A recurring news story over the past several years concerns claims of the harassment of Japanese nationals residing on the East and West coasts of the United States. Most appear to have originated from municipalities where South Korean immigrants and Korean-Americans have successfully campaigned to erect statues memorializing the "comfort women," who were forced to provide sex for Japanese troops before and during World War II.

From late 2013, most of these articles alleged that Japanese nationals (as opposed to Japanese-Americans), including young children, residing in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, California, had been on the receiving end of various forms of bullying and harassment at the hands of said Koreans.

Interestingly, one of the first people to raise this issue was Liberal Democratic Party Diet member Eriko Yamatani, who in the current Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe holds the portfolios of National Public Safety Commission chairperson, minister in charge of the North Korean abduction issue and several other posts.