No doubt that were many members of the Japanese public who could appreciate Kazu’s appearance, but we’re pretty sure that there were a lot of pissed off people amongst the wider public, with cabinet ministers speaking out, coverage in the national news etc. Kazu’s dad even felt like he had to publicly apologise (see link below). Of course, we think Kazu’s a boss for doing what the hell he likes and reckon the whole thing was blown way out of proportion.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/SPORT/02/18/japan.kokubo.olympics/index.html

also, it was not the Japanese public that cared, but the Japanese olympic committee, in fact the Japanese public loved it.