Every Japanese TV network has female anchors, but Nippon TV seems to use more women in their news shows than any other. It was also the only commercial Japanese network to have a female "embed" reporting from Iraq. Since there weren't too many embedded women reporters in the first place, she naturally attracted attention in Japan: a 40-year-old woman who speaks perfect English because she grew up in Europe. It was her idea to be an embed and she reportedly had to beg Nippon TV to get her the assignment.
Her reports contained an added layer of unease in the eyes of Japanese viewers, who were very curious to know how this woman went about her daily routine in a very dangerous environment surrounded by mostly male soldiers. For many viewers, the reports themselves were less significant than her situation. When she appeared on TV dressed in her fatigues and sporting a helmet, everyone wondered about her rather than the soldiers she was covering.
It's difficult to say whether or not Nippon TV sought this kind of reaction, but it's easy to believe they encouraged it. They used another female reporter in Iraq who was not an embed, Mika Yamamoto of Japan Press. According to Nippon TV's Web site, she is there to provide "a female perspective" on the war, whatever that means. Yamamoto was in Baghdad at the Palestine Hotel with a male colleague when the hotel was hit by U.S. tank fire April 8. During that attack, two cameramen were killed, and Nippon TV caught part of the tragedy on videotape. The tape shows a bloodied photographer prone on the floor, with journalists trying to help him and, above it all, Yamamoto screaming hysterically in Japanese and broken English. It's impossible to tell what's going on, but it's easy to understand why Yamamoto was so upset. Even after the photographer was taken away, the camera stayed fixed on Yamamoto for several minutes as she sobbed uncontrollably. This drama was too good to waste. I saw it twice in succession on Nippon TV's evening news show before I changed the channel.