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If you go to YouTube and watch videos related to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, you'll see a lot of Korean users complaining about the radioactive hazards from the Fukushima disaster, going as far as to call for boycotts and throwing around WWII-related inflammatory comments. I don't see people from other nationalities complain this much about the radiation issue in Japan. What's their beef, anyway? I know Japan and Korea has a tense relationship, but I didn't expect it to be this bad.

Case in point

Imagine if your country was invaded by a foreign force who massacred your people, raped your women, and forced your workers to work for them in inhumane conditions. And when ths foreign force finally faces defeat, the only punish they recieve is a couple of slashes on the wrists. They don't even apologize for it or do enough to make amends for their actions.

Yeah, that's how the Koreans feel about Japan even this long after the end of World War II. The nationalistic ones on both sides especially will do anything just to undermine the other side. Keep this in mind when East Asian politics are involved in any way.

Even if their grudge is this deep, their playground-tier insults on a sporting event meant to unite the world are pretty ridiculous from the perspective of an outsider. And I'm starting to understand why some Koreans have a pretty awful self-loathing attitude.

Besides some other equally pretty bad relationships between nations like N.Korea/S.Korea, Israel/Palestine, India/Bangladesh etc. you'd be hard pressed to find a relationship as poor and deep-seated as that between Japan and Korea.

They've had bad blood between one another from one bad event after another for nearly 500 years.

Compared to most other modern conflicts, that typically stem from events from within the past 100 years or so, it can't be understated how deep their bad blood goes.

One thing that concerns me about this enmity is how it cultivates destructive self-loathing. Some Koreans really despise the way their country's culture demands them to demonize their own neighbors. As a result, you'll often see self-hating Koreans (trolls or otherwise) who would harshly criticize or even shit-talk their own homeland just as much as these aforementioned anti-Japanese trolls, fanning even more ignorance and hatred. It's a vicious cycle.

Have you ever visited the comment section of national anthem videos or the first comments of any article about other countries in news websites? The truth is that in the internet, the niche of people who is more vocally interested in other nations are people wanting to present their hate for such nations

There is justifications for nations to have beef with each other, but there's also this thing called "obsession"

I just found out that the reason behind the recent influx of K-trolls on Olympic videos is most likely the trade restriction Japan imposed on South Korea some time ago.

Granted, I can understand the frustration in Seoul and the possible consequences this could have on the country's long-term economy, but it's still annoying to see them desperately try to undermine the Olympic Games with ad hominem and drown out meaningful discussion.

The hatred between Japan and Korea is pretty deep rooted, for reasons already explained in the thread.

Japan honestly tries to brush under the rug the things they did to both Korea and China, and due to their own culture they can't even denounce the Emperor during that time period even though the current Emperor is just a figurehead. Similar to Holocaust deniers there are people who try to get various atrocities removed from Japanese textbooks as well.

Obviously Korean trolls doesn't really help the situation, but Japan honestly is not doing anything about it either.