This report about yarase, the Japanese media's practice of "enhancing" reality to make their own reality programs more interesting is intriguing on a number of levels:

• It provides proof that the common accusation that our own media "manipulate" reality should be seen more as a human condition rather than some sort of dark manipulation exclusively found in America
• It illustrates the uniquely Japanese proclivity for "managing" reality, and not understanding that the perception of reality being different from its actuality is a bad thing.
• It means one part of the Japanese System is having a problem with another part of it. Very little in Japan happens for obvious reasons. The back-room power brokers who actually run the place typically couch their grabs and maneuvering in layer upon layer of subtlety and deception. The lack of attribution is especially telling here.

The Enigma of Japanese Power, which took me probably three months to read, was an amazingly informative book. Before, I would've simply accepted this story as proof their media was just as screwed up as ours. Now, I can see that not only is their media just as screwed up as ours on the face of it, there are several subtexts and layers that are even more screwed up than I could've possibly imagined.