In the men’s hockey match “South Korea vs. Bangladesh,” held ahead of the opening ceremony of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, an incident occurred in which North Korea’s national anthem was played instead of South Korea’s. At a press conference on the 23rd, the organizing committee explained that the anthem data for every participating country had been saved on the same device, and that the private contractor responsible for playback had sent out the wrong track — and apologized. With other troubles piling up, including major bus delays, criticism spread on 5ch over how the roughly ¥370 billion in total event operating costs was being spent, with comments like “they just keep blaming the contractor” and “isn’t the final check the organizing committee’s job?”
On the 23rd, the organizing committee addressed the string of troubles at the Asian Games, including the mixed-up national anthem and major bus delays.
On the 18th of this month, during the men’s hockey match “South Korea vs. Bangladesh” held ahead of the Asian Games opening ceremony, the staff member in charge mistakenly played North Korea’s anthem instead of South Korea’s.
At the press conference on the 23rd, Deputy Secretary-General Takaaki Osan of the organizing committee explained, “Because the anthem data for all participating countries was saved on the same device, the private contractor mistakenly sent out the wrong one,” and apologized.
More than the repeated blunders, what's really alarming is that TV stations aren't reporting on this.
5AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:17
Nothing but 'it was the private contractor's fault' excuses.
6AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:17
They're really insisting to the end that it's not their fault.
7AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:17
This is what ¥370 billion buys you.
9AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:17
Apparently this is the kind of international games where the signage is hand-written whiteboards done by Timee gig workers. (Timee is a Japanese app for same-day temp/gig work)
11AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:18
What a ridiculous excuse — storing them all together on one device is completely normal.
13AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:20
Why doesn't the person in charge just double-check it?
14AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:20
With so many middlemen skimming their cut, even the part-timers they end up hiring are trash.
15AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:21
It's the organizing committee's responsibility. They're the ones who have to oversee everything. This happened because they left it all to others and didn't rehearse enough.
17AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:21
Shoddy meals and event management spark controversy… Japan's Asian Games organizing committee blames 'certain delegations' instead of itself
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/23aeec70e873d26a976251bececf84e48101ff99
If they keep blaming everyone else, they're going to lose everything.
20AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:22
Doing the final check on that is literally your job.
21AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:22
Blaming everyone else, as always.
Even if you outsource the work, responsibility obviously still falls on the organizers.
23AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:22
Mixing up national anthems at an international event is a basic yet serious mistake. And mixing up South Korea and North Korea of all things is something you absolutely cannot do lol
24AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:24
So they outsource everything, do nothing themselves, but still plan to pocket the biggest paycheck?
25AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:24
Organizing committee: 'We outsourced it all, so obviously it's not our responsibility, idiot!!!'
26AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:25
The fact that you're announcing 'preventive measures' proves it's your responsibility. These guys really aren't taking this seriously.
28AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:29
For people in Nagoya, being 'the one in charge' probably feels like being a feudal lord — all title, no accountability.
35AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:34
Re: #28
Doing sloppy work and then talking loud to act superior — that's just the local mentality.
29AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:29
Thought we'd seen it all after the Tokyo Olympics, but apparently 'decline porn' still has this much room to grow. Can't wait to see what comes out tomorrow. ('decline porn' = slang for gloating over stories of Japan's perceived decline)
32AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:31
So which private contractor is this, exactly?
36AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:35
Re: #32
France and China. And on top of that, they've got Timee gig workers running the venues.
34AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:33
No, the point is that the committee itself never did the final check — that's the problem.
37AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:36
If they'd just organized the files by country name, they'd hardly ever mix it up. Of course you'll get it wrong if both anthems are just labeled 'Korean.'
38AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:37
Cheap out on the budget, and you get temp staff to match.
39AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:37
Whatever the blunder, final responsibility lies with the organizing committee.
40AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:37
This is Japan for you.
43AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:38
This is Japan too.
44AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:39
And of course, this is Japan as well.
46AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:43
Same old 'my subordinate did it' routine. Taking responsibility is literally the job of the person in charge. Pathetic.
47AnonymousSep 23, 2026 19:44
Doesn't this organization blame 'the private contractor' for absolutely everything? For a public project, 'the subcontractor did it' isn't an excuse. Isn't managing things properly supposed to be your job?
65AnonymousSep 23, 2026 20:17
Truth is, even those of us complaining probably couldn't tell South Korea's anthem from North Korea's lol
70AnonymousSep 23, 2026 20:22
Re: #65
It's probably about as easy to tell apart as Tochigi and Gunma prefectures are to someone from Kansai.
73AnonymousSep 23, 2026 20:25
Re: #65
I think the only people who can actually tell the difference are Osakans.
66AnonymousSep 23, 2026 20:18
Basically, they had every participating country's anthem saved on one device, and they just clicked the wrong track lol
68AnonymousSep 23, 2026 20:20
Re: #66
I don't think saving them all on one device is a problem in itself — they just needed a double-check at the moment of clicking play.
74AnonymousSep 23, 2026 20:29
On the bus thing, I'd say it's half the organizing committee's fault and half the athletes' — the athletes cause delays too, and that creates a chain reaction down the line.
84AnonymousSep 23, 2026 20:55
Re: #74
The athletes aren't at fault — the bus itself was 1 hour 15 minutes late.
Background and Key Points of This Story
The anthem mix-up at the hockey venue is said to have happened because the audio for every participating country was stored together on a single device, with a staff member manually selecting and playing each track. Outsourcing the sound and event operations of an international competition to a local private contractor isn’t unusual in itself — the real question is whether this was simply the contractor’s operational error, or a failure of the organizing committee’s oversight in not running a final check. On the thread, the dominant view was that “even if you outsource the work, ultimate responsibility still lies with the organizers,” and there was strong pushback against the organizing committee repeatedly pointing to “the private contractor” in its explanation. At the same press conference, alongside the anthem issue, officials also addressed the major bus delays, suggesting that delays in delegations’ arrivals had a knock-on effect on the whole schedule. Since the event’s total budget is said to run to roughly ¥370 billion, it’s easy for people to link that price tag to dissatisfaction with how the event is being run — though it’s worth being careful not to judge the quality of the operation on the cost alone.
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