You're right I haven't seen much debate about it in Japanese news, but
when your family has been living on fish for thousands of years,
discontinuing the practice is somewhat of a joke.  At the same time,
internal debate about important matters is not Japan's strong point.
IMHO, for us fish eaters, if there are enough fish (sea creatures, wet
mammals, whatever) and they are not endangered then let's eat.  Whale
watching is cool and they are beautiful and so on, but they are also
food.  It's unbelivable that some people will be willing to die to save
the whales ie. Rainbow Warrior and so on, but will not even help their
friends and neighbors.  Anyway, I went to a local whale meat restaurant
and it is so cheap!  I don't think demand could be high if it is the
same price as tuna. Are they really going to catch a bunch of whales
just to be evil?  I think the market will limit whaling because it
looks a lot harder than net fishing, but that's not a fact based guess.

Yoshitaka Ikeda wrote:
> "John R. Yamamoto-Wilson" <john@rarebooksinjapan.com> writes:
>
> > Is there some sort of censorship going on? Are the media ashamed of
> > what is being done in the name of the Japanese people? Or is there a
> > raging internal debate going on somewhere and somehow I've just missed
> > it?
>
> Most of Japanese are approving for whaling.
> So, only few debates are going on.
>
>
> I think that some kind of whales, which are decreasing, should not be hunted.
> But most of whales, which are increasing, we can hunt, use and eat it.
>
>
> --
> --
> I LOVE SNOOPY!  でつ
> Yoshitaka Ikeda mailto:ikeda@4bn.ne.jp
> My Honeypot: honey@4bn.ne.jp  <-don't send this address