Kentarō Kobayashi

Controversy

Kobayashi was assigned the role of Director of the Tokyo Olympics Opening Ceremony; however, a 1998 comedy show recording of him making an insensitive joke about the Holocaust surfaced. In that comedy show, he said "We tried to play Holocaust with these human-shaped papers for a kids TV show, but our producer heavily scolded us." It was pointed out that Kobayashi's selection may violate the Olympic Charter, which advocates anti-discrimination. On 22 July, State Minister of Defense Yasuhide Nakayama updated his Twitter account. He posted: "I immediately contacted and talked to Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC)." The SWC released a statement and expressed the view that Kobayashi's jokes include those for people with disabilities. On 22 July 2021, the Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (TOCOG) dismissed Kobayashi. He made an apology comment and said: "My job is to entertain people. I should not make people feel uncomfortable. I understand that my stupid choice of words at that time was wrong, and I regret it."