved this book, not only in the USA, but also in other countries.



Cover of those years

Especially in Japan, where they released a rather long anime based on it in the late 70s. “Rascal the Raccoon” literally made all the children in the country fall in love with him over the course of 52 episodes.

And they began to demand such a raccoon from their parents as a pet! This did not exist in the country, and they began to be ordered alive from abroad. Up to 1,500 raccoons were imported per month, that’s what raccoon fever was like.





That cute anime that started it all

It's ironic that at the end of the book and the series, the boy realizes that his friend Rascal would be better off living free, because his home is nature. And he releases it. But the Japanese decided that this ending was not for them, and the raccoons get along well at home.

The Great Raccoon Bug

How wrong they were. Raccoons can unscrew and unscrew anything. They easily ran away from home and died under the wheels of cars. Or, if it happened in the villages, they ran into the forest.

And those that stayed at home still brought so much trouble that sooner or later the owners themselves quietly let them out.

Those raccoons that took root in the new environment, which was warm enough for them, quickly began to terrorize the entire local fauna. Cunning, smart, inventive, they easily found any bird's nest with eggs. At first there was a lot of food, as well as birds, practically no natural predators, and raccoons multiplied uncontrollably.



The raccoon escaped from home and begins his wild bandit journey

Standard tanukis could not compete with the resourcefulness and adaptability of American raccoons. The territory was reduced, as were the food supply. They had to retreat far into the forests.

Then they began to come out of the forest and rummage through the garbage, as they do in America. Which gave the Japanese a real shock, because they are very sensitive to sorting and garbage collection days. And then you get up and all the garbage has been gutted!



Do you remember the cartoon “Tanuki War”, it’s about legends about other, normal raccoons. local

This is war

Rural raccoons completely plundered farm beds; in the first years of the “raccoon invasion,” the question was even raised that Japan at this rate was facing, if not famine, then a serious rise in food prices due to shortages.

Farmers picked up guns and hoes and, without sentimentality, began to kill any raccoon they encountered. These are not Indians who are afraid to kill even a parrot that has become insolent on a poppy.



Warm fluffy purely Japanese tanuki, not such rascals

Raccoons, by the way, have decreased slightly precisely because of such unspoken farm extermination. If you voice this, then animal rights activists will immediately come running. But they haven’t disappeared from the forests, and as soon as they do, they immediately come out to destroy the fields and tear up garbage bags at night.