How QAnon Took Root in Japan

Today we speak to researcher and Japanese cult expert Sarah Hightower. She's going to explain to us how QAnon took root in Japan, and how it's evolved into its own highly organised franchise there. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Q and On is now the most prolific online conspiracy
theory of the twenty one century. None of their predictions
came true. Q has vanished and the storm never came,
but Q and on is still alive. I'm Jake Hanrahan,
and this is series two of Q Clearance Podcast, shedding
light on the ongoing Q and on conspiracy theory. This

(00:24):
is a production of Kudatar Media and I Heart Radio.
Today we're going to be speaking about the confusing world
of Q and on Japan. That's right, the trump centric
US online conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories has
managed to take roots seven thousand miles away in Japan. Now,

(00:48):
you might have seen Japan in the news recently due
to the Olympics being hosted there and the protests that
that has caused. Many people in Japan feel that the
Olympics will essentially act as a super spreader event for COVID.
Japan has had over fifteen thousand deaths from the virus,
with almost one million cases in total. Hundreds of Japanese

(01:13):
citizens have taken to the streets to air their concerns
about the further spread that the Olympics could cause. However,
a group of people in Japan, of course, not concerned
about covid ah. The Japanese Q and Ons, like their
American counterparts, they believe it's all a hoax and a

(01:33):
quote scam. DEMI to get an idea of how the
hell Q and On gained a solid following in Japan,
We're going to be speaking to Sarah Hightower. You've probably
heard of her. She's been on the podcast a few
times and she helps with the research. Sarah is a
researcher specializing in cults with an incredibly in depth knowledge

(01:56):
of Japanese cults. She's also one of the very best
Q and On researchers out there, so as you can imagine,
she is very well versed in Q and on Japan.
She's going to explain how this all happened. So Sarah
maybe just explained to us how did Q and on

(02:18):
managed to kind of make it infest its way into Japan.
Obviously it's a very America centric thing, so it's kind
of unusual. Um, maybe give us an idea, give us
some kind of timeline of how this happened. Yeah, people
are still shocked when they hear the Japanese Q and
On it's just like a thing. But around the Japanese

(02:38):
internet over on that side of things, there's varying degrees
of interest in Q and on since the earliest days
of Q and on. Now is Q non America centric? Yeah? Absolutely,
it's the gult of personality centator around this image of
Donald Trump as an infallible god game. Yeah, so it's
it's it's really stupid and it is really American. But

(02:59):
that's not all you and on is. Yeah, pull back
and look at the bigger picture. What else is Q
and I? Q and On is an anti Semitic conspiracy
theories plucked straight out of the Protocols of the Learned
Elders of Zion. If you don't know what Sarah is
talking about, their the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
It is a hoaxed anti Semitic text from the early

(03:22):
nineteen hundreds. It originated in Russia and was eventually taught
by the Nazi regime in schools as if it were real,
of course, to demonize the Jewish people. Many parts of
the Q and On conspiracy theory are very similar to
the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. They don't always

(03:43):
name Jews directly. However, the ideas are often the same,
and the protocols and these anti Semitic conspiracy theories, they've
also taken hard at various points throughout Japanese history. But
I think you wanted the timeline, so let's do that. Forest.
By the time team rolls around over here, four Chuan

(04:04):
has already chased given On off the site in Q
and on made their home over on h Chan, now
the Japanese counterpart to four Chan. At this time, it's
not to channel anymore, it's five channel now. You remember
from series one that Q and on first gained prominence
on the Chan boards to channel five channel. These are

(04:28):
very similar things, although most of them are just text
and they exist mostly for the Japanese audience. Whilst all
of this Q and on stuff was happening on four
Chan and h Chan and then a con a lot
of it actually started appearing on the two channel and
five channel boards in Japan as well. I know it's complicated,

(04:50):
but there's a big mess where all of this started,
and it all points to the channel boards both in
America and apparently in Japan outside of the channisphere or
in Happenese Internet. You have the blogger sphere, because blogs
are still a really huge still in Japan. You have
these blogs are more in touch with like conspiracy theories, subculture,
with the people who are just really really way to

(05:11):
go into it, honestly, so, Sarah said, blogging is still
a very big thing in Japan. As Q and On
began to gain traction on the Chan boards, Japanese conspiracy
theory bloggers transferred that information onto their blogs. The blogs
spread like wildfire. They've got a lot of things, and

(05:32):
eventually some of Japan's many so called new religious movements
began to take notice. In short, some cults in Japan
began posting about Q and On. Quite early on. There
were blogs that were owned and operated by people who are,
you know, either running cults, are or affiliated the culting movements.

