‘Invasive Species'? Japan's Growing Pains on Immigration
But that's what happened in Japan this week when Megumi Hayashibara, a prominent voice actress behind icons from Kitty to the long-running anime franchise Evangelion's Rei Ayanami, took to her blog to discuss the growing population of outsiders.
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34 minutes ago
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Bad Bunny Takes Shots at Trump's Immigration Policies in Music Video for 'Nuevayol'
Bad Bunny released the video for his latest single, "NUEVAYoL", on Friday, July 4 It features a voice that has an uncanny similarity to President Donald Trump In the video — which comes days after Trump toured the newly opened I.C.E. detention facility "Alligator Alcatraz," — the voice apologizes to Americans, stating that the country "is nothing without immigrants"Bad Bunny dropped the video for his single "NUEVAYoL" on Friday, July 4, featuring a cameo from a voice that sounds suspiciously like President Donald Trump. The retro-styled video, directed by Renell Medrano, begins with scenes of the Puerto Rican artist attending a classic-looking quinceañera, complete with a nervous 15-year-old honoree, dancing chambelanes and a host of raucous family members. The song, from Bad Bunny's latest album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, samples "Un Verano en Nueva York" by Andy Montañez and El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, adding to the retro feel. However, in keeping with the 31-year-old artist's recent releases, there are also a few pointed political messages. One shot of the video shows Bad Bunny saluting from the crown of the Statue of Liberty, which has been draped in a Puerto Rican flag. Immediately following that shot, the video cuts to a group of men standing around a 1970s-style boombox. The voice emanating from the speaker is a soundalike of President Trump, only the words are nothing like his usual rhetoric.' 'I made a mistake," the voice says. "I want to apologize to the immigrants in America. I mean the United States. I know America is the whole continent." "I want to say that this country is nothing without the immigrants. This country is nothing without Mexicans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Colombians, Venezuelans, Cubans," it continues, before the men shut it off and walk away. The video ends with images of the Puerto Rican diaspora in New York, some in black and white, but all keeping with the retro feel. It ends with a simple message in text: "juntos somos mas fuertes," or "together we are stronger." The "NUEVAYoL" video follows a week of the administration's continued escalation of anti-immigration policies. On Tuesday, July 1, Trump toured the newly opened "Alligator Alcatraz," an I.C.E. detention facility built in the Florida Everglades in just eight days. The massive warehouse, full of chain link dividers and hundreds of bunk beds, will be a holding area for up to 5,000 ICE detainees. The administration has touted the area's surrounding wildlife — which includes alligators, panthers and pythons — as an added measure of security. "You don't always have land so beautiful and so secure [with] a lot of bodyguards and a lot of cops in the form of alligators that you don't have to pay them so much," Trump told reporters. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Recent years have seen Bad Bunny using his platform to send more and more powerful political messages, in his music — particularly Debí Tirar Más Fotos — and beyond. After comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a 'floating island of garbage' during a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden last October, Bad Bunny released an eight-minute video celebrating his homeland. Captioned simply "garbage," the clip — which was originally shown before 2021 Bad Bunny concerts in Puerto Rico, but never released publicly — highlighted the island's sporting legends and musical innovations, praising the nation as "the definition of heart and resistance." In a January 2025 interview with Rolling Stone, Bad Bunny opened up about his decision to be more outspoken about his political beliefs and the criticism that might come from it. 'People are used to artists getting big and mainstream and not expressing themselves about these things, or if they do, talking about it in a super careful way,' he said. 'But I'm going to talk, and whoever doesn't like it doesn't have to listen to me.' Read the original article on People
Yahoo
3 hours ago
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Andrew Schulz cast as Hong Kong-born Dan Hibiki in live-action 'Street Fighter'
[Source] American comedian and podcaster Andrew Schulz has been tapped to play Hong Kong–born martial artist Dan Hibiki in Legendary Entertainment's upcoming live-action 'Street Fighter' movie. First introduced in Capcom's 1995 fighter 'Street Fighter Alpha,' Dan is canonically born in Hong Kong to Japanese parents and is known for his overconfident attitude and intentionally weak Saikyo-ryu style. The outspoken New Yorker, who is of Scottish, German and Irish descent, is cast alongside an ensemble that already includes Andrew Koji as Ryu, Noah Centineo as Ken, Jason Momoa as Blanka, Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson as Balrog, Callina Liang as Chun-Li and Roman Reigns, a Samoan wrestler, as Akuma. A Reddit thread criticizing Schulz's casting quickly gained traction, with the original poster writing, 'Well... Asian whitewashing is happening yet again...' The user continued, 'We know Dan is Asian, is it too much to ask for an Asian guy to play him in a live action movie? Live action is not like video games and cartoons, the audience is gonna expect the Asian guy to actually look like an Asian.' In a separate thread, another user wrote, 'Dan is of Asian descent. Therefore, it makes no sense to cast a white guy for the role, especially after the backlash Hollywood had for casting white actors in Asian roles during the past decade.' A reply in that discussion added, 'They're casting Roman Reigns, a Samoan, to play the Japanese man Akuma. I don't think they give a fuck.' Trending on NextShark: Production is slated to start in Australia in August although the studio has not set a release date. This story is part of The Rebel Yellow Newsletter — a bold weekly newsletter from the creators of NextShark, reclaiming our stories and celebrating Asian American voices. Trending on NextShark: Subscribe free to join the movement. If you love what we're building, consider becoming a paid member — your support helps us grow our team, investigate impactful stories, and uplift our community. ! Trending on NextShark: Download the NextShark App: Want to keep up to date on Asian American News? Download the NextShark App today!
