As North Korea's threatening bluster continues to make international headlines, it seems almost bizarre that Japan, which would be in direct physical peril if a conflict erupted on the Korean Peninsula, has its mind on something else, namely Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents. Though important, the abduction issue is nevertheless old news.
There's almost no sense of danger at large in Japan with regard to its communist neighbor, owing mainly to the fact that the Japanese media portrays North Korea as simply a basket case. The nation is rarely presented as a palpable threat, despite the fact that Kim Jong Il once test-fired missiles over Japan.
The huge media turnout last Monday for a news conference to promote the new James Bond movie, in which North Korea is the bad guy, suggests that the film may prove to have a stronger grip on the nation's imagination when it's released here in March than the current standoff between Washington and Pyongyang does.