(05:54):
There's one in particular as a new age a wellness cult.
It's run out of Hiurussima, and they have three blog
lugs and one in Japanese like two in English, and
they're already selling you privacy ship. They also have Haywald
conspiracy theory newsletters with prophecies and times bullshit. They're just
throwing it all together. These are like some of the

(06:14):
original pioneers like spreading Q and on, but also showing
how cu not could be adapted over here on the
Japanese Internet for their domestic audience. So basically, when Q
and On came out, it was very similar to what
some of these cults in Japan believe in already doomsday prophecies,
all different ideas and conspiracy theories fling together to project

(06:39):
one kind of idea that this specific cult adheers to.
Sounds a lot like Q and on, right, So instead
of going against Q and on some of these cults,
is Sarah mentioned just picked up and ran with it
and said, yeah, this is something we believe in as well.
It took a while, but over the years Q and
on conspiracy theories started to gain traction in Japan because

(07:02):
of these people that were translating them and putting them
out on their blogs. So let's go to now people
who are translating Q and on stuff into Japanese. They're
starting to give some actual traction. And the biggest one
is ari Ari's translating all of the Q drops. She's
translating q map dot pub and she's doing is professional quality.

(07:25):
So this person Ariy that Sarah is talking about. She
starts translating Q and On texts into Japanese very professionally.
They're well done. Everybody can understand them. This gives Air
some credibility within the global Q and On movement, and
before you know it, she is then promoted by the

(07:46):
regular US Q and ON crowd Q and on h
Q Q and on General Command whatever, the main group
of people that have helped spread this all over the world.
So then Area is getting promoted by them. The circle
is complete, the networks are made, and Q and On
starts to grow larger in Japan. So this little movement

(08:09):
starts to can't call less around Area's propaganda output. Aria's
little movement would become Q Army Japan Flin. That's right,
she said, Q Army Japan Flynn. This is in regards
to Mike Flynn, Mike Flynn being one of the biggest

(08:30):
Q and On proponents in the US, probably in the
whole world. If you remember. Mike Flynn is a retired U.
S Army lieutenant general who became the twenty five U
S National Security Advisor for Trump before he was sacked
after twenty two days for lying about his connections to

(08:51):
Russia Q Army Japan. Flynn was one of the first
properly organized Q and On groups two for men a
following in Japan. Obviously, they have this big allegiance to
Mike Flynn, who many in the U s q and
On scene also have an allegiance to. They call him

(09:12):
the General. You know how it goes coincidentally or maybe not,
Mike Flynn was following several Q and on Japan accounts
on Twitter before he was banned from the platform. One

(09:33):
of the other Q and on groups in Japan, as
if this wasn't complicated enough, became known as j NN.
J Anon is a more mainstream friendly, looser collective of
standard nationalists who buy into a lot of stupid conspiracy
theory stuff. But they are balls too well insane rep

(09:56):
and Mike Flynn and saying that the emperor is like
murdered and replaced the shadow clones in eighteen hundreds and
there hasn't done a genuine emperor since then. So what's
interesting here about what Sarah just said is that Q
and On Japan at first took on the regular U
s Q and On ideas and conspiracy theories but as

(10:20):
you just heard, it later began to form in its
own region specific conspiracies. Take for example, Q and On's
belief that Joe Biden is a body double and that
he actually died some time ago. As Sarah just said,
some of the Japanese Q and Ons are incorporating a
very similar conspiracy theory into their own mythos, but they're

(10:43):
drawing it from their own culture. Essentially, Q and on
is the framework, but the followers are creating their own law.
It sounds to me is if Q and On Japan
is a successful Q and on franchise. What's more, jn
On was formed within an amalgamation of several different well

(11:06):
organized cults in Japan. Jann is organized by offshoots of
the Unification Church that carry around guns the gun needs
standard Unification Church, Happy Science, Happiness Realization Party offshoots, and
Yeah Fall and Gone. All of those groups mentioned, as
I said, are fairly powerful cults in Japan, or New