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4 hours ago
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What the 'Squid Game' baby says about us
Poor Player 222. Many of the doomed, desperate souls featured on 'Squid Game' wound up in Hwang Dong-hyuk's underground, deadly arena because of a few expensive, ill-advised decisions that plummeted their bank accounts deep into the red. But Kim Jun-hee, our Player 222 (played by K-pop star Jo Yu-ri), is there because she has no place else to go and no one to turn to. Orphaned at a young age, she hooks up with a bad boyfriend, crypto influencer Lee Myung-gi (Yim Swian), who persuades her to invest in what turns out to be a scam. In debt by tens of millions and pregnant by Myung-gi, who ghosts her, Jun-hee takes her chances with these death games. When she's introduced in season 2, her pregnancy is far along enough that Player 149, Jang Geum-ja (Kang Ae-shim), notices she could go into labor any time. That makes it a foregone conclusion that Jun-hee will give birth at a most inopportune moment, which she does. By then, she's also broken her ankle, lowering her survival chances to zero when the next game is revealed to be jump rope. She recognizes this, hands off the newborn to the show's stoic hero Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), and jumps to her death. Watching this drama unfold from within their luxurious lounge are a group of masked VIPs who have placed bets on certain players. One drunken billionaire accidentally selected 222 and throws a fit when she dies. But then another suggests that the newborn should assume her mother's number and join the fun. 'Squid Games' recently concluded to mixed reactions, although the third season's six episodes garnered 60.1 million views worldwide between its June 27 premiere date and June 29, according to The Hollywood Reporter. That represents the largest three-day tally Netflix has ever recorded in its internal rankings. Whether it met expectations or fell short, enough people were invested in finding out whether Lee's empathetic Gi-hun would manage to survive this hell again. Entering the baby into the game, however, probably wasn't a move most people saw coming. It's preposterous. So is the idea of risking one's life by playing children's playground games for a shot at 45.6 billion won, equivalent to more than $33 million. Why shouldn't a baby have a shot at earning what its mother couldn't? After all, if it were born outside the arena, it would inherit Jun-hee's debt. Justifying why this pile of helplessness would be placed in competition with a group of bloodthirsty adult men might mean we're focusing on the wrong thing. Again. The same goes for the other predominant question about the baby: was it real, or CGI? Turns out it was a real . . . prop. In some scenes, Jo held a silicone dummy and in others, a robotic puppet. (Our last glimpse of the baby features a real child actor since the scene takes place in a safe environment.) But since Hwang intends 'Squid Game' to be a grand parable about late-stage capitalism, then each of its players must evoke some element of society, right? The third season features a scam queen shaman who builds a small cult of followers that she sacrifices to men hunting them with knives; a minor, failed pop star whose narcissism and drug habit make him dangerous; and a slimy executive who excels at talking his way out of disadvantageous situations. One might think of Jun-hee and her little girl as stand-ins for the women and children swept into limbo as a result of careless politics. But after watching 'Squid Game In Conversation,' an auxiliary episode featuring Hwang in dialogue with Lee Jung-jae and Lee Byung-hun, who plays Front Man, it seems even that is reading too much into the value of Player 222. From what we can surmise, the baby is a device to showcase the nobility of the show's male characters or lack thereof. That's it. Nothing more. Of course, devices have their use. In 'Squid Game In Conversation,' Hwang tells his actors that 'the most important decision in Season 3 was to give birth, to have the baby be born and to give Gi-hun his mission to protect it and finally save the baby by sacrificing himself,' he said. 