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Japanese pro gamer kicked off e-sports team after saying short men shouldn’t have human rights

Casey Baseel Feb 17, 2022
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Tekken pro asks guys under 170 centimeters (67 inches) tall to “please live your life with the idea ‘I have no human rights’ in your mind.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Japanese pro gamer Tanukana sent out an invitation to fans to watch her newest video stream. The 29-year-old Tekken 7 specialist wasn’t going to be showing off any ten-hit combos or giving any strategy lessons, though. Instead she was going to be making a cake, and answering questions from fans while in the kitchen.

It sounds like a literal recipe for a laid-back, innocuous stream. At some point, though, Tanukana got onto the subject of a time she ordered something from Uber Eats. “So the delivery person was this young guy, and after I got my food from him, he kinda just kept standing there outside my door. So, like, he rings the bell again, and when I ask what’s up he goes ‘Sorry, but would you be wiling to tell me your contact info [i.e. phone number/email address]?‘”

Tanukana didn’t appreciate the attempted romantic advance. “All I could feel was terror,” she recalled during the stream. “And like, it was a total pain that he knew where I lived. I’d really hate if he came back and set my home on fire if I shot him down harshly.”

▼ Nobody wants a side-order of arson.

All the same, Tanukana still turned the man down, and since she didn’t mention any subsequent revenge attempts, apparently the delivery guy took rejection well enough. She was still upset about what had happened as she was recounting the experience during her Tuesday stream. The reason, though, wasn’t necessarily because she feels it’s inappropriate for a delivery person to try to make a romantic connection with a customer. She just thinks it’s wrong for a guy to do that if he also happens to be short, saying:

“He was short, probably only 165 centimeters [65 inches] tall. He might even have been shorter than 165! As soon as I saw how short he was, I was like ‘Nope.’ If he’d been tall and had a really buff body then there’s a chance I would have given him my number.”

That sudden shift in tone had the streaming audience feeling somewhat less sympathetic towards Tanukana, but when she saw the lukewarm reactions her height-based statements were getting, she doubled down.

“165 centimeters is tiny. It’s no good. Honestly, if you’re under 170 centimeters, you have no human rights. If you’re a guy who’s less than 170 centimeters tall, please live your life with the idea “I have no human rights” in your mind at all times. Please look into bone-lengthening surgeries. Type ‘bone-lengthening surgeries’ into a search engine. Once you get to 170 centimeters, then you’ll start to get proper human rights.”

While people in Japan can be startlingly frank in expressing their opinions on what they do and don’t find attractive in a potential romantic partner, calling those who doesn’t meet your appearance standards subhuman was going too far for many in the streaming audience. When one chat commenter reacted with “Huh? Did you hear what she just said?” Tanukana just kept digging.

“Yeah, I’m saying it. Short guys obviously shouldn’t have human rights. Know your place. I’m tough on short guys. But let me say this: I’m nice to fatties and baldies.”

▼ Nothing proves your kindness credentials like calling people “fatties” and “baldies,” right?

A few hours later, Tanukana felt the need to apologize, and took to Twitter to say:

“The contents of one of my streams is being called hate speech. That was not my intent, but there seem to be many people who felt uncomfortable, so I take back what I said. I apologize. I wanted to say I like tall guys…but in my streams I always talk like I’m talking with people who are really close to me, so the words I used were harsh, sorrrry…”

Unfortunately for Tanukana, unlike video games, life doesn’t allow you to simply revert to a previous save file when things don’t go like you wanted them to, and the breezy tone of her apology wasn’t doing much to smooth things over either. On Wednesday, Cyclops Athlete Gaming, the Osaka-based e-sports team that Tanukana was a member of (but which did not administer her cake cooking video stream), posted an apology to fans and sponsors, one of whom, Red Bull, removed Tanukana from the list of brand ambassadors on its Japanese website. On Thursday, the team followed up with an announcement that it is cancelling its contract with Tanukana, saying:

“Our company finds the inappropriate remarks and attitude [of Tanukana] in her stream on February 15, 2022, to be unacceptable…We recognize discriminatory or hurtful statements, including those made on social media, as unforgivable, and we value the diversity of all people.

To prevent such situations from happening again, we will be strengthening the education and guidance systems for our team’s players.”

Again, had Tanukana simply said “I only want to date tall guys,” or even “I don’t ever want to date a short guy,” all of this would have probably blown over, as Japan’s attitude regarding physical attraction generally tends to be “Hey, we all like what we like.” Trying to tie recognition as a human being to a roller coaster-like height requirement, though, is a little too short on common sense or decency.

Source: Cyclops Athlete Gaming, J-Cast News via Otakomu, Mildom, Jin, Yorozu News via Yahoo! Japan News via Otakomu
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert images: Pakutaso (1, 2)
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