(11:30):
age religious movements as they like to be called. So
Q and On Japan is still spreading. It's got the
backing of influential cults, and it feeds off of Q
and on us to then form its own theories locally.
So should people in Japan be worried about Q and

(11:50):
on Japan, Well, it depends as the number of people
actually involved in it is kind of unknown. Sarah Planes,
I think in a recent interview air from a you know,
Q Army Japan flin and she said they had around
like five hundred members, which means they have like five
hundred members who have signed up to be like an

(12:13):
actual member member, and they have been vetted and granted
actual like membership status into an actual group, and they
meet up at each other's houses and pastile propaganda train stations.
Now you might hear that and think, Okay, well five
hundred there's millions of people in Japan, that's not such
a big deal. But just think about what Sarah said.

(12:36):
That's not just five people that are vaguely interested or
are reposting the stuff that Airy puts out. That is
five hundred people that have signed up as start up
members of Q Army Japan, Flynn. That's a very big
movement that is connected, has very specific goals, and they

(12:57):
all go out onto the street and spread the proper ganda,
meet up at people's houses, talk about this stuff that
isn't just an internet movement anymore. That is five people
who sound highly motivated by a deeply worrying conspiracy theory
that has already had dieret consequences, as we saw with
the Capital Building storming in January of this year. Now,

(13:22):
hopefully Ariy is lying and there isn't five hundred members,
but either way, Q Army Japan FLYNN is actually by
the sounds of it, pretty well organized. And that's just
one faction and you've got you know, the j and
on that we discussed, the more magat oriented. You know,

(13:42):
it's still like really not good ship. I don't really
know how many you got there, but what I do
know so is that like it doesn't really matter because
we know it's there and we're seeing it. We know
there's a Q and UN presence here. We know that
the cult is here, and it is a destructive cult.
Destructive cults in Japan have a serious history. Take for example,

(14:04):
am Shinrikyo, the doomsday cult responsible for the country's largest
domestic terror attack. Members of am Shinrikyo released Sarah nerv
gas onto the subways of Tokyo. They killed fourteen people
in this attack and caused several thousand more serious injury.

(14:25):
They did this as a means to bring about some
kind of apocalyptic scenario in Japan, when they believed only
all members would survive. What's interesting about am shin Rikyo
is that they had many, many members, They had hundreds
of millions in cash, and they went on to form
a global movement. Their ideology, much like Q and On

(14:51):
tour families apart and ruined relationships is a destructive cult.
Innocence that it causes lasting psychological, in emotional damage to
anyone who gets drawn in is a destructive cult, and
sense that it's tearing families apart. And it's a destructive
cult in the sense that, as we've seen demonstrated multiple occasions,

(15:13):
there's a prevnsity for racticalization viles. How concerned should we
be about Q and On Japan. I'm not gonna sit
here and say I think they could be the next
I can say that they are similar to them, and
I can say that they're a destructive cult in all
the ways that own ones. But I also don't think

(15:35):
that you have to have, you know, multiple murders and
terrorist attacks on your hand to then be taken seriously
I think people should be concerned because there is a
cult that's actively recruiting and hurting people. So that is

(15:57):
q and On Japan. Born from the radical ideas of
the more conventional U S q and On crowd, the
q and On Japan crowd seems to have started franchising
itself into more radical groups, and some are even organizing
with proper membership lists and activities for the other q

(16:17):
and Ons to do. Now, I just want to say,
hopefully me and Sarah are wrong. Hopefully the comparisons to
aum Shinrikyo are completely baseless. However, I think it is
very much worth mentioned in such things in the context
of a cult building up building steam in Japan, and
one that specifically caused for violence against people that don't

(16:40):
believe the same things that they do. Hopefully none of
this ever turns violent. To get an idea of how
badly q and On has begun hurting people, hurting families
all over the world, next week we're going to hear
firsthand from someone who helps families affected by human on.

(17:01):
In one case, the results of the q and On
ideology was potentially deadly. Q Clearance is brought to you
by I Heart Radio and Coudata Media. I'm Jake Hanrahan.

(17:22):
You can find me online at Jake Underscool Hanrahan. That's
h A N A h A N. You can get
Q clearance merch at dark wash dot net. This episode
was produced by myself, with fact checking and additional research

(17:45):
by Sarah Hightower. The music is by Sound Black and
the sound was mixed by Thomas Griffin at Splicing Block,
Unperple and Unpert Countle