'Everything led me there. When I finally landed on that idea, I realized, 'Ah, it was all for this.'' Maybe that's one reason the ending was dissatisfying. Please understand, this doesn't imply a belief that most people watching 'Squid Game' care about the fates of anyone in this show besides Gi-hun, let alone notice that no other female characters made it to the final game besides Player 222 2.0. Fewer may see the irony in the remaining women being killed off by a round of jump rope, a playground game predominantly played by girls.'Squid Game,' for all its bluntness, tries to hold up a mirror to the real world, where a cursory look around lets us know how little society values the lives of women and children. There have been many stories about the backlash against feminist discourse in Korea, stemming from protests about the wide wage gap between men and women, along with the general normalization of misogyny. Yoon Suk Yeol's anti-feminist platform is cited as one of the planks that won him the presidency in 2022. After Donald Trump was re-elected president, some American women began considering the principles of South Korea's 4B movement more seriously. The name is shorthand for bihon, which translates to 'no marriage'; bichulsan, which means 'no childbirth'; biyeonae, meaning 'no dating'; and bisekseu, which means 'no sex.' That sounds extreme until you read a few headlines. Right now, Georgia law is keeping a brain-dead woman on life support so her months-old fetus can gestate to term. Her family had no choice in that decision; state law grants fetuses personhood and bans abortion after the point at which an ultrasound can detect cardiac activity in an embryo. On Thursday, our Republican-held Congress passed an unpopular bill that strips funding from Medicaid and food assistance for low-income families. The New York Times quotes a sobbing Democratic Rep. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado, as saying, 'The amount of kids who are going to go without health care and food — people like my mom are going to be left to die because they don't have access to health care. It's just pretty unfathomable.' Hyung's sidelining of women in his violent fiction ranks much lower on our collective list of problems with the world, but you can't accuse him of being out of touch with politics. Even so, once you realize the role of women in this show is to sacrifice themselves in service of men's stories, you might also notice how much suffering is piled on some of them in the name of entertainment. As USA Today critic Kelly Lawler mentioned to a mutual friend, there was no need to break Jun-hee's ankle before sending her into a game she had no chance of surviving. She'd just pushed another human out of her body on the hard floor of some deadly maze. Hopping around after that is not in the cards for anybody. But giving birth is not enough. To ensure the audience cares about the robot baby, its mother must suffer greatly. Geum-ja is another mother willing to die for her worthless son, entering the games in the hope of paying off his debts without knowing he'd also signed on. She bravely stabs him to protect Jun-hee and her baby, but hangs herself shortly afterward. Women in 'Squid Game' are there to break in the most fetching ways. Jun-hee's anguish has a similar purpose to that of first-season favorite Kang Sae-byeok (Jung Ho-yeon), who is nearly broken when she talks Gi-hun out of a morally reprehensible act. Soon after that, Gi-hun and Sae-byeok's shared adversary murders her in her bed, which certainly makes Gi-hun look like the better man. Her ghost reappears in the final episodes to utter the same words she told him then: 'Mister. Don't do it. That isn't you. You're a good person at heart.' Baby 222 lands on a more fortunate ending because, at least for now, killing infants for sport on TV is a terrible look. Granted, Myung-gi, the third surviving player at the end and the baby's father, looks willing to do that instead of becoming a single dad. Thanks to Gi-hun's knack for hanging on to the bitter end, we never have to find out what Myung-gi would have done. Gi-hun then trades his life for that of an infant with no parents, no name and no traceable identity. Front Man could have done anything with Player 222 Jr., but — nobly, again — leaves her in the care of his more principled brother Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), a former cop. Then he delivers the remainder of Gi-hun's winnings to his daughter, who now lives in the United States, and declares she wants nothing to do with him before she learns her father is dead. One of the last women seen in 'Squid Game' is an American recruiter played by Cate Blanchett, who grins at Front Man watching from his limo as she slaps some indebted fool. By then, we've mostly stopped thinking about that baby, which is just as well. She never really mattered in the first place. The following article contains spoilers for "Squid Game" The post What the 'Squid Game' baby says about us appeared first on
